Dustin Hoffman

Hoffman married Anne Byrne in 1969, adopted her daughter Karina, and had a daughter, Jenna, with her. They divorced in 1980. He married attorney Lisa Gottsegen on October 12, 1980, and they have four children: Jacob, Rebecca, Maxwell, and Alexandra. His six children include actor Jake Hoffman.

Hoffman was raised in a Jewish family with Ukrainian, Russian, and Romanian heritage. He has said that he became more observant in adulthood. He was successfully treated for cancer in 2013.

Hoffman studied at the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music and initially considered a career in music. After attending Santa Monica College, he turned toward acting, trained at the Pasadena Playhouse, and later studied with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. His early stage work included A Cook for Mr. General, his Broadway debut in 1961, as well as several Off-Broadway productions.

His film debut came in The Tiger Makes Out in 1967. That same year, Mike Nichols cast him as Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate, a role that made him a star and earned him his first Academy Award nomination. The film's portrayal of youthful alienation helped establish Hoffman as a new kind of Hollywood leading man, one whose performances did not depend on conventional movie-star looks.

Hoffman followed The Graduate with a series of demanding roles that demonstrated his range. In Midnight Cowboy (1969), he played the sickly street hustler Ratso Rizzo opposite Jon Voight. He portrayed characters ranging from Jack Crabb, who ages from his teens to 121 in Little Big Man (1970), to a troubled mathematician in Straw Dogs (1971), comedian Lenny Bruce in Lenny (1974), and journalist Carl Bernstein in All the President's Men (1976), where he appeared alongside Robert Redford.

Hoffman won his first Academy Award for playing a divorced father in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979). He received another Best Actor Oscar for his performance as autistic savant Raymond Babbitt in Rain Man (1988), opposite Tom Cruise. Other major roles included Michael Dorsey and Dorothy Michaels in Tootsie (1982), Captain Hook in Hook (1991), and a Hollywood producer in Wag the Dog (1997), which brought him his seventh Academy Award nomination.

Hoffman returned repeatedly to the stage during his film career. He played Willy Loman in the 1984 Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and reprised the role in a television adaptation that earned him both an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award. He later played Shylock in Peter Hall's production of The Merchant of Venice in London and New York, receiving a Tony Award nomination for the role.

His film work also extended into comedy and animation. He appeared in Ishtar, I Heart Huckabees, Meet the Fockers, and Little Fockers, and won the 2005 MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic Performance for Meet the Fockers. He voiced Master Shifu in Kung Fu Panda, Kung Fu Panda 2, Kung Fu Panda 3, and Kung Fu Panda 4, as well as Roscuro in The Tale of Despereaux.

Hoffman made his film-directing debut with Quartet in 2012. The ensemble comedy, starring Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Pauline Collins, Billy Connolly, and Michael Gambon, centers on retired opera singers living in an English retirement home. That year, Hoffman was also named a Kennedy Center honoree.

His later acting included the HBO drama Luck, Last Chance Harvey, The Meyerowitz Stories, Sam & Kate, and Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis. He received an International Emmy Award for his performance in Roald Dahl's Esio Trot and was recognized with lifetime and career honors including the AFI Life Achievement Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, an Honorary César, and the Kennedy Center Honors.