Andy Griffith Life And Career

From Wikipedia 2014



Andy Griffith is one of my most favorite actors and personalities, for his skill, versatility and mainly good character. It is my understanding that he went through a period when he drank heavily, but he stopped and lived a sober life in his later years. Other than that I know nothing against that could constitute a scandal. My grandmother from Troy, NC personally knew his first wife who was also from Troy. Griffith was an active supporter of the Democratic Party and was even asked to run against the ultraconservative Jesse Helms. He refused the nomination, however. He died on July 3, 2012, which saddened me considerably. He deserves the honors he has received.



Andy Griffith
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Andy Samuel Griffith (June 1, 1926 – July 3, 2012) was an American actor, television producer, Grammy Award-winning Southern-gospelsinger, and writer.[2] He was a Tony Award nominee for two roles, and gained prominence in the starring role in director Elia Kazan's film A Face in the Crowd (1957) before he became better known for his television roles, playing the lead character in the 1960–1968 situation comedy The Andy Griffith Show and in the 1986–1995 legal dramaMatlock.

Early life and education[edit]

Griffith was born in Mount Airy, North Carolina, the only child of Carl Lee Griffith and his wife, Geneva (Nunn).[3] Griffith was born the same day (June 1, 1926) as motion picture iconMarilyn Monroe. As a baby, Griffith lived with relatives until his parents could afford to buy a home. With neither a crib nor a bed, he slept in dresser drawers for several months. In 1929, when Griffith was three, his father began working as a carpenter and purchased a home in Mount Airy's "blue-collar" south side.

Griffith grew up listening to music. By the time he entered school, he was well aware that he was from what many considered the "wrong side of the tracks". He was a shy student, but once he found a way to make his peers laugh, he began to come out of his shell and come into his own.

As a student at Mount Airy High School, Griffith cultivated an interest in the arts, and he participated in the school'sdrama program. A growing love of music, particularly swing, would change his life. Griffith was raised Baptist[4] and looked up to Ed Mickey, a minister at Grace Moravian Church, who led the brass band and taught him to sing and play the trombone. Mickey nurtured Griffith's talent throughout high school until graduation in 1944. Griffith was delighted when he was offered a role in The Lost Colony by Paul Green, a play about Roanoke Island still performed today. He performed as a cast member of the play for several years, playing a variety of roles, until he finally landed the role ofSir Walter Raleigh, the namesake of North Carolina's capital.

He attended the University of North Carolina (UNC) in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and graduated with a bachelor of music degree in 1949. He began college studying to be a Moravian preacher, but he changed his major to music and became a part of the school's Carolina Playmakers. At UNC, he was president of the UNC chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, America's oldest fraternity for men in music.[5] He also played roles in several student operettas, includingThe Chimes of Normandy (1946), and Gilbert and Sullivan's The Gondoliers (1945), The Mikado (1948) and H.M.S. Pinafore (1949).[6]

After graduation, he taught music and drama for a few years at Goldsboro High School in Goldsboro,[7] North Carolina, where he taught, among others, Carl Kasell.[8] He also began to write.

Career[edit]

From rising comedian to film star[edit]

Griffith's early career was as a monologist, delivering long stories such as What it Was, Was Football, which is told from the point of view of a rural backwoodsman trying to figure out what was going on in a football game.[9] The monologue was released as a single in 1953 on the Colonial Records label, and was a hit for Griffith, reaching number nine on the charts in 1954.[10]

Griffith starred in Ira Levin's one-hour teleplay version of No Time for Sergeants (March 1955) — a story about a country boy in the United States Air Force — on The United States Steel Hour, a television anthology series. He expanded that role in Ira Levin's full-length theatrical version of the same name (October 1955) on Broadway in New York City.[11] The role earned him a "Distinguished Supporting or Featured Dramatic Actor" nomination at the 1956 Tony Awards, losing to Ed Begley. He did win the 1956 Theatre World Award, however, a prize given for debut roles on Broadway. "Mr. Griffith does not have to condescend to Will Stockdale" (his role in the play), wrote Brooks Atkinsonin The New York Times. "All he has to do is walk on the stage and look the audience straight in the face. If the armed forces cannot cope with Will Stockdale, neither can the audience resist Andy Griffith."[12]

Griffith later reprised his role for the film version (1958) of No Time for Sergeants; the film also featured Don Knotts, as a corporal in charge of manual-dexterity tests, marking the beginning of a lifelong association between Griffith and Knotts. No Time for Sergeants is considered the direct inspiration for the later television situation comedy Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.[13]

His only other New York stage appearance was the titular role in the 1957 musical, Destry Rides Again, co-starring Dolores Gray. The show, with a score by Harold Rome, ran for 472 performances and more than a year. Griffith was nominated for "Distinguished Musical Actor" at the 1960 Tony Awards, losing to Jackie Gleason.

He also portrayed a US Coast Guard sailor in the feature film Onionhead (1958); it was neither a critical nor a commercial success.

Dramatic role in A Face in the Crowd (1957)

In 1957, Griffith made his film début, starring in the film A Face in the Crowd.Although he plays a "country boy," this country boy is manipulative and power-hungry, a drifter who becomes a television host and uses his show as a gateway to political power. Co-starring Patricia Neal, Walter Matthau, Tony Franciosa, and Lee Remick (in her film début as well), the film was directed byElia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg.

A 2005 DVD reissue of A Face in the Crowd includes a mini-documentary on the film, with comments from Schulberg and then-surviving cast members Griffith, Franciosa, and Neal. In his interview, Griffith, revered for his wholesome image for decades, reveals a more complex side of himself. He recalls Kazan prepping him to shoot his first scene with Remick's teenaged baton twirler, who captivates Griffith's character on a trip to Arkansas. Griffith also expresses his belief that the film was far more popular and respected in more recent decades than it was when originally released.

Television roles[edit]

Early television roles[edit]

Griffith's first appearance on television had been in 1955 in the one-hour teleplay of No Time for Sergeants on The United States Steel Hour. That was the first of two appearances on that series.

In 1960, Griffith appeared as a county sheriff (who was also a justice of the peace and the editor of the local newspaper) in an episode of Make Room for Daddy, starring Danny Thomas. This episode, in which Thomas' character is stopped for speeding in a little town, served as a backdoor pilot for The Andy Griffith Show. Both shows were produced by Sheldon Leonard.

The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968)

Beginning in 1960, Griffith starred as Sheriff Andy Taylor in The Andy Griffith Show for the CBS television network. The show took place in the fictional town of Mayberry, North Carolina, where Taylor, a widower, was the sheriff and townsage. The show was filmed at Desilu Studios, with exteriors filmed at Forty Acres in Culver City, California.

From 1960 to 1965, the show co-starred character actor and comedian — and Griffith's longtime friend — Don Knotts in the role of Deputy Barney Fife, Taylor's best friend and comedy partner. He was also Taylor's cousin in the show. In the series premiere episode, in a conversation between the two, Fife calls Taylor "Cousin Andy", and Taylor calls Fife "Cousin Barney". The show also starred child actor Ron Howard (then known as Ronny Howard), who played Taylor's only child, Opie Taylor.

It was an immediate hit. Griffith never received a writing credit for the show, but he worked on the development of every script. Knotts was frequently lauded and won multiple Emmy Awards for his comedic performances (as didFrances Bavier in 1967), while Griffith was never nominated for an Emmy Award during the show's run.

