Barry Pollack

BARRY POLLACK

A BRIEF AUTOBIOGRAPHY

My greatest talent perhaps is reinventing myself or maybe I’ve just had good karma.

I grew up in Philadelphia when it was the center of break-out rock ‘n roll and the Northeast was a new suburb of middle class brick row houses. What I remember most about Philly was how I anxious I was to escape it. While most of my peers went to local colleges like Penn State or Temple, I was fortunate and received an appointment to the US Air Force Academy. I had dreams of becoming a "jet pilot," an adolescent fantasy perhaps, but nonetheless within reach. I could arch my shoulders, suck it in, and spit shine with the best of them. But still I was not very "military." It was the height of the Vietnam War. Like many young people at the time, I became disillusioned with that war; decidedly not a good mind set for someone setting out on a military career. As cadets, we were taught the standard answer to any “why” question was “no excuse, sir.” I never quite caught onto that. While I loved the Academy’s camaraderie, I had too many questions and too many excuses to be a good soldier. So, I resigned from the Academy and went off to Penn State. After graduation there, I decided on another career path. I would become a filmmaker.

In a master's program at Stanford University, I wrote and directed several short films. One of them, a quirky documentary about a choreographer of strippers led to a writing-directing fellowship at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. From there, other opportunities arose. In 1972, I was hired by producer Gene Corman to write and direct a remake of John Huston’s classic “Asphalt Jungle” and turn it into a “black” film. That’s how I became the young white “black exploitation” writer-director of the MGM film COOL BREEZE. That picture performed well, but my next film, THIS IS A HIJACK, I admit, was a dismal failure. As the cliché goes, I couldn’t get arrested after that.

I didn’t have the steadfastness at that time to stick it out in the “business.” So, I made a drastic career change. I went to medical school. In 1980, I graduated from University of Oklahoma Medical School and, after a residency at LA County USC Medical Center, I began working as an emergency physician. I still practice as an ER “doc” but I never gave up my love of films and filmmaking. In 2013, when my son, Mischa, decided to quit his job as an aeronautical engineer at a Silicon Valley start-up and return to Hollywood to pursue his dream of becoming a professional actor, I decided to jump back into the "film business" as well. In 2014, I produced, wrote, and directed my first feature film in decades — IT’S NOT A DATE, a dark comedy about a young girl’s worst date; starring Mischa Pollack, Eric Roberts, Nina Hartley, and Leah Huebner. In 2020, I wrote, co-directed and produced another feature — LIFE ON THE ROCKS, five interwoven stories whose characters meet at a local bar where they find love, misfortune and redemption; starring Mischa Pollack, Bonnie Bedelia, and Ray Wise.

I have also written episodic television, magazine articles, and ten years of newspaper columns for the Ventura County California STAR. I have four fiction novels available on Amazon: THE PATRIOT GENE, a scientific and adventure tale of a genetically engineered American soldier; SEEKING SINAI, historical fiction that imagines a different Exodus story, one from the Pharaoh’s point of view; LOVE THE WILD SWAN, the romantic adventure of a young woman, apprenticed to a renowned romance novelist, seeking her own literary success, deceitfully achieved after surviving betrayal on an Amazon jungle expedition; and THINGS THAT ARE OR COULD BE, a collection of short stories in the style of Issac Bashevis Singer. With having grandchildren, I have also written several children’s books.

My life has been a merry-go-round. There have been plenty of ups and downs. I've changed horses a lot. But, I'm enjoying the ride, still trying to catch that brass ring that defines me as a physician, a writer, a filmmaker and artist. You can read more about me and my work at “thebarrypollackdotcom.”