Whether “The Graduate”, “Tootsie” or “Rain Man”: Dustin Hoffman is one of the greatest actors in Hollywood. Now the two-time Oscar winner is celebrating his 85th birthday.
Dustin Hoffman at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival
Many aspiring actresses and actors head to Los Angeles hoping to pursue a career in film. Dustin Hoffman, who was born there on August 8, 1937, chose the other direction: he moved to New York at the age of 20 to try his luck there.
He shared an apartment with Robert Duvall and Gene Hackman, got by with odd jobs and tried to get a foothold on Broadway. He took acting classes in Lee Strasberg's famous “Actors' Studio” and became a firm believer in “method acting”, where you use a kind of mental training to evoke memories of feelings and make them visible and as an actor so complete in the role.
With the “maturity test” to become a superstar
Legendary liaison: Hoffman with Anne Bancroft as Mrs. Robinson in “The Graduate”
After making his big screen debut in 1967 in The Tiger Strikes Back, Hoffman made his breakthrough that same year. Director Mike Nichols cast him in the lead role in The Graduate. The film tells the story of a listless college graduate who allows himself to be seduced by an older woman. Hoffman is still amazed today that he got the part: “Typically, roles of this kind were reserved for the tall, handsome Protestant – and not for a small, funny-looking Jewish guy,” he said in 2016 from the British daily newspaper “The Guardian”. “The Graduate Examination”, equipped with a style-defining soundtrack by Simon and Garfunkel, was a surprise hit and has long been considered a classic.
Hoffman received an Oscar nomination – and had to get used to the new status as a superstar. He seriously considered doing only theater: “The truth is that (after “The Graduate”, editor's note) I got a lot of bad offers for roles,” as he revealed to the “Guardian”.< /p>
Two years later, a completely different character convinced him to try the film again: that of the sleazy petty crook Ratso Rizzo in John Schlesinger's “Asphalt Cowboy”. It became another cult film, and after only three roles, Hoffman was considered a versatile character actor. “Asphalt Cowboy” is the only film with no youth rating that has ever won the Oscar for Best Picture – only later was the rating lowered to 16 years. And Hoffman has been nominated for an Oscar for the second time.
-
The Graduate (1967)
Dustin Hoffman's feature film debut is The Tiger Strikes Back. His second film in the same year made him immortal: “The Graduate Examination.” The role of 21-year-old college grad Benjamin Braddock, who begins an affair with an older woman and then falls in love with her daughter, earned Hoffman his first Oscar nomination and made him a star.
-
Asphalt Cowboy (1969 )
After the “maturity examination”, Hoffman initially turns down numerous role offers and instead plays theater. To prove that he can not only embody sleek college boys, but also sleazy guys, he finally takes on the role of the petty crook “Ratso” in John Schlesinger's cult film “Asphalt Cowboy,” alongside Jon Voight (picture). Both are Oscar nominees.
-
Little Big Man (1970)
In Arthur Penn's western, Hoffman plays Jack Crabb, a fictional settler's son who grows up with Native Americans and is the last survivor of the Battle of Little Big Horn. The epic film critically and ironically questions the legendary pioneering days and is considered one of the most successful anti-Westerns in film history.
-
Who Sows Violence (1971)
In this thriller, Hoffman plays US mathematician David Sumner, who moves to an English village for a few weeks with his wife Amy (Susan George, picture). Soon they are being harassed by the residents. Because of the drastic depiction of violence, including a long rape scene, the film was controversial at the time of its release.
-
Lenny (1974)
Stand-up comedian Lenny Bruce was famous for his improvisations that combined his political commentary with profanity and taboo subjects – a scandal that landed him in prison. Dustin Hoffman's portrayal of the comedy icon has been hailed by critics as “one of his finest and most complex roles.”
-
The Untouchables (1976)
Alan Pakula's film is based on the memoirs by Washington Post editors Carl Bernstein (Hoffman) and Bob Woodward (Robert Redford). They uncover the “Watergate” affair involving US President Nixon, which ultimately leads to his resignation. The film commemorates this great moment of investigative journalism.