In 1967, Griffith was under contract with CBS to do one more season of the show. However, he decided to quit the show to pursue a movie career and other projects. The series continued as Mayberry R.F.D., with Ken Berrystarring as a widower farmer and many of the regular characters recurring, some regularly and some as guest appearances. Griffith served as executive producer (according to Griffith, he came in once a week to review the week's scripts and give input) and guest starred in five episodes (the pilot episode involved his marriage to Helen Crump).[14] He made final appearances as Taylor in the 1986 reunion television film, Return to Mayberry, and in two reunion specials in 1993[15] and 2003,[16] with strong ratings.[17]

Matlock (1986–1995)[edit]

After leaving his still-popular show in 1968, and starting his own production company (Andy Griffith Enterprises) in 1972, Griffith starred in less-successful television series such as Headmaster (1970), The New Andy Griffith Show(1971), Adams of Eagle Lake (1975), Salvage 1 (1979), and The Yeagers(1980).

After spending time in rehabilitation for leg paralysis from Guillain–Barré syndrome in 1986, Griffith returned to television as the title character, Ben Matlock, in the legal drama Matlock (1986–1995) on NBC and ABC. Matlock was a country lawyer in Atlanta, Georgia, who was known for his Southern drawl and for always winning his cases.Matlock also starred unfamiliar actors (both of whom were childhood fans of Andy Griffith) Nancy Stafford as Michelle Thomas (1987–1992) and Clarence Gilyard, Jr. as Conrad McMasters (1989–1993). By the end of its first season it was a ratings powerhouse on Tuesday nights. Although the show was nominated for four Emmy Awards, Griffith once again was never nominated. He did, however, win a People's Choice Award in 1987 for his work as Matlock.[18]

Other television appearances[edit]

Griffith also made other character appearances through the years on Playhouse 90, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., The Mod Squad, Hawaii Five-O, The Doris Day Show, Here's Lucy, The Bionic Woman, and Fantasy Island, among many others. He also reprised his role as Ben Matlock on Diagnosis: Murder in 1997, and his most recent guest-starring role was in 2001 in an episode of Dawson's Creek.

Films (including television films)[edit]

For most of the 1970s, Griffith starred or appeared in many television films, including Go Ask Alice (1971), The Strangers In 7A (1972), Winter Kill (1974), and Pray for the Wildcats (1974), which marked his first villainous role since A Face in the Crowd. Griffith appeared again as a villain in Savages (1974), a television film based on the novelDeathwatch (1972) by Robb White. Griffith received his only Primetime Emmy Award nomination as Outstanding Supporting Actor – Miniseries or a Movie for his role as the father of a murder victim in the television film Murder in Texas (1981) and won further acclaim for his role as a homicidal villain in the television film Murder in Coweta County(1983), co-starring music legend Johnny Cash as the sheriff. He also proved to be a good character actor and appeared in several television miniseries, including the television version of From Here to Eternity (1979), Roots: The Next Generations (1979), Centennial (1978), and the Watergate scandal-inspired Washington: Behind Closed Doors(1977), playing a former president loosely based on Lyndon B. Johnson.

Most of the TV movies in which Griffith starred were also attempts to launch a new series. Winter Kill (1974) launched the short-lived Adams of Eagle Lake, which was canceled in 1975 after only two episodes. A year later, he starred as a New York City attorney for the DA's office in Street Killing, which also failed to launch a new series. Two television films for NBC in 1977, The Girl in The Empty Grave and Deadly Game, were attempts for Griffith to launch a new series featuring him as Police Chief Abel Marsh, a more hard-edged version of Andy Taylor; despite strong ratings, both were unsuccessful.

While appearing in television films and guest roles on television series over the next 10 years, Griffith also appeared in two feature films, both of which flopped at the box office. He co-starred with Jeff Bridges as a crusty old 1930s western actor in the comedy Hearts of the West (1975), and he appeared alongside Tom Berenger as a gay villainous colonel and cattle baron in the western comedy spoof Rustlers' Rhapsody (1985).

He also appeared as an attorney in the NBC miniseries Fatal Vision in 1984, which is considered a precursor to his role in Matlock.

Griffith stunned many unfamiliar with his A Face in the Crowd work in the television film Crime of Innocence (1985), where he portrayed a callous judge who routinely sentenced juveniles to hard prison time. Also noteworthy in Griffith's darker roles was his character in Under the Influence (1986), a TV-movie where Griffith played an alcoholic, abusive patriarch. He further surprised audiences with his role as a dangerous and mysterious grandfather in 1995's Gramps, co-starring John Ritter. He also appeared as a comical villain in the spy movie spoof Spy Hard (1996) starring Leslie Nielsen. In the television film A Holiday Romance (1999), Griffith played the role of "Jake Peterson". In the film Daddy and Them (2001), Griffith portrayed a patriarch of a dysfunctional southern family.

In the feature film Waitress (2007), Griffith played a crusty diner owner who takes a shine to Keri Russell's character. His last appearance was the leading role in the romantic comedy, independent film Play the Game (2009) as a lonely, widowed grandfather re-entering the dating world after a 60-year hiatus. The cast of Play The Game also includedRance Howard, Ron Howard's real-life father, who had made appearances in various supporting roles on The Andy Griffith Show, and Clint Howard, Ron's younger brother, who had the recurring role of Leon (the kid offering the ice cream cone or peanut butter sandwich) on The Andy Griffith Show.

Singing and recording career[edit]

Griffith sang as part of some of his acting roles, most notably in A Face In The Crowd and in many episodes of bothThe Andy Griffith Show and Matlock. In addition to his recordings of comic monologues in the 1950s, he made an album of upbeat country and gospel tunes during the run of The Andy Griffith Show, which included a version of the show's theme sung by Griffith under the title "The Fishin' Hole". In recent years, he recorded successful albums of classic Christian hymns for Sparrow Records. His most successful was the 1996 release I Love to Tell the Story: 25 Timeless Hymns, which was certified platinum by the RIAA.[19] The album won Grammy Award for Best Southern, Country or Bluegrass Gospel Album at the 1997 Grammy Awards.[20]

Griffith appeared in country singer Brad Paisley's music video "Waitin' on a Woman" (2008).[21]

Name dispute[edit]

William Harold Fenrick of Platteville, Wisconsin, legally changed his name to Andrew Jackson Griffith and ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Grant County in November 2006. Subsequently, actor Griffith filed a lawsuit against Griffith/Fenrick, asserting that he violated trademark, copyright, and privacy laws by changing his name for the "sole purpose of taking advantage of Griffith's notoriety in an attempt to gain votes." On May 4, 2007, US District CourtJudge John C. Shabaz ruled that Griffith/Fenrick did not violate federal trademark law because he did not use the Griffith name in a commercial transaction but instead in order "to seek elective office, fundamental First Amendment protected speech."[22][23]

…

Ron Howard
Griffith's friendship with the unknown Ron Howard began in 1960, when they guest-starred in the episode of Make Room For Daddy that led to the formation of The Andy Griffith Show that same year. For eight seasons, they shared a unique father-son relationship on the set and starred together in most of the show's episodes.
They guest-starred together in the show's spin-off series, Mayberry R.F.D.. They appeared in an episode where Griffith's character married his long-time girlfriend and in the Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C. episode "Opie Joins the Marines", in which Howard's character, Opie, runs away from home and attempts to enlist in the US Marines. They co-starred in the television special Return to Mayberry (1986), in which the now-adult Opie is about to become a father. They later appeared together in CBS reunion specials in 1993[15] and 2003.[16][17]

Griffith made a surprise appearance as the ghost of Andy Taylor when Howard hosted Saturday Night Live in 1982. Howard did not make any cameo appearances on Matlock, but his mother, Jean Speegle Howard, had a small role in one episode. Howard attended the People's Choice Awards in 1987, where Griffith was honored.

