Dustin Lee Hoffman was born on August 8, 1937, to Lillian (Gold) and Harry Hoffman, who worked for Columbia Pictures as a furniture salesman and prop supervisor. He grew up in a Jewish family (from Ukraine, Russia-Poland, and Romania). Hoffman attended Santa Monica City College after graduating from Los Angeles High School in 1955 but dropped out after a year owing to poor grades. But first, he joined an acting class because “nobody flunks acting,” he was informed. Los Angeles Conservatory of Music provided more training. He chose acting since he did not want to work or serve in the military and received two years of training at The Pasadena Playhouse. We’ll help you celebrate his special day right here.
Dustin Lee Hoffman was born in Los Angeles on August 8, 1937, to Lillian and Harvey Hoffman, a set and furniture designer. He studied music at the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music and Arts before enrolling at Santa Monica City College in 1955 to pursue a career as a jazz pianist. However, he quickly found himself moving careers to drama, though not because he liked it.
While he only stayed for a year before dropping out, he had caught the acting bug and had his Broadway stage debut as well as his first television appearance in an episode of the series “Naked City” in 1961. He spent the next few years on and off-Broadway in New York, as well as performing some T.V. work until he made his feature acting debut in “The Tiger Makes Out” in 1967. Dustin became an instant legend thanks to his part in “The Graduate,” which permanently changed the notion of a Hollywood leading man. In addition to his $17,000 compensation, he received his first Oscar nomination, a remarkable achievement for a man who previously refused to even audition for a leading role.
Dustin refused to succumb to the pressures of being a handsome boy and went on to give some of the most lauded performances in film history. In 1969, he received his second Best Actor nomination for his part in the Sixties hustler classic, “Midnight Cowboy.” During the 1970s, he was nominated twice for Best Actor, once for 1974’s “Lenny” and once for 1979’s “Kramer Vs Kramer.” He was nominated for “Tootsie” again in 1982, during which he spent the majority of his time costumed as a woman. Dustin delivered a new project every year in the second half of the 1980s, including his self-produced T.V. adaptation of “Death Of A Salesman” in 1985, which earned him an acting Emmy, and the 1987 flop “Ishtar,” co-starring Warren Beatty. He rebounded the next year, earning his second Best Actor Academy Award for “Rain Man” in 1988. He featured opposite pal Warren Beatty in “Dick Tracy” at the start of the 1990s, and since then has played everything from an Army Colonel fighting a virus in “Outbreak” to The Conscience in “Joan Of Arc.” For the sixth time, he was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on “Wag The Dog” in 1997.