-
Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
The successful advertising salesman Ted Kramer (Hoffman, here with Justin Henry) is left by his wife. Because he has to take care of his son alone, he eventually loses his job. And then the mother (Meryl Streep) wants custody. The film offers no easy solutions and reflects the changing gender roles of its time. Hoffman gets his first Oscar for it.
-
Tootsie (1982)
In Sydney Pollack's comedy, Dustin Hoffman plays the talented but unsuccessful actor Michael Dorsey, who disguises himself as a woman and becomes an acclaimed TV star. The film pokes fun at sexism and the laws of show business. For the “American Film Institute” “Tootsie” is the second best comedy of all time – after Billy Wilder's “Some Like It Hot”.
-
Death of a Salesman (1985)
Having performed Arthur Miller's Willy Loman many times on Broadway, Hoffman also stars in Volker Schlöndorff's television adaptation of 'Death of a Salesman'. Schlöndorff sticks closely to the theatrical version; Hoffman wins an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his performance.
-
Rain Man (1988)
Hoffman is said to have spent a year preparing for the role of “Rain Man”: He plays the autistic Raymond, whom his brother Charlie (Tom Cruise, picture) after the death of the father on a trip through the USA. Hoffman once again impresses the critics with his sensitive acting and takes home his second Oscar. The film received a total of four of the coveted trophies.
Hook (1991)
Kids know Dustin Hoffman in the early '90s as Peter Pan's nemesis Captain Hook. Steven Spielberg's fantasy adventure film also has a top-class cast with Robin Williams as Peter Pan and Julia Roberts as Tinker Bell. However, it doesn't only get good reviews. After all: Hoffman is nominated for the Golden Globe.
Wag the Dog (1997)
The satire about a campaign team covering up the US President's affair with a minor by staging a fictional war comes to theaters a month before Clinton's Lewinsky scandal. Screenwriter David Mamet is assumed to have visionary abilities – or a good connection to insiders. Hoffman (shown here with Anne Heche and Robert De Niro) earns his seventh Oscar nomination.
-
As They Made Us (2022)
Dustin Hoffman's filmography now includes more than 60 roles – and he remains professionally active. In 2017 he played a neurotic artist in “The Meyerowitz Stories” who demands a lot from his blended family. Finally, in April of this year, the US family drama “As They Made Us” (picture) will be released in cinemas, in which Hoffman plays the wheelchair-bound Eugene.
Dustin Hoffman's meteoric rise
< p>Since then he has played roles in virtually every genre over the past five decades and has received numerous awards – including two Academy Awards for Best Actor for 'Kramer vs. Kramer' (1980) and 'Rain Man' (1989). And even though Hoffman's greatest successes were in the sixties, seventies and eighties, his 60+ filmography is also very extensive: Among them are film hits like Wolfgang Petersen's “Outbreak” (1995), Luc Besson's “Johanna von Orléans ” and “The Perfume” by Tom Tykwer (2006). In 2012, Hoffman tried his hand at directing for the first time: “Quartet” with Maggie Smith and Billy Connolly received good reviews. A cancer operation in the same year did not stop him from continuing to work as an actor.
Bitter fight for the child in “Kramer vs. Kramer”
Five years ago at the film festival presented his film “The Meyerowitz Stories” (directed by Noah Baumbach) in Cannes, in which he plays a sculptor who is largely overlooked by the art scene and who demands a lot from his blended family. Netflix released the film in 2017.
His latest flick, As They Made Us, hits theaters in April 2022 and features Dustin Hoffman in a wheelchair. For a long time, Hoffman also lent his voice to the “Kung Fu Panda” in the original version of the popular animated action comedy series. The screenwriters may have been inspired by their narrator's bio when they wrote the following lines into the script: “If you only do what you can, you will never be better than what you are.”
Hoffman's second marriage is to attorney Lisa Gottsegen and he has six children. In addition to two Oscars, he was honored with seven Oscar nominations and six Golden Globes, received a Berlinale Bear and the French César. Not a bad record for someone who, as he once said in the BBC interview, thinks his career was a “bizarre industrial accident”.
This article first appeared in 2017 and was updated to celebrate Dustin Hoffman's 85th birthday.
Adapted from English: Katharina Abel