Date of Birth: August 8, 1937
Place of Birth:Los Angeles, Calif., USA
Sign:Sun in Leo, Moon in Virgo
Relations:Father: Harry (furniture salesman); mother: Lillian (amateur actress); brother: Ronald (attorney); ex-wife: Anne Byrne (ballerina, actress); wife: Lisa Gottsegen (lawyer); kids: Karina (Byrne's daughter from a previous marriage), Jenna (with Byrne), Jacob, Rebecca, Max, Alexandra.
Education:Attended Santa Monica City College, Pasadena Playhouse, Actor's Studio, Los Angeles Conservatory of Music
SIMPLY PUT, DUSTIN Hoffman is one of the top five actors of this generation. He is blessed with exquisite talents that ignite the screen even when the story involved doesn't necessarily deserve their presence.
Hoffman began his groundbreaking career by chance, when he took on a role for The Graduate from another great actor, Robert Redford. Hollywood lore has it that not only was the deck stacked against Hoffman because of his size and looks, but also he had one of the more horrendous auditions in theatrical history (as with any urban legend, the audition gets worse with the telling). Despite the odds, director Mike Nichols cast the 30-year-old Hoffman as college student Benjamin Braddock, and immediately, the movie going public knew a new star had arrived.
Born in Los Angeles in 1937, Hoffman grew up in the business. His father, a Russian Jew who had fled persecution, was a set dresser and prop supervisor at Columbia Pictures; his mother was an actress who gave up her on-screen career to raise children. When he decided to pursue acting, he moved to New York and struck up friendships with two other aspiring actors, Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall. Hoffman worked steadily in theatre before getting a couple of small (and kind of cheesy) film and TV roles. Then came The Graduate.
He hasn’t looked back since.
Dustin Hoffman has racked up seven Oscar nominations and four Academy Awards. He is one of the most widely-respected talents whose contributions to American cinema have been time capsules in and of themselves. The Graduate was groundbreaking with regard to sex. Kramer vs. Kramer was the first mainstream film that addressed the issue of – gasp – divorce. Tootsie… well, it was very, very funny. And although nobody could have known how eerily prescient 1997's Wag the Dog would be, that film, too, now stands as a time stamp of the Clinton administration.
As with almost any actor, Hoffman has made some – okay, several – dogs. One word: Ishtar. Two more words: Outbreak and Sphere. The great movies, however, outnumber the bad ones.
Movies:
1999 Cosm
1999 The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc
1998 Sphere
1997 Wag the Dog
1997 Mad City
1996 Sleepers
1996 American Buffalo
1995 Outbreak
1992 Hero
1991 Hook
1991 Billy Bathgate
1990 Dick Tracy
1989 Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt (voice)
1989 Family Business
1988 Rain Man
1987 Ishtar
1982 Tootsie
1979 Agatha
1979 Kramer vs. Kramer
1978 Straight Time
1976 All the President's Men
1976 Marathon Man
1974 Lenny
1973 Papillon
1972 Alfredo, Alfredo
1971 The Point
1971 Straw Dogs
1971 Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?
1970 Little Big Man
1969 John and Mary
1969 Midnight Cowboy
1968 El Millَn de Madigan
1967 The Graduate
1967 The Tiger Makes Out
TV:
1999 A Salute to Dustin Hoffman
1998 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies
1991 A Wish for Wings That Work
1985 Death of a Salesman
1967 The Star Wagon
1966 The Journey of the Fifth Horse
1950 The Joe Franklin Show
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
