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Dustin Hoffman. Actor. Born on Aug. 8, 1937, in Los Angeles. Antiheroic, unlikely superstar of Hollywood films of the late 60s and forward. The son of a furniture designer, he dropped out of Santa Monica City College 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 attendant in a hospital mental ward and in other menial jobs, such as washing dishes, checking coats, waiting tables, cleaning a dance studio, and selling toys at Macy's. He once slept on fellow actor Gene Hackman's floor while looking for work. Eventually, he began getting occasional small roles on TV and in summer stock, making his stage debut in 1960 in "Yes Is for a Very Young Man," 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 the British farce, "Eh?" Director Mike Nichols, who saw the play, insisted that the then-little-known Hoffman play the lead role in his upcoming film The Graduate (1967).

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 US 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 adolescence 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 an Academy Award winner for his roles as a single dad in Kramer Vs. Kramer (1979) and for his portrayal of a naïve idiot savant in Rain Man, (1989), and was nominated for Academy Awards for his performances in The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, and Lenny.



Anne Bancroft. Actress. Born Anna Maria Louise Italiano, on Sept. 17, 1931, in the Bronx, N.Y. Died of cancer on June 6, 2005, at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. ed. AADA; Actors Studio. Actress and dancer, beginning at age four, she started her professional career on TV in 1950, using the name Anne Marno, and made her motion picture debut in Don't Bother to Knock (1952). Hollywood kept her busy in a succession of B films until she returned to New York and appeared in "Two for the Seesaw" (1958) opposite Henry Fonda, for which she received a Tony. The following year, she won the New York Drama Critics Award as well as another Tony for her performance in The Miracle Worker. She repeated her Miracle Worker performance with resounding success in the film version, winning the 1962 Academy Award for best actress. She played memorable roles in the British film The Pumpkin Eater (1964) and also in The Graduate (1967) and The Turning Point (1977). Married to comedy director, writer, and producer Mel Brooks for 41 years.



Katharine Ross. Actress. Born on Jan. 29, 1942, in Los Angeles. ed. Santa Rosa College. One of Hollywood's brightest new faces of the 60s, she had gained acting experience with the San Francisco Workshop and on various television shows before making her motion picture debut in 1965. She was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in The Graduate (1967). Her career declined in the early 70s but revived later in the decade.




Buck Henry. Screenwriter, actor. Born Buck Henry Zuckerman, in 1930, in New York City. Died of a heart attack on January 8, 2020 at Cedars-Sinai Health Center in Los Angeles. ed. Dartmouth. The son of former Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty Ruth Taylor, who starred in the silent 1928 version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and an Air Force general later turned prominent Wall Street stockbroker, he broke into show business at 16 as a minor member of the cast of the Broadway production "Life with Father." He spent his military service years during the Korean War touring Germany with the Seventh Army Repertory Company in a musical comedy that he wrote, directed, and starred in. When he returned to civilian life, he found acting and writing jobs elusive but gained some fame in the 50s as a hoaxer when, with a friend, he formed SINA, the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals, and appeared on TV talk shows to promote with a straight face his philosophical joke about the link between the nudity of animals and the moral decline of man. In 1960 he joined The Premise, the off-Broadway improvisational theater group, then moved to Hollywood, where he began writing comedy material for the TV shows of Steve Allen and Garry Moore and for the weekly satirical show "That Was the Week That Was." He hit the jackpot in 1964 as co-writer with Mel Brooks of the pilot for the highly successful "Get Smart" TV comedy series. That same year he collaborated on the script of, and acted in, the hilariously offbeat film The Troublemaker and three years later became one of Hollywood's most sought-after comedy screenwriters after collaborating on the script of the hit film The Graduate. He also appears in films as an actor, and in 1978 made his directorial debut, collaborating with Warren Beatty on Heaven Can Wait, for which both were nominated for an Oscar.



William Daniels. Actor. Born on Mar. 31, 1927, in Brooklyn, N.Y. ed. Northwestern. Character player of American stage, TV, and films. Skilled at caricaturizing "types," from henpecked husbands to phony politicians. Played John Adams in 1776 (1972), repeating his lead role on Broadway.



Mike Nichols. Director. Born Michael Igor Pechkowsky, on Nov. 6, 1931, in Berlin. Died of died of a heart attack on November 19, 2014, at his apartment in Manhattan. He arrived in the US with his family at age seven as an emigré from Nazi Germany. When he was 12 his doctor-father, a Russian-born Jew, died, leaving the family financially hard pressed. However, a bright student and aggressive, Nichols was able to continue his education thanks to a succession of scholarships and a variety of odd jobs. While at the University of Chicago, he made his living as a night janitor, post office clerk, hotel desk clerk, and delivery truck driver, among other things. It was at the university that he first felt the urge to perform. He went to New York and studied acting with Lee Strasberg but was unable to land any roles. Returning to Chicago, he joined with Elaine May, Alan Arkin, Barbara Harris, and Paul Sills to form an improvisational group that performed at the Compass, a restaurant-cabaret.

