Actor. Born on August 8, 1937, in Los Angeles. Antiheroic, unlikely superstar of Hollywood films. The son of a furniture designer, he dropped out of Santa Monica City College, where he studied music, intending to become a concert pianist, to attend the Pasadena Playhouse and began acting at 19. He went to New York, hoping for a career on the stage, but for several years struggled along as a janitor and an attendant in a hospital mental ward and in other menial jobs. On many nights his bed was Gene Hackman's kitchen floor. Eventually, he began getting occasional small roles on TV and in summer stock, but it wasn't until 1965 that he was able to crash even off-Broadway. He received his first big break the following year when he won the Obie Award as best off-Broadway actor of the year for his performance in "The Journey of the Fifth Horse". He received much critical praise later in 1966 for his performance in a British farce, "Eh?". Director Mike Nichols, who saw the play, insisted the then-little-known Hoffman play the lead role in his upcoming film The Graduate (1967). Few noticed that the 5'6" (and a half) actor who played the bewildered graduate, Benjamin, was actually 30 years old.
The great commercial success of The Graduate catapulted Hoffman into instant stardom. It wasn't Hoffman's first movie. Some months earlier he had appeared in a low-budget Spanish-Italian co-production, Madigan's Millions, but that film wasn't released in Europe or the U.S. until after The Graduate. He had also played a minor role in the New York-made The Tiger Makes Out. After appearing on Broadway in "Jimmy Shine", Hoffman returned to the screen in John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy (1969), giving a memorable performance as the pathetic Ratso Rizzo. He has since demonstrated a remarkable range of screen characterizations, drawing accolades for his effective performances in widely diverse roles. He played an Indian-adopted white man who ages on screen from adolescent to 121 in Little Big Man (1970), portrayed a doomed ugly little Frenchman on Devil's Island in Papillon (1973), impersonated tragic comedian Lenny Bruce in Lenny (1974), and was Washington Post Reporter, Carl Bernstein in All the President's Men (1976). He was nominated for Academy Awards for his performances in The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, and Lenny. He won his first long-deserved Oscar for his role as a beleaguered, custody-battling father in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) and a second for a stunning performance as an autistic brother to Tom Cruise in Rain Main (1988). In between, he received another nomination for the hilarious performance in drag in Tootsie (1982). Hoffman returned triumphantly to the stage in 1984, winning a Drama Desk Award for his portrayal of Willy Loman in a Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman". He won an Emmy for the TV replication of the play, which was screened in movie theaters abroad. He later played Shylock in the 1989 London and 1990 Broadway productions of Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice". Tenaciously devoted to his art, Hoffman has the reputation among producers as a difficult man to work with. But they all love his work, and the rewards it brings to everyone involved with his films.