Howard and Griffith kept in contact, sharing news about family and personal activities, and Griffith still called Howard by his childhood nickname, Ronny.

In October 2008, Griffith and Howard briefly reprised their Mayberry roles in an online video Ron Howard's Call to Action. It was posted to comedy video website Funny or Die. The video encouraged people to vote and endorsedDemocratic candidates Barack Obama and Joe Biden.[32][33]

After Griffith's death, Howard stated: "His love of creating, the joy he took in it whether it was drama or comedy or his music, was inspiring to grow up around. The spirit he created on the set of The Andy Griffith Show was joyful and professional all at once. It was an amazing environment. And I think it was a reflection of the way he felt about having the opportunity to create something that people could enjoy. It was always with respect and passion for the opportunity and really what it could offer people in a very unpretentious and earthy way. He felt he was always working in service of an audience he really respected and cared about. He was a great influence on me. His passing is sad. But he lived a great rich life."[34]

Political activities[edit]

In October 2008, Griffith appeared with Ron Howard in a Funny or Die video endorsement for Barack Obama's presidential campaign.[36]

In addition to his online video with Howard in 2008, in politics Griffith favored Democrats and recorded televisioncommercials endorsing North Carolina Governors Mike Easley[37][unreliable source?] and Bev Perdue.[38][unreliable source?] He spoke at the inauguration ceremonies of both.[39][unreliable source?][40][unreliable source?]In 1989, he declined an offer by Democratic party officials to run against Jesse Helms, a Republican U.S. Senatorfrom North Carolina.[41]
In July 2010, he also starred in advertisements about Medicare.

Personal life[edit]

In 1945, while a student at the University of North Carolina, Griffith was initiated as a member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, a national social music fraternity for men.[45]

Griffith and Barbara Bray Edwards were married on August 22, 1949, and they adopted two children: a son, Andy Samuel Griffith, Jr. (born in 1957 and better known as Sam Griffith) and a daughter, Dixie Nann Griffith.[46][47] They were divorced in 1972. Sam, a real-estate developer, died in 1996 after years of alcoholism.[48]

His second wife was Solica Cassuto, a Greek actress. They were married from 1973 to 1981.[49]

He and Cindi Knight were married on April 12, 1983; they had met when he was filming Murder in Coweta County.

Griffith's first serious health problem was in April 1983, when he was diagnosed with Guillain–Barré syndrome[50][51]and could not walk for seven months because of paralysis from the knees down.

On May 9, 2000, he underwent quadruple heart-bypass surgery at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital in Norfolk, Virginia.[52] After a fall, Griffith underwent hip surgery on September 5, 2007, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.[53]

Death[edit]

Griffith died at approximately 7 a.m. on July 3, 2012, from a heart attack at age 86 at his coastal home in Manteo,Roanoke Island in Dare County, North Carolina. He was buried in the Griffith family cemetery on the island within five hours of his death.[54][55][56][57][58]

Honors[edit]

Mount Airy annually celebrates Griffith and his eponymous television series with "Mayberry Days", named after the fictional community of Mayberry inThe Andy Griffith Show.[59]

In 1991, Griffith was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.
The Andy Griffith Museum, a 2,500-square-feet facility which houses the world's largest collection of Griffith memorabilia, opened on September 26, 2009, in Mount Airy, North Carolina.[60][61] The majority of the permanent collection was donated by the museum's founder and longtime friend,Emmett Forrest.[62]
Griffith received a Grammy Award for Best Southern, Country or Bluegrass Gospel Album for I Love to Tell the Story — 25 Timeless Hymns in 1997.

In 1999, Griffith was inducted into the Country Gospel Music Hall of Famewith fellow artists Lulu Roman, Barbara Mandrell, David L. Cook, Gary S. Paxton, Jimmy Snow, Loretta Lynn, and Jody Miller.[63]
In October 2002, an 11-mile (18 km) stretch of US Highway 52 that passes through Mount Airy was dedicated as the Andy Griffith Parkway.

A statue of the Mayberry characters, Andy and Opie, was constructed in Pullen Park in Raleigh, North Carolina(2003),[64] and at the Andy Griffith Playhouse in Mount Airy.[65][66]

C.F. Martin & Company, guitar manufacturers offered an Andy Griffith signature model guitar limited edition in 2004 of the D-18 Model with 311 units total produced It was patterned after Andy's own 1956 D-18.

Griffith was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005 by President George W. Bush. Griffith's citation reads, in part: "As a legend of the stage, cinema, and television, Andy Griffith has built an enduring career and set a standard of excellence in entertainment. He is a man of humor, integrity, and compassion. The United States honors Andy Griffith for demonstrating the finest qualities of our country and for a lifetime of memorable performances that have brought joy to millions of Americans of all ages."[67][68]

A few weeks earlier, he had helped preside over the reopening of University of North Carolina's Memorial Hall and donated a substantial amount of memorabilia from his career to the university.
In 2007, he was inducted into the Christian Music Hall of Fame and Museum.[69]
Griffith was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2010.[70]

Dustin Hoffman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
2014

Dustin Lee Hoffman[2] (born August 8, 1937) is an American actor with a career in film, television, and theatre since 1960. He has been known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and vulnerable characters.[3]

He first drew critical praise for the play Eh?, for which he won aTheatre World Award and a Drama Desk Award. This was soon followed by his breakthrough 1967 film role as Benjamin Braddock, the title character in The Graduate. Since then Hoffman's career has largely been focused on cinema, with sporadic returns to television and the stage. His most notable films include Midnight Cowboy,The Graduate, Little Big Man, Straw Dogs, Papillon, Lenny, Marathon Man,All the President's Men, Kramer vs. Kramer, Tootsie, Rain Man, Hookand Wag the Dog.

Hoffman has been nominated for seven Academy Awards, winning two (for his performances in Kramer vs. Kramer and Rain Man), thirteenGolden Globes, winning six (including an honorary one) and has won four BAFTAs, three Drama Desk Awards, a Genie Award, and anEmmy Award. Hoffman received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1999, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2012.

Hoffman had his directorial debut in 2012, with Quartet.

Early life

Hoffman was born on August 8, 1937 in Los Angeles,[2][4] the second son of Lillian (née Gold) and Harry Hoffman. His father worked as a prop supervisor (set decorator) at Columbia Pictures before becoming a furniture salesman.[5][6]Hoffman was named after stage and silent screen actor Dustin Farnum. His older brother, Ronald, is a lawyer and economist. Hoffman is Jewish,[7] from an Ashkenazi family of immigrants from Ukraine and Iaşi (Romania).[7][8] His upbringing was neither religious nor observant.[9][10] He graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1955 and enrolled at Santa Monica College with the intention of studying medicine. Hoffman left after a year to join the Pasadena Playhouse,[11] although when he told his family about his career goal, his Aunt Pearl warned him "You can't be an actor. You are not good-looking enough."[12][13] He also took classes at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City.
Career[edit]

Early work

Hoffman initially hoped to become a classical pianist, having studied piano during much of his youth and in college. While at Santa Monica college, he also took an acting class, which he assumed would be easy, and "caught the acting bug." He recalls: "I just was not gifted in music. I did not have an ear."[14] Now an aspiring actor, he spent the next ten years doing odd jobs, being unemployed, and struggling to get any available acting roles.