Nichols and May then took to the road and by 1957 were nationally acclaimed for the spontaneity and wit of their improvised social satire. They scored a tremendous success on Broadway in 1960 with "An Evening With Mike Nichols and Elaine May"; then broke up, in 1961 after the show closed. The following year Nichols played the lead in a May play that closed after several performances in Philadelphia. In 1963 he made his debut as a Broadway director, scoring a hit with "Barefoot in the Park." He was since known as a man with the Midas touch. Every play he subsequently directed ("Luv," "The Odd Couple," etc.) was a critical and popular smash.

Since the mid-60s, Nichols directed films with equal success, applying the same formula that characterized his work on stage -- crisp timing, an eye for detail, and a special knack for working with actors. He won the best director Academy Award for The Graduate. But despite four successive early hits he still seemed like a director in search of a personal style and a clear approach. Nichols died on Nov. 19, 2014, at the age of 83.

- Ephraim Katz, The Film Encyclopedia, Perigee, 1979.


The Graduate fun fact #1:

Doris Day, the wholesome actress whose movie career was on a down slide by the late Sixties, was approached to play the role of Mrs. Robinson. She turned the part down because she thought that, according to one close associate, the movie was "trashy."

The Graduate fun fact #2:

The stocking-clad legs you see in the foreground on the movie poster for The Graduate don't belong to Anne Bancroft. They're actually those of a 26-year-old Linda Gray, who a decade later portrayed Sue Ellen Ewing in the popular TV series Dallas. The famous composition was created by storyboard artist Harold Michelson, who with his wife Lillian created iconic images not only for The Graduate but other films including The Ten Commandments, West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, The Birds, Spartacus, Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider.

The Graduate fun fact #3:

The Graduate's producers originally offered Dustin Hoffman the leading male role in the picture only if he would sign a major contract for a six-picture deal with them. He refused to make such a commitment, but they wanted him so badly they eventually offered him the role anyway. He was paid $20,000 for his work in the film and was in New York City drawing unemployment as the movie became a huge hit and made him one of the hottest actors of the late Sixties.

The Graduate fun fact #4:

When taking the screen test for The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman said, "I don't think I'm right for the role. He's a kind of Anglo-Saxon, tall, slender, good-looking chap. I'm short and Jewish." During the screen test he forgot his lines and was nervous and clumsy.

The Graduate fun fact #5:

The Graduate was made by Joseph E. Levine's upstart studio Embassy Pictures, outside the realm of the largest movie studios. With a box-office gross of $104,397,102, The Graduate was ranked as the fifth most popular independent film of all-time by People magazine in 1996.

The Graduate fun fact #6:

Although The Graduate is considered Dustin Hoffman's signature role, he won Oscars for Best Actor for his roles in Kramer Vs. Kramer in 1979 and Rain Man in 1989. He also won an Emmy in 1986 for Best Actor in a Made-For-TV-Movie for Death of a Salesman. But Hoffman almost didn't get his career-making role in The Graduate. Director Mel Brooks had signed him for a role in his comedy Springtime for Hitler, and Hoffman had to ask Brooks for permission to audition for Mike Nichols' new movie. Brooks gave him permission to try out for the role, partly because his wife Anne Bancroft (who had already signed on to be Mrs. Robinson) encouraged him to, and partly because he thought Hoffman "wasn't good looking enough for the role" and wouldn't get it anyway.

The Graduate fun fact #7:

According to Variety, The Graduate was the second biggest box-office draw of 1967, raking in some $44,090,729 that year in rentals by theaters from its studio, American General Cinema. As of July 1995, The Graduate was the fifteenth top-grossing movie of all time, with an adjusted gross of $356,832,711 at the box office.

The Graduate fun fact #8:

Although The Graduate lost out to In the Heat of the Night for Best Picture at the 1967 Academy Awards, Mike Nichols won the Oscar for Best Director that year for his breakthrough work on The Graduate. He also won the Director's Guild Award the same year. Also nominated for Oscars that year for their work in picture were Dustin Hoffman (Best Actor), Anne Bancroft (Best Actress), Katharine Ross (Best Supporting Actress), Calder Willingham and Buck Henry (Writing), and Robert Surtees (Cinematography).

The Graduate fun fact #9:

As of 1995, The Graduate male lead Dustin Hoffman is 27th most popular actor of all-time, based on a People magazine analysis of Quigley Publishing's Top Ten star list, which was began in 1933. He was chosen as the 9th Best Actor/Modern in in an online poll conducted by Entertainment Weekly magazine in 1999.

The Graduate fun fact #10:

A hit London stage production based on The Graduate began its run in April 2000. Actresses taking on the part of a nude Mrs. Robinson have included Kathleen Turner, Mick Jagger's ex-wife Jerry Hall, Amanda Donohoe, Anne Archer and Linda Gray.

The Graduate fun fact #11:

In Feb. 2004, Dustin Hoffman reprised Benjamin's famous dash to church to stop Elaine's wedding for a car commercial that aired in Europe only. The ad, filmed in La Verne, Calif., and directed by Michael Bay, was only the second commercial Hoffman had appeared in (his first was a VW Beetle ad in the 1960s before becoming famous). In the commercial, Hoffman again rescues the bride, but this time returns to a 2005 Audi.