Writes Dustin Hoffman, in "Dustin Hoffman: Duvall, Hackman and our wild 1960s in New York/In 1958, a terrified Hoffman arrived in Manhattan to try and make it as an actor. In an extract from his new memoir, he recounts a thrilling decade of odd jobs, partying with Robert Duvall and sleeping on Gene Hackman’s kitchen floor" (London Times).
१० नोव्हेंबर, २०२६
"I felt completely alienated from the other students and underappreciated in general."
"Recently I came upon a programme I saved for a 1956 run of Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt at the Playhouse’s West Balcony Theatre in Pasadena. I remember desperately wanting to play Peer Gynt, but I was cast in two small parts: 'slave' and 'ugly boy'.... Besides [me and Gene Hackman], the people at the Playhouse were all beautiful. These tall, perfect blond guys like Robert Redford, 'walking surfboards,' as the actor and screenwriter Buck Henry used to say, the kind of guys who’d get cast on Bonanza. They were always wearing fake guns in holsters in the hallway at school, and they would practise drawing their weapons. That was a leading man. We were character actors, and that was just fine with us. To be frank, we were snobs...."
पोस्ट्स
३८ टिप्पण्या:
Holy smokes that is a long title.
Ah. The title is Look at Me.
Robert Redford was not tall...well, maybe compared to Hoffman. I think he has confused Redford with Jon Voight.
Gene Hackman was cranky because Hoffman showed up at his door and would not leave. He was just hanging out with Hackman, like a puppy who needed a friend. Finally, Gene had to find an apartment for Hoffman to get him out of his house.
*like* Robert Redford
found my glasses
"Robert Redford was not tall...well, maybe compared to Hoffman..."
Redford was, according to the internet, 5 foot 10 and a half inches. I think he'd have been perceived as less handsome if he were any taller. Paul Newman was probably only 5 foot 8 inches, and he was perceived as even better looking than Redford. People value tallness in men when they think about it in the abstract, but I'm pretty sure that overall good looks are better served by average height, that is, 5'8" or 5'9". So 5'10" is all that's needed to read as tall, within the realm of the very handsome man.
General Counsel at every company I worked at were tall. I’m 6’1” and they all towered over me even the female General Counsel. I kind of relate to Hoffman’s comments even though I’m taller than those he envied.
Aw... how small is meade, lemme guess
Tall gangly men are perceived as less handsome, imho. Girth is a relevant factor.
Once a man gets too tall, the fine proportions that comprise male beauty start to slip a little, IMHO.
It's the same with athletes, once in a while you get a Randy Moss, but generally once they get too tall, the athleticism starts to fade.
Regarding male beauty, it's funny that some actors can be extremely good looking, and you still wouldn't mind playing golf with them, because they still manage to project a regular guy vibe, like Brad Pitt, and others, like Richard Gere, well, you wouldn't want him near your wife.
Somebody get Trump on the horn.
Dustin Hoffmann and "thrilling" don't really go together, but he's a nice actor. In "all the presidents men" they always have to hide the fact he's a shortie, by filming Redford and Hoffmann sitting down or filming them in close shot or at odd angles. Or walking up and down stairs - with hoffmann above Redford.
"Try and [verb]" is my grammatical pet peeve. You aren't "trying and," you are "trying TO" do something. I fear correcting this is a lost cause.
David Foster Wallace, in his essay about the porn industry, "Big Red Son," comments on the height of the elite male performers — they are 5'6" or 5'7" and the "industry standard" is 5'6" because it "helps the male organ look even more prodigious on videotape."
""Try and [verb]" is my grammatical pet peeve. You aren't "trying and," you are "trying TO" do something. I fear correcting this is a lost cause."
Maybe it's different in England. Once something is colloquial, maybe they don't go by whether it technically makes sense
Note "programme." I'm sure Hoffman didn't spell it that way in his memoir.
Gene hackman could've been easily cast in westerns, if he'd wanted. Hoffmann was a perfect fit for all the cop/dectective/NYC based shows in the early 60s.
As for Hoffmann being a character actor, that's what he really is. He was given quite a few leading man parts, but was never convincing in them. Or the parts could've been given to other actors more established and better looking. I'm thinking mostly of the 70s and 80s.
Of course, the worst example of character actor as leading man is Richard Dreyfuss. Its a good think Speilberg stumbled upon Tom Hanks and Harrison Ford or we would've ended up with Richard Dreyfuss as Indiana Jones and God k nows what else.
I'm not sure that many here can relate to Hoffmann, given that everyone one on the intertubes says they're at least 6 feet and can bench press 300 lbs.
Hackman is the bad guy in Unforgiven
That movie is Dirty Harry vs Popeye Doyle
You think you're bad cop? I bad cop your bad cop.