His first acting role was at the Pasadena Playhouse, alongside future Academy Award-winner, Gene Hackman.[15]After two years there, Hackman headed for New York City, with Hoffman soon following. Hoffman, Hackman andRobert Duvall lived together in the 1960s, all three of them focused on finding acting jobs.[16][17] Hackman remembers, "The idea that any of us would do well in films simply didn't occur to us. We just wanted to work."[14]During this period, Hoffman got occasional television bit parts, including commercials, but needing income, he left acting briefly to teach.

In 1960, Hoffman was cast in a role in an Off-Broadway production and followed with a walk-on role in a Broadway production in 1961. Hoffman then studied at Actors Studio and became a dedicated method actor. Sidney W. Pink, a producer and 3D-movie pioneer, discovered him in one of his off-Broadway roles and cast him in Madigan's Millions. Through the early and mid-1960s, Hoffman made appearances in television shows and movies, including Naked City,The Defenders and Hallmark Hall of Fame. His first critical success was in the play Eh?, by Henry Livings, which had its US premiere at the Circle in the Square Downtown on October 16, 1966.

Hoffman made his film debut in The Tiger Makes Out in 1967, alongside Eli Wallach. In 1967, immediately after wrapping up principal filming on The Tiger Makes Out, Hoffman flew from New York City to Fargo, North Dakota, where he directed productions of William Gibson's Two for the Seesaw and William Saroyan's The Time of Your Lifefor the Fargo-Moorhead Community Theatre. The $1,000 he received for the eight-week contract was all he had to hold him over until the funds from the movie materialized.[18]

1960s:  The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, John and Mary

In 1967, director Mike Nichols cast Hoffman in The Graduate (1967), his first major role, for which he received anAcademy Award nomination for his performance. Hoffman played the character of Benjamin Braddock, who returns to his wealthy parents' home in California after graduating from college. Confused about what to do with his life, he is seduced into having an affair with Mrs. Robinson, an alcoholic and a neurotic, and the wife of his father's business partner.

Although Life magazine joked that "if Dustin Hoffman's face were his fortune, he'd be committed to a life of poverty",[13] The Graduate was a gigantic box-office hit for Embassy Pictures, making Hoffman a major new star at the same time. The film, mostly due to Hoffman's acting, received near unanimous good reviews. Time magazine called Hoffman "a symbol of youth" who represented "a new breed of actors." The film's screenwriter, Buck Henry, notes that Hoffman's character made conventional good looks no longer necessary on screen:
A whole generation changed its idea of what guys should look like. . . I think Dustin's physical being brought a sort of social and visual change, in the same way people first thought of Bogart. They called him ugly.[19]

Hoffman biographer Jeff Lenburg adds that "newspapers across the country were deluged with thousands of letters from fans," with one example published in the New York Times: "I identified with Ben...I thought of him as a spiritual brother. He was confused about his future and about his place in the world, as I am. It's a film one digs, rather than understands intellectually."[20]:35

Turner Classic Movies critic Rob Nixon notes that Hoffman represented "a new generation of actors." He credits Hoffman with breaking "the mold of the traditional movie star and brought to their roles a new candor, ethnicity, and eagerness to dive deep into complex, even unlikable characters."[21] Nixon expands on the significance of the film to Hoffman's career: "In The Graduate, he created a lasting resonance as Ben Braddock that made him an overnight sensation and set him on the road to becoming one of our biggest stars and most respected actors.[21]"

Hoffman, however, mostly credits director Mike Nichols for taking a great risk in giving him, a relatively unknown, the starring role: "I don't know of another instance of a director at the height of his powers who would take a chance and cast someone like me in that part. It took tremendous courage."[19]

Critic Sam Kashner observed strong similarities between Hoffman's character and that of Nichols when he previously acted with Elaine May in the comedy team of Nichols and May. "Just close your eyes and you'll hear a Mike Nichols—Elaine May routine in any number of scenes."[19][22] Buck Henry also noticed that "Dustin picked up all these Nichols habits, which he used in the character. Those little noises he makes are straight from Mike," he says.[19]

After completing The Graduate, Hoffman turned down most of the film roles offered to him, preferring to go back to New York and continue performing in live theater:

I was a theater person. That's how my friends were, too, Gene Hackman and Bobby Duvall. I wasn't going to be a movie star. I wasn't going to sell out. We wanted to be really good actors. I told them, 'I'm going out to make this movie. Don't worry, I'm coming right back.'[23]

After completing The Graduate, Hoffman left California and returned to Broadway to appear in the title role of the musical, Jimmy Shine. Hoffman won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance.

He was then offered the lead in Midnight Cowboy (1969), which he accepted partly to prove many critics were wrong about his acting range and the variety of characters he could portray. As author and critic Peter Biskind explains, "it was the very contrast between his preppy character in The Graduate, and Ratso Rizzo" that appealed to Hoffman. "I had become troubled," recalls Hoffman, "by the reviews that I read of The Graduate, that I was not a character actor, which I like to think of myself as. It hurt me. Some of the stuff in the press was brutal."[23] Critics assumed that director Mike Nichols got lucky by finding a typical actor with average acting ability to play the part of Benjamin Braddock.

John Schlesinger, who would direct Midnight Cowboy and was seeking lead actors, held that same impression. Hoffman's performance as a button-down college graduate and track star was so convincing to Schlesinger, "he seemed unable to comprehend the fact that he was acting," notes Biskind.[23] To help the director, whom he had never met, overcome that false impression, Hoffman met him in Times Square dressed as a homeless person, wearing a dirty raincoat, his hair slicked back and with an unshaven face. Schlesinger was sold, admitting, "I've only seen you in the context of The Graduate, but you'll do quite well."[23]

Midnight Cowboy, premiered in theaters across the United States in May 1969. For his acting, Hoffman received his second Oscar nomination and the film won the Best Picture. In 1994, this film was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.[24][25][26] Biskind considers Hoffman's acting a major accomplishment:

Midnight Cowboy makes us a gift of one of the landmark performances of movie history: Dustin Hoffman's Ratso Rizzo, with Jon Voight's Joe Buck a close second. From a cesspool of dark, foul, even taboo material, . . . it rescues a true humanism that need not hide its name.[23]
Also in 1969, Hoffman co-starred with Mia Farrow in John and Mary. He received a 1970 BAFTA Award as Best Actor, although the film received mixed reviews.[27] He was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award as Best Actor.

1970s:  Lenny, All the President's Men, Marathon Man, Kramer vs. Kramer

This was followed by his role in Little Big Man (1970), where Jack Crabb, his character, ages from teenager to a 121-year-old man. The film was widely praised by critics, but was overlooked for an award except for a supporting nomination for Chief Dan George. Hoffman continued to appear in major films over the next few years. Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971), Straw Dogs (also 1971), and Papillon(1973).

