There was previously a distinction between character actors and lead actors. Dustin broke down this divide that existed. After Dustin, the character actor was also able to take the leading role.
Dustin Hoffman was born on August 8, 1937 in Los Angeles, California, USA. His mother, Lillian Gold, was a jazz pianist, and his father, Harry Hoffman, was a set decorator who worked for Columbia Pictures before becoming a furniture maker. Hoffman's brother, Ronald Hoffman, is a lawyer and economist.
Hoffman, who left his education at the age of 19, started acting with his friend Gene Hackman at the Pasadena Playhouse. After Hackman moved to New York, he invited Hoffman to join him and they started living together. After a while, Hoffman rented an apartment with Robert Duvall. To earn his living, he worked in restaurants and in the municipality's clerk's office.
Dustin Lee Hoffman (born August 8, 1937) is an American actor. As one of the key actors in the formation of New Hollywood, Hoffman is known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and emotionally vulnerable characters. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, four BAFTA Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, and two Primetime Emmy Awards. Hoffman has received numerous honors, including the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1997, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1999, and the Kennedy Center Honors Award in 2012. Actor Robert De Niro has described him as "an actor with the everyman's face who embodied the heartbreakingly human".
He met the audience in a play performed on Broadway in 1961. Hoffman, who also starred in the Volkswagen Fastback commercial, later enrolled in Actors Studio. Hoffman, who starred in TV shows and productions such as Naked City, The Defenders, and Hallmark Hall of Fame in the mid-60s, made his debut in the movie The Tiger Makes Out, starring Eli Wallach.
It was a great opportunity for Hoffman to star in the movie The Graduate, which was adapted from Charles Webb's novel of the same name and directed by Mike Nichols. First Warren Beatty and then Robert Redford were considered for the role of Benjamin Braddock in this movie. However, the role required incompetence and inexperience. These features were quite suitable for Hoffman, who had not yet proven himself as an actor.
The Graduate was very important for Hoffman's filmography. In addition to earning him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, it also earned Nichols the award for Best Director. Later, his previous production, Madigan's Millions, was released. The movie was a huge disappointment at the Box Office. Hoffman married Anne Byrne in 1969 and had two daughters, Karina and Jenna.
Hoffman, who received his second Oscar nomination for his role as Ratso Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy, which was adapted for the big screen from James Leo Herlihy's novel and played a con artist living on the streets, tried to prove that he was the right actor for the role by appearing before the producer as a beggar without his knowledge, to get his role in this film. got the job.
While shooting one of the scenes in the crowded streets of New York, Hoffman, who was in danger of being crushed with his co-star Jon Voight, jumped in the car with excitement and said, "Hey, I'm walkin' here!" I'm walking here!” he said, and this improvised line became one of the unforgettable moments in the history of cinema.
Hoffman, who became famous after this film, played a 121-year-old Native American in Little Big Man, a prisoner sentenced to life imprisonment in Papillon, a comedian in Lenny, which earned him his third Oscar nomination, and an important role in the Watergate scandal in All The President's Men. He played journalist Carl Bernstein.
Then, in 1976, he had the opportunity to work with the famous actor Sir Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man.
Hoffman, who won his first Oscar for his performance in Kramer vs. Kramer in 1979, caused those on the set to sweat and threw a crystal glass at Meryl Streep's head while she was improvising. In a later interview, the director of the film, Robert Benton, touched upon the difficulty of working with Dustin Hoffman and said, "No award you give me can give me back the four months I spent with Dustin Hoffman."
The actor, who divorced Anne Byrne in 1980, married Lisa Gottsegen the same year. From this marriage, they had 4 children named Jacob, Maxwell, Rebecca, and Alexandra.
Tootsie, in which he played an actor who disguised himself as a woman and starred in a soap opera because he could not find a job, was a successful production in Hoffman's filmography and was also remembered for an interesting event. Ironically, the actor sued Los Angeles magazine for $3 million in compensation for showing himself in women's clothes through a photomontage and ironically won the case.
He was nominated for Razzie awards in three categories for his acting in the movie Ishtar, directed by Elaine May, starring Warren Beatty.
In 1989, he won the Best Actor Oscar for the second time in Barry Levinson's movie Rain Man. Later, Levinson and Hoffman worked together on three more films. The most productive example of this collaboration, which was also noted by the production called Sleepers, was Wag the Dog, in which he shared the leading roles with Robert De Niro.
Dustin Hoffman, who was deemed worthy of the Berlin Film Festival Honorary Award in 1989, the Venice Film Festival Career Award in 1996, and the American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999, was most recently Mr. He appeared in the movie Magorium's Wonder Emporium.
Jewish origins
Dustin Hoffman, who gave an interview to the Forward newspaper, also gave interesting answers to questions about his Judaism. He explained that his father was an atheist and that he and his brother did not have a bar-mitzvah, but they were brit-mila when they were born.
“Did you live in a Jewish environment?” the question; “During my transition from childhood to adolescence, I was living in an environment that could be described as anti-Semitic. I was insulted several times as a 'dirty Jew' and was kicked from time to time. Concealing my Jewishness during my teenage years was exhausting enough. "If someone asked me about my religion, I would pretend not to understand and say, 'I am American,'" he replied.
“Is it true that you have recently turned to religion thanks to your wife?” Hoffman's answer to the question: “My first wife was Catholic. We got married in church, but a rabbi was also present at the wedding. My second wife, Lisa, and I have been married for 31 years. We have four children, two girls and two boys. Thanks to Lisa, my sons had a bar-mitzvah and my daughters had a bat-mitzvah. We celebrate Jewish holidays together. However, I do not have such memories from my childhood and youth."
“Do you know Hebrew and Yiddish?” Dustin Hoffman answered the question; “I can't read Hebrew. I know a little Yiddish, thanks to my grandmother. Since my grandmother lived with us, I saw her at home from the day I was born until I was 16. "My mother and grandmother spoke Yiddish when they wanted to talk about something confidential from us children," he said.