"... Gene Hackman kick your ass!"
Fletch, in Fletch Lives 1989
Grok says...
"It’s a timely, deliberate reference to Gene Hackman’s role in Mississippi Burning (1988)"
DS9 with 2 exceptions had a tall cast. Terry Ferrell was 6 feet, and looked up to co-stars Avery Brooks and Michael Dorn. Nana Visitor was 5-7. "Jake" who started as Brooks' small son ended up 7 years at the end of the show towering over him at 6-5. Every other male actor was around 6 feet.
The only exceptions were Quark - 5-6 and Nog who was 5 feet.
If, for example, you become proficient in the French they teach you at school, well you may well be flummoxed by spoken French, because you only learned to speak written French out loud. English is the same, but not quite as bad, since we don’t have an “Academy” prying the two further apart. But yeah,,”try and” in written material is grating.
I think Brando was 5-10, as was Laurance Olivier. In old Hollywood heights were all over the map. WB was the short man's shop with Bogart at 5-8 towering over everyone else. Most leading men, Wayne, Stewart, Fonda, Grant, Cooper, etc. were well over 6 ft tall. In his movies Gable, spenser Tracy at 5-10 was sometimes called "shortie".
My favorite scene from Unforgiven is when Hackman beats the crap out of English Bob for insulting America on the Fourth of July.
Duvall's father was an admiral. Duvall believed that his mother's family was related to Robert E. Lee because she was from the South and her name was Lee. He wasn't a direct descendant. Robert Duvall's paternal grandfather had a striking name for a Virginian: Abraham Lincoln Duvall. The Duvall family, though, went back to prominent early settlers of Maryland. Other Duvall descendants include Dick Cheney, Barack Obama, Harry S. Truman, Warren Buffett, and Wallis Simpson.
Actors have to be short for the kissing scenes. Richard Kiel, "Jaws" in the James Bond films, was 7'1", but he never had to kiss anyone.
I was in college before I learned that "could of" wasn't grammatical English. I may start using it again just to pìss grammar purists off.
Lazarus, of no importance to anyone, but for your personal amusement: In the 1990s, the man who ran the Baltimore mulch center, where all the city landscaping waste and leaves were ground up and composted, looked and sounded exactly like Robert Duvall. Now I know thanks to you he was probably a relative! I met him one summer when I shared a six pack of ice cold Coca-Cola with him, resulting in free access to unlimited amounts of self-hauled City compost, made of clean leaves and the second best garden soil I have ever seen. With such small bribery was how Baltimore City officials did their best work. We used the compost for a neighborhood flower garden that is still going strong on Gilman Terrace, across the creek gully from the John Hopkins campus. FYI, the very best garden soil I've ever lucked into was a backyard where a decade of rabbit hutches, removed just before we moved in, produced 8 foot tall delphiniums. I still hate Baltimore utterly, but this Robert Duvall lookalike and his compost was one of the few positives I recall about that wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Poor Dustin... poor poor Dustin... buck up... get over it.
Can you imagine being a struggling young actor in Nee York in the late 1950s competing against the likes of Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman, and Robert Duvall for roles? I understand that Hoffman, Hackman, snd Duvall were close friends and regularly shared apartments.
Dustin Hoffman: 5’5
Pacino: 5’6
Duvall: 5’9
Newman: 5’9.5
Redford: 5’10.5
Hackman: 6’2
Hackman, Hoffman, Duvall, fine actors all. I particularly enjoyed Duvall in the Godfather movies and Lonesome Dove, especially the scene where he demands respect from the surly bartender.
I did a rigging gig once at the Pasadena Playhouse back in the 90s. It's a beautiful old theater and a college friend of mine was on the staff there. At the time, they still had their decommissioned, lighting controller backstage. That thing was a monster from the 1920s. It was about 7' tall and 15' wide and was all metal, with giant levers and indicator bezels along the front of it. My friend did give me a quick tour and showed me the little ,West Balcony, black box theater that they had upstairs. They call them "black boxes" because they're just empty rooms with black walls, black floors and a black ceiling. The "stage" it the area in the middle of the room and it's usually set up as "theater in the round" or a thrust stage. As an actor, working in a black box is the most vulnerable that you can get. The audience is so close and they're seated all around you.
The Belts say 'different to' rather than 'different from.' I think it is considered grammatically correct: MPs say it all the time. CC, JSM
Terry Farrell is 6 feet tall? Computer, store that in the spank bank. CC, JSM
Without the Trill symbiont, though. I don't want Curzon Dax straddling me. She can be her character from Becker. CC, JSM
I wouldn't worry about your porno fantasies. Farrell is 62 and could still beat you to a pulp. Assuming you decided to touch you any way.
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