Hoffman next starred in Lenny (1974), for which he was again nominated for Best Actor. Lenny was based on the life of stand-up comedian, Lenny Bruce, who died at age 40, and was notable for his open, free-style and critical form of comedy which integrated politics, religion, sex, and vulgarity. Expectations were high that Hoffman would win an Oscar for his portrayal, especially after his similar role in Midnight Cowboy. Film critic Katharine Lowry speculates that director Bob Fosse "never gave him a chance" to go far enough into developing the character. "We never understand what, besides the drugs he injected, made him tick like a time bomb," she says.[28]

However, notes author Paul Gardner, "directing Lenny, his most ambitious project, exhausted Fosse emotionally and physically. It turned his life inside out," with shooting days often lasting 10 to 12 hours:"[29]

The Lenny Bruce project, based on Julian Barry's play, had gone through two studios and three scripts, and was a problem child, like Lenny himself. But Fosse wanted to do it, and he wanted Dustin Hoffman.[29]

Hoffman initially turned the part down: "I didn't think the script was strong enough and I wasn't sure I was the one to play the role." While considering the part, he read Lenny Bruce's autobiography and looked at films with Bruce performing stand-up to live audiences. "I began to feel an affinity with him, a realization that there was a lot of Lenny Bruce in me. My wife felt it too."[30] "I realized that I'd have to make use of my own spontaneity, because he was so spontaneous. And I admired his guts. . . . That intimacy is what an actor tries to get. . . . It occurred to me that if I had known him, I would have wanted us to be friends. . . . and he was a provocateur, and I love to provoke."[30] Movie critic Judith Crist gave Hoffman credit for the ultimate success of the film:

What is important is that Bruce's routines are so artfully reconstructed, the juice of his creativity so carefully strained, that the claim to genius is justified. And for that Dustin Hoffman deserves full credit, vanishing into the Bruce persona to simply stunning effectiveness, . . . Hoffman captures the restlessness, the velocity of a man's mouth straining to keep pace with a jet-propelled intelligence . . . "[31]

Lenny was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Cinematography.[32]

All the President's Men (1976) was made less than two years after the Watergate scandal, and starred Hoffman andRobert Redford as the real life journalists, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, respectively. Based on actual events, Hoffman and Redford play Washington Post reporters who uncover a break-in at the Watergate Hotel and end up investigating a political scandal that reaches all the way to the presidency. The film, as earlier ones, had Hoffman take on a dramatically different character than his previous one as Lenny Bruce. Author James Morrison compares the two roles: "As Lenny Bruce in Lenny (1974), Hoffman plays a martyr to the cause of establishment oppression, while in All the President's Men, he plays a reporter exposing presidential malfeasance."[33]

Vincent Canby of the New York Times described the film as "a spellbinding detective story. . . . The strength of the movie, he added was "the virtually day-to-day record of the way Bernstein and Woodward conducted their investigations."[34] The characters portrayed by Hoffman and Redford shared the rank of #27 Hero on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains list, whileEntertainment Weekly ranked All the President's Men as one of the 25 "Powerful Political Thrillers".[35]

Hoffman next starred in Marathon Man (1976), a film based on William Goldman's novel of the same name, opposite Laurence Olivier and Roy Scheider.[36] Its director, John Schlesinger also directed Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy in 1969. Described as "Schlesinger's thriller," by author Gene D. Phillips, Hoffman plays the hero, Babe Levy, a part-time long-distance runner and graduate student, who suddenly finds himself being pursued by a fugitive Nazi.[37] To put himself in the mindset of someone under severe emotional distress, rather than simply acting, Hoffman didn't sleep for days at a time and let his body become disheveled and unhealthy.[38]

Goldman describes his inspiration for the novel: "What if someone close to you was something totally different from what you thought? In the story, Hoffman thinks his brother (Roy Scheider) is a businessman where the reality is that the man is a spy, who has been involved with the Nazi, Szell."[39] However, Hoffman remembers a serious disagreement he had with Goldman, who also wrote the screenplay, about how the story ends:

I was called on, as the character, to fire point-blank at the Laurence Olivier character, Dr. Szell, and kill him in that last scene. And I said that I couldn't do it. Goldman was quite upset about it, because first of all, how dare I? He wrote the book. "Your job isn't to rewrite — your job is to play it as written." . . . it got nasty. I said, "Go hire someone else."

I remember Goldman saying: "Why can't you do this? Are you such a Jew?" I said, "No, but I won't play a Jew who cold-bloodedly kills another human being." . . . And that's important to me, that I didn't shoot him in the end. Being a Jew is not losing your humanity and not losing your soul.[40]
Hoffman's next roles were less successful. He opted out of directing Straight Time (1978), but starred as a thief. His next film, Michael Apted's Agatha (1979), was with Vanessa Redgrave as Agatha Christie.

Hoffman next starred in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) co-starring Meryl Streep and directed by Robert Benton. The film tells the story of a married couple's divorce and its impact on everyone involved, including the couple's young son. Hoffman won his first Academy Award, and the film also received the Best Picture honor, plus the awards for Best Supporting Actress (Streep) and Best Director.

The film required Hoffman to change his attitude, from being a "desensitized advertising art director" into becoming a "responsive and concerned daddy" after his wife (Streep) walks out on him and their six-year-old son, Billy. Hoffman, during the making of the movie, was also going through his own divorce after a ten-year first marriage. Hoffman says, "Giving myself permission not only to be present but to be a father was a kind of epiphany for me at that time, that I could get to through my work. . . . I got closer to being a father by playing a father. That's very painful to say."[30] The role also reminded him of his own love of children in general:

Children are more interesting than anything. I walk my younger child to school every day and I don't like leaving the school. I would like to sit down on those little chairs, at those little tables, and play. And a child's love is like a drug. To have a child throw his arms about you—it's instant stoned. People talk about the rush heroin give you: I would say children give you that rush.[30]

Benton's directing is praised by Hoffman, and credits him for inspiring the emotional level supporting many scenes: "Perfect directors make you emotional. On Kramer vs. Kramer, Robert Benton made me emotional. He was pulling so hard for me. When I didn't think I could do a scene again I'd say, "I can't give it to you, I haven't got it." Then he'd just get this look on his face and roll the camera and I'd say, "Okay, this is yours." That's what he made you want to do for him—to give him one."[41]

1980s:  Tootsie, Death of a Salesman, Rain Man, Family Business

In Tootsie (1982), Hoffman portrays Michael Dorsey, a struggling actor who finds himself dressing up as a woman to land a role on a soap opera. His co-star was Jessica Lange. Tootsie earned ten Academy Award nominations, including Hoffman's fifth nomination.

Under direction by Sydney Pollock, Hoffman's role demanded "a steady bombardment of opposites—edgy then funny, romantic then realistic, soft then quivering."[42] To film critic David Denby, Hoffman's character "embodies vulnerability and drive in perfect proportion. He has the knack of making everything he does seem perilous, and so audiences feel protective of him and root for him."[43] Hoffman's acting was made more difficult than necessary, however, as he was not given the rehearsal time Pollock promised:

I like to be very prepared, and I feel that the success or failure of a film is many times determined before you start principal photography. I wanted rehearsal very much. I was promised two weeks and was grieved that I didn't get it. We also followed the risky course of starting to shoot with a screenplay that wasn't completed.[44]

In 1984, Hoffman starred as Willy Loman in the Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's play, Death of a Salesman[45] He reprised his role in a TV movie of the same name, for which he won the 1985 Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor along with a Golden Globe.

Hoffman first read the play at age 16, but today considers the story much like his own: "It was a blueprint of my family. I was the loser, the flunky, and my brother, a high-school varsity football player, was Biff."[14] Author Marie Brennernotes that Hoffman "has been obsessed with the play" throughout his career: "For years he has wanted to be Willy Loman; when he discovered that Arthur Miller was his neighbor in Connecticut, they began to talk about it in earnest."[46] For Hoffman, the story also left a deep emotional impact from the time he first read it:

I read that play, and I was just destroyed by it. It was like finding out something terrible about my family. I just shook. I felt like my family's privacy had been invaded. I couldn't even talk about it for weeks.[46]

Hoffman rehearsed for three weeks with the play's original star, Lee J. Cobb, and remembers seeing his stage performance: "I'll never forget that period in my life. It was so vivid, so intense, watching Lee J. Cobb and his sixteen-inch guns as Willy. God, how I think about what I saw on that stage!"[46] Brenner adds that Hoffman "has been training like a boxer for the role that so exhausted Cobb he had to be replaced after four months."[46] The original play was directed by Elia Kazan, who Hoffman considers "the perfect director, the best there ever was. . . . God, I would have done anything to have worked with Kazan."[46]

Hoffman's worst film failure was Elaine May's Ishtar (1987), co-starring Warren Beatty, who also produced it. Hoffman and Beatty play two down-and-out singer-songwriters who've gone to Morocco for a nightclub gig and get caught up in foreign intrigue. Much of the movie was filmed in Africa.

