Dustin Hoffman Net Worth

Biography of Dustin Hoffman

“You don’t quite have a stage appearance,” this actor heard, receiving another refusal, but continued to go towards his dream. He was repeatedly called unpromising and advised to find another profession. The name of this actor is Dustin Hoffman, and today he has played more than 60 roles and each of them is the embodiment of the highest skill and unique talent.

early years

On August 8, 1939, the second child was born in the family of Lillian Gold and Harry Hoffman. The family lived in Los Angeles; Lillian was a pianist, and Harry first worked as a props at one of the Hollywood film studios, but then he became a furniture agent and succeeded a lot in this.

Both Lillian and Harry were descendants of Jewish immigrants, but considered themselves Americans. The boys heard Yiddish only from their grandmother, who spoke Yiddish to her mother when she wanted to say something that was not meant for children’s ears. The boys received neither religious nor traditional Jewish upbringing; their parents raised them as free citizens of America, who are free to make their own choice.

The youngest son was given the name Dustin, his older brother was the first student in the class and dreamed of becoming a politician. Both parents and brother laughed at Dustin, who dreamed of the scene. However, he studied poorly, was a shy little man and suffered from dyslexia.

In order for Dustin to realize that his external data was not suitable for the stage, his father enrolled him in a school for aspiring actors, where he was recognized by teachers as unpromising and was soon expelled.

The mother persuaded the saddened Dustin to take up music – also creativity! During the year, the guy regularly attended a music class, but could not stand it, dropped out and in 1959 went to New York.

Career. Start

How Dustin Hoffman made his way to fame in Hollywood is legendary. In New York, the young man managed to enter the acting class with Lee Strasberg – on the fourth attempt, and after completing his studies, he began to undergo numerous auditions and auditions at studios, but for several years he could not get a single role. In order to pay for the room, he worked as a waiter, and a typesetter in a printing house, and a demonstrator of goods in a department store, a cashier, a night bartender, and even an orderly in a lunatic asylum.

During the years spent in New York, Dustin was able to develop his own style: he began to wear leather jeans, grew his hair and bought a used motorcycle. In 1967, he managed to get a place in a small theater. The debut of the young actor took place in the production of The Journey of the Fifth Horse, and for this role he was awarded the Obie Award, which is played annually between actors of off-Broadway theaters. This was followed by the first role in the movie.

Director Michael Nichols was looking for a twenty-year-old athletic blonde to play Ben in his drama The Graduate. It was assumed that the main character, a young man named Ben, who had an affair with a lady much older than himself, would be played in the film by Robert Redford, who fit the type. But when he saw a short, almost thirty-year-old Dustin, Nichols realized that he had found his hero.

Eccentric and thin, with that rare charm that attracts the attention of women of any age, Dustin looked unusually sexy on the screen. The role of a mature lady who seduced the son of her friends Ben was played by Anne Bancroft, and the role of her daughter, with whom Ben fell in love, was played by Catherine Ross.

In the era of the beginning of the sexual revolution, the film “The Graduate” had the desired effect, and fame fell on Dustin Hoffman. For this role, the actor received the Golden Globe, the British BAFTA and was nominated for the main Academy Award.

Over the next few years, Hoffman took part in several films and each role led him to the top of the Hollywood Olympus.

In the heartfelt drama of 1969 John and Mary, the actor played in a duet with Mia Farrow, telling the audience an eternal story about how easy it is to overlook your fate.

In the social drama “Midnight Cowboy” Dustin reincarnated as a homeless slicker Rico suffering from tuberculosis. Deciding to become the manager of the naive cowboy Joe, played by Jon Voight, Rico incites him to provide sexual services for money.

The theme of superfluous people who found themselves at the very bottom of life, raised in the film, was highly appreciated by critics, and the audience was amazed by the reincarnation of Dustin, who realistically coughed and limped, portraying a cripple. For the role of Rico, Dustin was again nominated for an Oscar.

Dustin’s next success was his role in the dramatic western “Little Big Man” based on the novel by Thomas Berger, which tells about the relationship between whites and Indians, about the history of life and all the difficulties that Jack Crabbe had to overcome. The story is told from the perspective of the protagonist, a 120-year-old man, in whom Dustin had to reincarnate. The partners of the actor, who once again surprised the audience with his unique gift of reincarnation in this film, were Faye Dunaway, Richard Mulligan and the real Indian leader Dan George.

From 1971 to 1978, Dustin Hoffman, who had already earned a special place among movie stars not by his appearance, but by his skill, played in films, each of which entered the golden fund of cinema.

In the thriller Straw Dogs, the actor played the role of an intelligent mathematician who was forced to defend his life with a weapon in his hands. However, having killed one of the local hooligans, irritated by his girlfriend’s too short skirt, David can no longer stop and turns into a beast.

In the history of world cinema, 1973 is marked as the year of the release of the drama “Moth”. In this picture, celebrating the victory of the spirit over circumstances, Dustin Hoffman got the chance to play with the legendary Steve McQueen, for whom this role was one of the last.

