Dustin Hoffman facts: legendary actor's age, films, career, family and more revealed

18 December 2023, 14:07

Dustin Hoffman is undoubtedly one of the most distinguished actors of all time.

Winning a multitude of awards across his seven-decade-spanning career in film, theatre and television, the actor is considered to be one of the best to ever grace the screen.

Coming to prominence during the New Hollywood era of cinema, Dustin Hoffman was known for portraying vulnerable, flawed male characters, many of whom were often anti-heroes.

Featuring in iconic movies such as The Graduate, Tootsie, Midnight Cowboy, All The President's Men, Hook, and Papillon, Hoffman has won two Academy Awards for Best Actor for his roles in Kramer vs. Kramer alongside Meryl Streep and Rain Man alongside Tom Cruise.

He's been nominated for a further five Oscar awards, also winning four BAFTA Awards, and five Golden Globes among numerous other accolades.

After making his Broadway debut in 1961, Hoffman has consistently performed on the stage from then onwards, receiving a Tony Award nomination in the process, as well as earning a Primetime Emmy Award for his reprisal of his role in Death Of A Salesman for television.

Fellow acting icon Robert De Niro praised Dustin Hoffman's impact on the profession, calling him "an actor with the everyman's face who embodied the heartbreakingly human".

How old is Dustin Hoffman, and where was he born?

Dustin Lee Hoffman was born on 8th August 1937 in Los Angeles, California. In 2023 he turned 86 years old.

He was the youngest of two sons of father Harry Hoffman - who was a set designer at Columbia Pictures and furniture salesman - and mother Lillian Hoffman.

Though Hoffman strongly identifies as Jewish nowadays, he was brought up to be nonreligious. He later revealed: "I don't have any memory of celebrating holidays growing up that were Jewish", and had only "realised" he was Jewish at around the age of ten.

How did Dustin Hoffman get his break in acting?

After graduating high school in 1955, Dustin Hoffman was meant to study medicine to become a doctor, though switch direction by wanting to become an actor.

He revealed that his Aunt Pearl at the time told him "You can't be an actor. You are not good-looking enough", a slight that would consistently be thrown at Hoffman throughout his career.

Hoffman joined the Pasadena Playhouse alongside actors Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall, who he'd also live with.

Studying to become a method actor, a series of bit parts wasn't enough to sustain his career, so he left briefly to begin teaching.

His stage breakthrough came in 1961 however, being cast in A Cook for Mr. General. As his career progressed, Dustin Hoffman was eventually cast as the lead role in Mike Nichols' classic 1967 film The Graduate, which launched his Hollywood stardom.

What films has Dustin Hoffman starred in?

Rain Man (1988) Original Trailer [HD]

- Kramer vs. Kramer

- Rain Man

- The Graduate

- Tootsie

- All The President's Men

- Lenny

- Midnight Cowboy

- Marathon Man

- Hook

- Straw Dogs

Who is Dustin Hoffman's wife and does he have children?

Dustin Hoffman is married to businesswoman Lisa Gottsegen, whose families knew each other when they were growing up.

They married in 1980 and share four children together, actor Jacob Hoffman (born 1981), Rebecca Lillian (1983), Maxwell Geoffrey (1984) and Alexandra Lydia (1987). They also have two grandchildren.

Hoffman was married before he met Gottsegen however - in 1969, he married actor Anna Byrne after the pair met in 1963.

They share a daughter, Jenna who was born in 1970, and Hoffman also adopted Byrne's child Karina from her previous relationship, though they eventually divorced in 1980.

Are there any other facts we should know about Dustin Hoffman?

Dustin Hoffman has supported and spoken out on issues such as environmentalism, human rights, and political activism throughout his career, and is a politically liberal.

He is trained as a classical pianist and loves playing the instrument in his spare time. Originally wanting to become a pianist as a career, he himself said he "caught the acting bug" admitting that "I just was not gifted in music, I did not have an ear."

Throughout his career, Hoffman was criticised for his looks. One critic in LIFE magazine wrote: "if Dustin Hoffman's face were his fortune, he'd be committed to a life of poverty", whilst his friend Robert Duvall joked that he looked like Barbra Streisand in drag.

Despite not being classically handsome and only 5'5 tall, Hoffman broke the mould for actors on screen, with leading actors no longer needing to be conventionally good looking to become successful after he paved the way.

After training as a method actor and enacting his methods during the film Marathon Man by staying up for 48 hours before shooting to embody his character's degradation, his co-star Laurence Olivier famously remarked to him: "Why not try acting dear boy?"