The film faced severe production problems, mostly related to its $55 million cost, and received overwhelmingly negative reviews. However, Hoffman and Beatty liked the film's final cut and tried to defend it.[47][48] Hoffman and Beatty were unaffected by the flop, and Ishtar became a cult film. Quentin Tarantino, for one, has called it one of his favorite movies, partly due to the humorous lyrics of the songs written by Paul Williams.[49] Hoffman describes why he loves the film:

The thing I love about Ishtar, - and I love it with all of its flaws - is that it has a statement to make. And that is: It is far, far better to spend a life being second rate in something that you're passionate about, then to spend a life being first-rate at that which you are not passionate about. I thought that was worth making a movie about. These guys want to be Simon & Garfunkel, but they have no talent at all. They're middle-aged guys, and at the end of the movie they wind up singing "That's Amore" at a Holiday Inn in Morocco. It's fair. It's fair to make a movie about that.[49]

Next came director Barry Levinson's Rain Man (1988), where Hoffman starred as an autistic savant, opposite Tom Cruise. Levinson, Hoffman and Cruise worked for two years on the film, and Hoffman's performance gained him his second Academy Award. Behind Hoffman's motivation for doing the film, he says, "Deep inside, Rain Man is about how autistic we all are." In preparation for the part, Hoffman spent two years befriending autistic people, which included taking them bowling and to fast food restaurants. "It fed my obsession," he said.[50]

Hoffman had worked at the New York Psychiatric Institute, affiliated with Columbia University, when he was 21. "It was a great experience for me," he states. "All my life I had wanted to get inside a prison or a mental hospital. . . . I wanted to get inside where behavior, human behavior, was so exposed. All the things the rest of us were feeling and stopping up were coming out of these people."[30] He used that experience to help him develop the character of Raymond Babbitt, a high-functioning autistic savant, yet a person who critic David Denby describes as "a strangely shuttered genius."[51] Hoffman created certain character traits for Raymond, notes Denby: "Hoffman, looking suddenly older and smaller, has developed a small shuffling walk for Raymond, with shoulder bent. His eyes don't make contact with anyone else's, and he flattens his voice to a dry nasal bark."[51]

Rain Man won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor in a Leading Role for Hoffman, and Best Director for Barry Levinson. Having worked closely with Hoffman for two years on filming, Levinson offers some opinions about his skill as an actor:

You can't define Dustin Hoffman, because he's unique. He's one of a kind and he's not one character. There is no Dustin Hoffman. He is many, many people. . . . He can do comedy and he can do drama. He has an enormous range, and yet he's still Dustin somewhere in there. He's intelligent and has a great sense of how to connect with people, because he's very interesting. On a day-to-day basis, he's like an actor who's making his first movie, with the enthusiasm and energy to want to make things happen and try things and experiment.[52]

After Rain Man, Hoffman appeared with Sean Connery and Matthew Broderick in Family Business (1989), directed bySidney Lumet. The story centers on the estrangement between Vito (Hoffman), a middle-age man trying to succeed in a legitimate business, and his "hopelessly corrupt but charming father," Jesse (Connery). Critics were mostly not impressed with the story, although the individual performances were praised, especially Connery's.[53]

Because of their different acting styles and nationalities, some industry writers thought Connery and Hoffman might not work well together as close family members. "To the surprise of many," note Connery biographers Lee Pfeiffer and Lisa Philip, "the two superstars developed an immediate rapport and chemistry that translates onto the screen." And Lumet remembered: "Sean is extremely disciplined and Dustin is very improvisational, all over the place with his lines. I didn't know where it would end up, but Sean met Dustin improvisation for improvisation, and a great deal of richness and humor came out of it."[53]

1990s:  Dick Tracy, Hook, Outbreak, Mad City, Wag the Dog

In 1991, Hoffman voiced substitute teacher Mr. Bergstrom in The Simpsons episode "Lisa's Substitute", under the pseudonym Sam Etic. As a reference to this episode, during the episode featuring the Itchy & Scratchy movie, Lisa claims that Dustin Hoffman had a cameo in that movie but didn't use his real name.

Throughout the 1990s, Hoffman appeared in many large, studio films, such as Dick Tracy (1990) (where his Ishtarco-star Beatty plays the titular character), Hero (1992) and Billy Bathgate (1991) co-starring with Nicole Kidman who was nominated for a Golden Globe). Hoffman also played the title role of Captain Hook in Steven Spielberg's Hook(also 1991), earning a Golden Globe nomination, and the narrator in Dr. Seuss Video Classics: Horton Hears a Who!(also 1992); in Hook, Hoffman's costume was so heavy that he had to wear an air-conditioned suit under it.

Hoffman played the lead role in Outbreak (1995), alongside Rene Russo, Kevin Spacey, Morgan Freeman, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Donald Sutherland. In the film, Hoffman is a medical doctor who uncovers a newly discovered Ebola-like virus which came to the U.S. from Africa in an infected monkey. Hoffman races to stop the virus's spread and find a vaccine before it becomes a worldwide pandemic with no cure.

The movie is described by critic Roger Ebert as "one of the great scare stories of our time, the notion that deep in the uncharted rain forests, deadly diseases are lurking, and if they ever escape their jungle homes and enter the human bloodstream, there will be a new plague the likes of which we have never seen."[54] Critic David Denby credits Hoffman with giving the movie much of its thriller-like quality:

Tanks and men pour in to herd the terrified population here and there, and Dustin Hoffman, as the supersleuth Army doctor, gives such a lip-biting, anguished performance he absolves the movie of slickness. Hoffman isn't good, exactly; he's tense, edgy, and righteous, like a B-movie actor from the fifties.[55]

Following that, he appeared in the 1996 revenge-drama/legal-thriller Sleepers (1996) with Brad Pitt, Jason Patric, andKevin Bacon.

In the mid-1990s, Hoffman starred in—and was deeply involved in the production of—David Mamet's American Buffalo (also 1996), and an early effort of film editor Kate Sanford. In 1997, Hoffman starred opposite John Travolta in the Costa Gavras film Mad City.

Hoffman gained his seventh Academy Award nomination for his performance in Wag The Dog (1997), in a role that allowed Hoffman the chance to work with both Robert De Niro and Denis Leary. The movie is a black comedy film[56]produced and directed by Barry Levinson, who also directed Hoffman in Rain Man in 1988.

The story takes place a few days before a presidential election, where a Washington, D.C. spin doctor (De Niro) distracts the electorate from a sex scandal by hiring a Hollywood film producer (Hoffman) to construct a fake war with Albania. Hoffman, as a caricature of real life producer Robert Evans, according to some, "gives the kind of wonderfully funny performance that is liable to win prizes, especially since its mixture of affection and murderous parody is so precise. Stanley (Hoffman) conducts business meetings in tennis clothes or in robe and slippers," notes critic Janet Maslin.[57]

He next appeared in another Barry Levinson film, the science fiction psychological thriller, Sphere (1998), oppositeSharon Stone.

