Dustin Hoffman

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.

Dustin Lee Hoffman was born on August 8, 1937, in Los Angeles, California, the younger of two sons of Harry Hoffman (1908–1987) and Lillian (née Gold; 1909–1982).

His father worked as a prop supervisor (set decorator) at Columbia Pictures before becoming a furniture salesman.

Hoffman was named after stage and silent screen actor Dustin Farnum.

He has an elder brother Ronald, who is a lawyer and economist.

Hoffman is Jewish, from an Ashkenazi Jewish family of immigrants from Kyiv, Ukraine (then a part of the Russian Empire), and Iași, Romania.

The family's surname was spelled Гойхман (Goikhman) in the Russian Empire.

His upbringing was nonreligious, and he has said, "I don't have any memory of celebrating holidays growing up that were Jewish", and that he had "realized" he was Jewish at around the age of 10.

Hoffman graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1955 and enrolled at Santa Monica College with the intention of studying medicine.

But he decided to become an actor, leaving the next year to join the Pasadena Playhouse, although when he told his family about his career goal, his Aunt Pearl warned him, "You can't be an actor. You are not good-looking enough."

He also studied with Lee Strasberg and has stated that he did not study with either Sanford Meisner or Stella Adler.

Hoffman initially hoped to become a classical pianist, having studied piano during much of his youth and in college.

While at Santa Monica College, he also took an acting class, which he assumed would be easy, and "caught the acting bug".

He recalls: "I just was not gifted in music. I did not have an ear."

Now an aspiring actor, he spent the next ten years doing odd jobs, being unemployed, and struggling to get any available acting roles, a lifestyle he was later to portray in the comedy film Tootsie.

Hoffman composed a song called "Shooting the Breeze", alongside Bette Midler who wrote the words.

His first acting role was at the Pasadena Playhouse, alongside future Academy Award–winner Gene Hackman.

After two years there, Hackman headed for New York City, with Hoffman soon following.

Hoffman, Hackman, and Robert Duvall lived together in the 1960s, whilst all three of them focused on finding acting jobs.

Hackman remembers, "The idea that any of us would do well in films simply didn't occur to us. We just wanted to work".

Hoffman's appearance—Duvall described him as Barbra Streisand in drag—and small size made him uncastable, Vanity Fair later wrote.

During this period, Hoffman got occasional television bit parts, including commercials but, needing income, he briefly left acting to teach.

He then studied at Actors Studio and became a dedicated method actor.

In 1960 Hoffman was cast in a role in an off-Broadway production and followed with a bit part in his Broadway debut in production, A Cook for Mr. General (1961).

Hoffman made his Broadway debut in the 1961 play A Cook for Mr. General.

In 1962, appeared in Rabbit Run Theatre's summer stock production of Write Me A Murder in Madison, Ohio and served as an assistant director to Ulu Grosbard on The Days and Nights of Beebee Fenstermaker at off-Broadway's Sheridan Square Playhouse.

His other Oscar-nominated roles are for The Graduate (1967), Midnight Cowboy (1969), Lenny (1975), Tootsie (1982), and Wag the Dog (1997).

He has received three Drama Desk Awards, for his performances in Eh? (1967), Jimmy Shine (1969), and Death of a Salesman (1984), respectively.

Other notable roles include in Little Big Man (1970), Papillon (1973), Marathon Man (1976), All the President's Men (1976), Ishtar (1987), Dick Tracy (1990), and Hook (1991).

He received two Academy Awards for Best Actor, for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) and Rain Man (1988).

He subsequently starred as Willy Loman in the 1984 revival of Death of a Salesman and reprised the role a year later in a television film, earning a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Actor in a Limited Series or Movie.

In 1989, he received a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play nomination for his role as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.

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".

Hoffman studied at the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music before he decided to go into acting, for which he trained at the Pasadena Playhouse.

In the 21st century, Hoffman has appeared in films such as Finding Neverland (2004), I Heart Huckabees (2004), and Stranger than Fiction (2006), as well as Meet the Fockers (2004) and the sequel Little Fockers (2010) and The Meyerowitz Stories (2017).

Hoffman has done voice work for The Tale of Despereaux (2008) and the Kung Fu Panda film series (2008–2024).

In 2012, he made his directorial debut with Quartet.