Barry Pollack

BARRY POLLACK FILMMAKER, WRITER, PHYSICIAN Barry Pollack's life has been a merry-go-round where he continues to try to catch that brass ring that defines him as a writer. After graduating from Penn State, he went on to get a master's degree in film from Stanford University. Among his work there was a documentary called "Some of My Best Friends Are Bottomless Dancers." That lascivious title and a few film festival prizes led to Pollack being accepted as one of the first writing-directing fellows...See more

BARRY POLLACK FILMMAKER, WRITER, PHYSICIAN Barry Pollack's life has been a merry-go-round where he continues to try to catch that brass ring that defines him as a writer. After graduating from Penn State, he went on to get a master's degree in film from Stanford University. Among his work there was a documentary called "Some of My Best Friends Are Bottomless Dancers." That lascivious title and a few film festival prizes led to Pollack being accepted as one of the first writing-directing fellows at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. Pollack's opportunity to become a professional "paid" writer came after he spent a summer traveling with carnie folk, researching another documentary. That summer, he came to know nearly every "freak" in the United States - the fat lady, the pin cushion man, midgets and giants. As a result, he had the perfect back-ground for Roger Corman to hire him as the casting director for a movie called "Freaks." That picture was never made but after showing the Cormans some of his writing, Pollack was hired to write the remake of John Huston's "Asphalt Jungle" and turn it into a "black" film. That was how Barry Pollack became the white "black exploitation" writer-director of MGM's 1972 feature film "Cool Breeze." That picture did relatively well at the box office but his next endeavor, the film "This is a Hijack," he ignobly claims as being one the top ten worst pictures in the history of cinema. Pollack says, "As the clich� goes, I couldn't get arrested after that as a director." After mulling over his options in the film business, he made a drastic career change. He went to medical school and became a doctor, graduating from the University of Oklahoma Medical School in 1980. Pollack began writing again during his residency in emergency medicine at Los Angeles County USC Medical Center. Since then, he has written several prime time television dramas; magazine short stories; ten years of columns for the Scripps-Howard Ventura County STAR newspapers; and in December 2009 his debut novel, the science fiction thriller FORTY-EIGHT X: The Lemuria Project, was published by Medallion Press. SEEKING SINAI is Pollack's second novel, a fictional tale weaving Jewish philosophy, history, and Middle East intrigue. Barry Pollack's literary merry-go-round continues. See less