In 1999, Hoffman received the AFI Life Achievement Award and recalls the emotional impact that receiving the award had on him:

There was this reel of pictures, me playing all these different roles. I had my first—and only, thank God—panic attack. What followed was depression. . . . It had to do with a central core in me, which was that I never felt I deserved success.[14]

2000s:  Finding Neverland, Meet the Fockers, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

Hoffman next appeared in Moonlight Mile (2002), followed by Confidence (2003) opposite Edward Burns, Andy García and Rachel Weisz. Hoffman finally had a chance to work with Gene Hackman in Gary Fleder's Runaway Jury (also 2003), an adaptation of John Grisham's bestselling novel.

Hoffman played theater owner Charles Frohman in the J. M. Barrie historical fantasiaFinding Neverland (2004), costarring Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet. In director David O. Russell's I Heart Huckabees (also 2004), Hoffman appeared opposite Lily Tomlinas an existential detective team member.

Seven years after his nomination for Wag the Dog, Hoffman got a second opportunity to perform again with Robert De Niro, co-starring with Barbra Streisand and Ben Stillerin the 2004 comedy Meet the Fockers, a sequel to Meet the Parents (2000). Hoffman won the 2005 MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic Performance. In 2005, he voiced a horse in Racing Stripes, and appeared in cameo roles in Andy García's The Lost Cityand on the final episode of HBO sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm's fifth season. Hoffman appeared in Stranger than Fiction (2006), played the perfumer Giuseppe Baldini in Tom Tykwer's filmPerfume: The Story of a Murderer (also 2006), and had a cameo in the same year's The Holiday.

In 2007, he was featured in an advertising campaign for Australian telecommunications company Telstra's Next G network,[58] appeared in the 50 Cent video "Follow My Lead" as a psychiatrist, and played the title character in the family film Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. In 2008, although he was reluctant to perform in an animated feature film (Although he had previously performed voices in a version of The Point! and in an episode of The Simpsons), Hoffman had a prominent role as Shifu in the acclaimed film Kung Fu Panda, which was praised in part for his comedic chemistry with Jack Black (whom he tutored in acting for an important scene) and his character's poignantly complex relationship with the story's villain. He later won the Annie Award for Voice Acting in an Animated Feature forKung Fu Panda and has continued into the role in the franchise's subsequent filmed productions outside of the franchise's television series. He next voiced Roscuro in The Tale of Despereaux.

As the title character in Last Chance Harvey, Hoffman acted with co-star Emma Thompson in the story of two lonely people who tentatively forge a relationship over the course of three days. Director Joel Hopkins notes that Hoffman was a perfectionist and self-critical: "He often wanted to try things stripped down, because less is sometimes more. He worries about every little detail."[14]

2010s:  Barney's Version, Kung Fu Panda, Little Fockers, Quartet

He appeared in Little Fockers, the critically panned yet hugely commercially successful 2010 sequel to Meet the Fockers.[59] In 2011, Hoffman reprised his role as Shifu in the commercially and critically successful animated film Kung Fu Panda 2.

Hoffman starred in the HBO horse-racing drama Luck, as a man involved in bookmaking and casino operations. Luck was cancelled in March 2012 after three horses died on set.[60] Hoffman also directed Quartet, a BBC Films comedy starringMaggie Smith and Tom Courtenay.[61]

In 2012, Hoffman's audiobook recording of Jerzy Kosinski's Being There (novel) was released at Audible.com. His performance was nominated for a 2013 Audie Award for Best Solo Narration – Male.

Personal life

Hoffman married Anne Byrne in May 1969.[62] Hoffman adopted Karina (b. 1966), Byrne's child from a previous marriage, and with Byrne had daughter Jenna (born October 15, 1970). In 1970, Hoffman and Byrne were living in Greenwich Village in a building next door to a townhouse occupied by members of the Weathermen, when a bomb was accidentally detonated in the townhouse's basement, killing three people. In the 2002 documentaryThe Weather Underground, Hoffman can be seen standing in the street during the aftermath of the explosion.[63] The couple divorced in 1980.

He married businesswoman Lisa Hoffman (née Gottsegen) in October 1980; they have four children – Jacob Edward (born March 20, 1981), Rebecca Lillian (b. March 17, 1983), Maxwell Geoffrey (born August 30, 1984), and Alexandra Lydia (born October 27, 1987). Hoffman also has two grandchildren. In an interview, he said that all of his children from his second marriage had bar or bat mitzvahs and that he is a more observant Jew now than when he was younger; he has also lamented that he is not fluent in Hebrew.[64]

A political liberal, Hoffman has long supported the Democratic Party and Ralph Nader.[65] In 1997, he was one of a number of Hollywood stars and executives to sign an open letter to then-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl protesting the treatment of Scientologists in Germany, which was published as a newspaper advertisement in the International Herald Tribune.[66]

In 2009, he received the freedom of the Italian city Ascoli Piceno for being there during 1972 to shoot the movie Alfredo, Alfredo by Pietro Germi, where he played the role of Alfredo Sbisà.

Hoffman is a lifelong fan of Archie Comics and owns every single issue ever printed.[67]

Dustin Hoffman received Kennedy Center Honors in 2012, with the following commendation: "Dustin Hoffman's unyielding commitment to the wide variety of roles he plays has made him one of the most versatile and iconoclastic actors of this or any other generation".[68]

Hoffman was successfully treated for cancer in 2013.[69]




I am glad to say I paid a high theater ticket price to see Dustin Hoffman in person some 20 years ago playing the lead in Death Of A Salesman. He played it well, but he couldn't help grinning as he, facing the audience, put his hand on the much padded breast of his wife. Of course that would fit the character, who was usually seen as a happy go lucky character, but a failure financially, and finally in the end he purposely drove his car off the road, killing himself. He fit the profile of person with bipolar disorder, actually. I've always been fascinated with that play and character, and have read it several times.

Hoffman is one of my favorite actors, both in his funny roles and his serious dramas. He has always been a political liberal and is now an observant Jew. This statement on life says much about him: "The thing I love about Ishtar, - and I love it with all of its flaws - is that it has a statement to make. And that is: It is far, far better to spend a life being second rate in something that you're passionate about, then to spend a life being first-rate at that which you are not passionate about. I thought that was worth making a movie about." That is something that has been very much true of me, and is the main reason I don't regret parts of my life. I was almost always true to myself.

Hoffman has a sizable and happy family and is “a lifelong fan of Archie Comics and owns every single issue ever printed.” “Dustin Hoffman received Kennedy Center Honors in 2012, with the following commendation: "Dustin Hoffman's unyielding commitment to the wide variety of roles he plays has made him one of the most versatile and iconoclastic actors of this or any other generation". That is high praise, but I must say his portrayal of Tootsie was as funny as Robin Williams' Mrs. Doubtfire, and that is saying some, and his role as Ratso Rizzo was one of the saddest I've ever seen. He is one of the greats.

