Dustin Hoffman – Winner of two Academy Awards

Dustin Hoffman

Dustin Lee Hoffman
(8 August 1937, Los Angeles, CA, USA)
Nationality: United States of America
Category: Celebrities
Occupation:  Actors
Specification: Drama, Comedy
Unique distinction: The Winner of two Academy Awards: Best Actor in a Leading Role for Rain Man (1988), Oscar 1989 and Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), Oscar 1980.
First Major Film: The Graduate (1967).
Gender: Male

Quotes: 1. Life is an occasion…rise to it.
2. Stardom equals freedom. It’s the only equation that matters.
3. I lived below the official American poverty line until I was 31.
4. I’m sixty-eight, I cry every chance I can.
5. Myth is supposed to bring us together, but fantasy alienates us.
6. It’s very painful for us to feel we deserve life. That’s the toughest thing. That we deserve to have a life. That can take a lifetime.
7. That’s what we’re all looking for, the place where the work leads us.
8. You spend so much of your life basing yourself on what you think other people think of you. Then you realise that maybe one of the purposes of life is not to care.
9. I decided a long time ago but sometimes it takes you 40 years to get around to doing something – and that’s the truthful answer.
10. This is your life. Now go make it the one you’ve always wanted.
11. Now, I`m simply working with people I want to work with. I just want to have good working experiences and let the dice fall where they may.
12. I love acting, and I`m not going to determine what I do base on what I fear other people might think. I do what I want to do.

Achievements and contributions:


Social and professional position: Dustin Hoffman is an American actor, film director and producer.
The main contribution to (Best known for): Dustin Hoffman is an outstanding American actor, who has had a successful career in film, television, and theatre since 1960. He was known as a key figure in the “Hollywood Renaissance” of the 1960s.
Contributions: Dustin Hoffman is an American actor, film director and producer, who has had a successful career in film, television, and theatre since 1960. He was known as a key figure in the “Hollywood Renaissance” of the 1960s.
Honours and Awards:
Respected for his talent and versatility, Hoffman is the recipient of numerous accolades including:
2 Academy Awards (Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), and Rain Man (1988),
7 nominations;
6 Golden Globe Awards (1968, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1989, 1997),
14 nominations;
3 British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs -The British Academy of Film and Television Arts),
8 nominations
3 Drama Desk Awards,
2 Emmy Awards.
1nominations
“Golden Bear” at the Berlin Film Festival (1989).
In 1999, Hoffman was honoured by the American Film Institute.
In 2009, Hoffman received an Honorary Cesar Medal at the César Awards.
In 2012, he received the Kennedy Center Honors Award.
Major works: The Graduate (1967), Midnight Cowboy (1969), Little Big Man (1970), Lenny (1974), All the President’s Men (1976), Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), Tootsie (1982), Rain Man (1988), Hook (1991), Sleepers (1996), Wag the Dog (1997), Meet The Fockers (2004), Stranger Than Fiction (2006), Perfume: The Story of a Murderer ( 2006), Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium (2007, with Natalie Portman) and Last Chance Harvey (2008), The Stories of Meyerowitz (2017)

Career and personal life:


Origin: He was born in Los Angeles, California, the second and youngest son of Lillian (née Gold) and Harry Hoffman, a Russian-born father who worked as a prop supervisor and set decorator at Columbia Pictures before becoming a furniture salesman.
His mother was a former jazz pianist and set Dustin up with a piano and a teacher from the age of five. Hoffman is from a Jewish family, although he did not have a religious upbringing.
Education: He graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1955. He enrolled at Santa Monica College with the intention of studying medicine but left after a year to join the Pasadena Playhouse.
He studied acting at the Pasadena Playhouse for two years. He also received some training at the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music.
Career highlights: Hoffman began acting at the Pasadena Playhouse with Gene Hackman. Later they moved to New York City, where Dustin worked a series of odd jobs while getting the occasional bit television role.
Only in 1960, did he win a role in the off-Broadway production. Dustin Hoffman has been a celebrity since he was seduced by Anne Bancroft in The Graduate in 1967.
Since then Hoffman’s career has largely been focused on cinema with only sporadic returns to television and the stage.
Hoffman played “Ratso” Rizzo in John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy, which won an Academy Award for best picture of 1969. Thrice previously nominated for the Oscar, Hoffman finally won the best actor award for his sympathetic portrayal of a divorced single father in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) and earned another nomination for Tootsie (1982).
In director Barry Levinson’s Rain Man (1988), Hoffman starred as an autistic savant, opposite Tom Cruise. Levinson, Hoffman and Cruise worked for two years on the film, and his performance garnered Hoffman his second Academy Award.
In 2010, Hoffman has appeared in “ Little Fockers”. In 2012, he made his directorial debut with The Quartet, starring Maggie Smith and Tom Courtney. In 2014 he appeared in the American drama Boychoir and the comedy-drama film Chef.
In 2015, Hoffman starred in Roald Dahl’s Esio Trot, and he received an Emmy Award for Best Performance by an Actor.
In 2015 he also appears in The Program – a biographical drama film about Lance Armstrong.
In 2017, Hoffman starred in Noah Baumbach’s critically acclaimed family drama The Stories of Meyerowitz. alongside Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Elizabeth Marvel and Emma Thompson.
In 2019 he appeared in the Italian thriller film Into the Labyrinth directed by Donato Carrisi.

Personal life: 

He briefly shared an apartment with another unknown actor, Gene Hackman. After two years at the playhouse, Hackman headed for New York City, and Hoffman soon followed.
After meeting in 1963, Hoffman married Anne Byrne in May 1969
The couple divorced in 1980.
He married attorney and businesswoman Lisa Gottsegen in October 1980. They have four children: Jacob Edward (born March 20, 1981), Rebecca Lillian (b. March 17, 1983), Maxwell Geoffrey (born August 30, 1984), and Alexandra Lydia “Ali” (born October 27, 1987). Hoffman has two grandchildren.
Zest:
His parents named him Dustin after actor Dustin Farnum.  Famous for taking a wide range of difficult roles, such as a crippled street hustler in Midnight Cowboy (1969); an actor pretending to be a woman in Tootsie (1982) and an autistic in Rain Man (1988). He was known for unrelenting dedication to his craft but has a reputation for being difficult to work with.
He is known as a star with “a classic Hollywood ego”. Recently, he received the honour of Cesar for his whole career during the French Oscar ceremony at the hands of Emma Thompson.