In the biographical film “Lenny”, the actor recreated the image of the famous comedian, who brought the audience to hysterical laughter with his performances and died under unclear circumstances, Lenny Bruce. Working on the image of the cult artist of the 70s, Dustin achieved an incredible resemblance to his character.

In the political thriller All the President’s Men, based on the investigation of the Watergate scandal, which was followed by the resignation of President Nixon, Dustin played the role of journalist Carl Bernstein, and Robert Redford also starred in the film.

In 1979, the deep and poignant film “Kramer vs. Kramer”, in which the actor played in a duet with Meryl Streep, secured Dustin Hoffman’s fame as the best actor of the decade and brought him an Oscar and a Golden Globe for his performance as a father fighting for the right to raise his son. . Also in the film were Jane Alexander, George Coe and Justin Henry.

Best Roles

In the 1982 comedy Tootsie, Dustin played an unsuccessful actor who is forced to dress in a woman’s dress in order to get a role. The situation is complicated by the actor’s love for his partner, whose role was played by Jessica Lange. The award-winning comedy starred Teri Garr, Bill Murray and Geena Davis, who made her first screen appearance.

“I never thought that such an ugly woman would come out of me,” the actor joked after the premiere.

The role of Raymond in the 1989 drama Rain Man brought Dustin a second Oscar. Unsuccessful businessman Charlie, played by Tom Cruise, learned that his father had left an inheritance to autistic Raymond and kidnapped him from an asylum for the mentally ill. During the journey, Charlie learns the secrets of the past, which helps him get closer to his brother and help him begin to navigate the world. A subtle picture of self-knowledge and the greatness of the soul, which can do even the impossible, earned the status of a cult right after the release.

Among the roles played by the brilliant actor over the next few years, one of the most striking is the role of Colonel Daniels in the disaster thriller Epidemic, in which the actor starred in the company of Rene Russo and Kevin Spacey, as well as the role of Danny Snyder in the thriller Sleepers, which starred Brad Pitt, Kevin Bacon, Robert De Niro and Jason Patric.

In the melodrama Moonlight Mile, the actor played the father of a dead girl, who, together with his wife, adopted her fiancé into his family. Susan Sarandon played the role of the wife of Dustin Hoffman’s character in a tender story about mutual support and resistance to the blows of fate, and Jake Gyllenhaal played the role of the failed son-in-law.

The 2000s gave the world several comedic images, embodied by the actor in two parts of the film Meet the Fockers, in which Dustin joined the star team of Robert De Niro, Barbra Streisand, Ben Stiller and Blythe Danner, as well as in the comedy drama Heartbreakers , in which he starred with Isabelle Huppert and Jude Law.

In the macabre 2006 drama The Perfumer: The Story of a Murderer, the actor portrayed the Parisian perfumer Baldini, who received hundreds of formulas of exquisite fragrances from his strange servant. Briton Ben Whishaw shone in the role of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, and Alan Rickman also starred in the film.

The melodramatic picture “Harvey’s Last Chance”, released at the end of 2008, tells about the late love of a lonely composer. The role of Harvey’s lover was played by Emma Thompson.

From 2010 to 2016, the actor played in the films Barney’s Version, Chef on Wheels, The Shoemaker and Dope. In addition, Dustin gave his voice to Master Shifu in the Kung Fu Panda cartoon series and Roscuro the rat in Despero’s Adventure.

Dustin Hoffman’s personal life

From many biographical articles on the work and personal life of the famous actor, you can find out that before Dustin Hoffman became a movie star, he was not successful with girls. However, this is not so, and the actor himself says in an interview that as soon as he read a couple of lines from a poem and took the girl by the hand, she was immediately ready to marry him.

Confirming this, actors Robert Duvall and Gene Hackman, who were Dustin’s roommates, say that they were always surprised by the truly hypnotic effect that this short and unathletic guy had on women.

In the early years of his career, Dustin had relationships with singer Betty Kelly and with model and actress Vera von Lendorf, but both romances did not last long.

Dustin first married in 1969 to dancer Ann Bjorn, who already had a daughter from her first marriage. A year later, Ann gave birth to Jenna, who became the first child of the actor. The marriage lasted until 1980 and broke up due to the actor’s passion for another woman.

A week after his divorce from Ann, he married Lisa Gottsegen. Lisa is a lawyer and successful entrepreneur, the couple have been together since 1980. Dustin calls this marriage one of his main achievements. Lisa and Dustin have six children, of whom one daughter is adopted. Their marriage is considered one of the happiest Hollywood unions.

Dustin Hoffman now

In 2016, Dustin began working on a role in the Medici: Lords of Florence project, the first season of which was a success in America and Europe. The following year, the actor played the role of the artist Harold, who is the head of an extravagant Jewish family, in the drama The Story of the Myrowitz Family. The film also stars Adam Sandler, Emma Thompson, Ben Stiller and Sigourney Weaver.

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