Deinstitutionalization And The Defunding Of Mental Health Care


http://www.salon.com/2013/09/29/ronald_reagans_shameful_legacy_violence_the_homeless_mental_illness/

Ronald Reagan’s shameful legacy: Violence, the homeless, mental illness
As president and governor of California, the GOP icon led the worst policies on mental illness in generations
DR. E. FULLER TORREY
SUNDAY, SEP 29, 2013

TOPICS: BOOKS, RONALD REAGAN, MENTAL ILLNESS, MENTAL HEALTH, HOMELESS, HOMELESSNESS, CALIFORNIA, HEALTH CARE, EDITOR'S PICKS, MITCH SNYDER, JOHN HINCKLEY, LIFE NEWS, NEWS, POLITICS NEWS

Excerpted from "American Psychosis"

In November 1980, Republican Ronald Reagan overwhelmingly defeated Jimmy Carter, who received less than 42% of the popular vote, for president. Republicans took control of the Senate (53 to 46), the first time they had dominated either chamber since 1954. Although the House remained under Democratic control (243 to 192), their margin was actually much slimmer, because many southern “boll weevil” Democrats voted with the Republicans.

One month prior to the election, President Carter had signed the Mental Health Systems Act, which had proposed to continue the federal community mental health centers program, although with some additional state involvement. Consistent with the report of the Carter Commission, the act also included a provision for federal grants “for projects for the prevention of mental illness and the promotion of positive mental health,” an indication of how little learning had taken place among the Carter Commission members and professionals at NIMH. With President Reagan and the Republicans taking over, the Mental Health Systems Act was discarded before the ink had dried and the CMHC funds were simply block granted to the states. The CMHC program had not only died but been buried as well. An autopsy could have listed the cause of death as naiveté complicated by grandiosity.

President Reagan never understood mental illness. Like Richard Nixon, he was a product of the Southern California culture that associated psychiatry with Communism. Two months after taking office, Reagan was shot by John Hinckley, a young man with untreated schizophrenia. Two years later, Reagan called Dr. Roger Peele, then director of St. Elizabeths Hospital, where Hinckley was being treated, and tried to arrange to meet with Hinckley, so that Reagan could forgive him. Peele tactfully told the president that this was not a good idea. Reagan was also exposed to the consequences of untreated mental illness through the two sons of Roy Miller, his personal tax advisor. Both sons developed schizophrenia; one committed suicide in 1981, and the other killed his mother in 1983. Despite such personal exposure, Reagan never exhibited any interest in the need for research or better treatment for serious mental illness.

California has traditionally been on the cutting edge of American cultural developments, with Anaheim and Modesto experiencing changes before Atlanta and Moline. This was also true in the exodus of patients from state psychiatric hospitals. Beginning in the late 1950s, California became the national leader in aggressively moving patients from state hospitals to nursing homes and board-and-care homes, known in other states by names such as group homes, boarding homes, adult care homes, family care homes, assisted living facilities, community residential facilities, adult foster homes, transitional living facilities, and residential care facilities. Hospital wards closed as the patients left. By the time Ronald Reagan assumed the governorship in 1967, California had already deinstitutionalized more than half of its state hospital patients. That same year, California passed the landmark Lanterman-Petris-Short (LPS) Act, which virtually abolished involuntary hospitalization except in extreme cases. Thus, by the early 1970s California had moved most mentally ill patients out of its state hospitals and, by passing LPS, had made it very difficult to get them back into a hospital if they relapsed and needed additional care. California thus became a canary in the coal mine of deinstitutionalization.

The results were quickly apparent. As early as 1969, a study of California board-and-care homes described them as follows:
These facilities are in most respects like small long-term state hospital wards isolated from the community. One is overcome by the depressing atmosphere. . . . They maximize the state-hospital-like atmosphere. . . . The operator is being paid by the head, rather than being rewarded for rehabilitation efforts for her “guests.”
The study was done by Richard Lamb, a young psychiatrist working for San Mateo County; in the intervening years, he has continued to be the leading American psychiatrist pointing out the failures of deinstitutionalization.

By 1975 board-and-care homes had become big business in California. In Los Angeles alone, there were “approximately 11,000 ex-state-hospital patients living in board-and-care facilities.” Many of these homes were owned by for-profit chains, such as Beverly Enterprises, which owned 38 homes. Many homes were regarded by their owners “solely as a business, squeezing excessive profits out of it at the expense of residents.” Five members of Beverly Enterprises’ board of directors had ties to Governor Reagan; the chairman was vice chairman of a Reagan fundraising dinner, and “four others were either politically active in one or both of the Reagan [gubernatorial] campaigns and/or contributed large or undisclosed sums of money to the campaign.” Financial ties between the governor, who was emptying state hospitals, and business persons who were profiting from the process would also soon become apparent in other states.

Many of the board-and-care homes in California, as elsewhere, were clustered in city areas that were rundown and thus had low rents. In San Jose, for example, approximately 1,800 patients discharged from nearby Agnews State Hospital were placed in homes clustered near the campus of San Jose State University. As early as 1971 the local newspaper decried this “mass invasion of mental patients.” Some patients left their board-and-care homes because of the poor living conditions, whereas others were evicted when the symptoms of their illness recurred because they were not receiving medication, but both scenarios resulted in homelessness. By 1973 the San Jose area was described as having “discharged patients…living in skid row…wandering aimlessly in the streets . . . a ghetto for the mentally ill and mentally retarded.”

Similar communities were becoming visible in other California cities as well as in New York. In Long Beach on Long Island, old motels and hotels were filled with patients discharged from nearly Creedmore and Pilgrim State Hospitals. By 1973, community residents were complaining that their town was becoming a psychiatric ghetto; at the local Catholic church, patients were said to “have urinated on the floor during Mass and eaten the altar flowers.” The Long Beach City Council therefore passed an ordinance requiring patients to take their prescribed medication as a condition for living there. Predictably, the New York Civil Liberties Union immediately challenged the ordinance as being unconstitutional, and it was so ruled. By this time, there were about 5,000 board-and-care homes in New York City, some with as many as 285 beds and with up to 85% of their residents having been discharged from the state hospitals. As one New York psychiatrist summarized the situation: “The chronic mentally ill patient has had his locus of living and care transferred from a single lousy institution to multiple wretched ones.”

California was the first state to witness not only an increase in homelessness associated with deinstitutionalization but also an increase in incarceration and episodes of violence. In 1972 Marc Abramson, another young psychiatrist working for San Mateo County, published a landmark paper entitled “The Criminalization of Mentally Disordered Behavior.” Abramson claimed that because the new LPS statute made it difficult to get patients admitted to a psychiatric hospital, police “regard arrest and booking into jail as a more reliable way of securing involuntary detention of mentally disordered persons.” Abramson quoted a California prison psychiatrist who claimed to be “literally drowning in patients. . . . Many more men are being sent to prison who have serious mental problems.” Abramson’s paper was the first clear description of the increase of mentally ill persons in jails and prisons, an increase that would grow markedly in subsequent years.

By the mid-1970s, studies in some states suggested that about 5% of jail inmates were seriously mentally ill. A study of five California county jails reported that 6.7% of the inmates were psychotic. A study of the Denver County Jail reported that 5% of prisoners had a “functional psychosis.” Such figures contrasted with studies from the 1930s that had reported less than 2% of jail inmates as being seriously mentally ill. In 1973 the jail in Santa Clara County, which included San Jose, “created a special ward…to house just the individuals who have such a mental condition”; this was apparently the first county jail to create a special mental illness unit.

Given the increasing number of seriously mentally ill individuals living in the community in California by the mid-1970s, it is not surprising to find that they were impacting the tasks of police officers. A study of 301 patients discharged from Napa State Hospital between 1972 and 1975 found that 41% of them had been arrested. According to the study, “patients who entered the hospital without a criminal record were subsequently arrested about three times as often as the average citizen.” Significantly, the majority of these patients had received no aftercare following their hospital discharge. By this time, police in other states were also beginning to feel the burden of the discharged, but often untreated, mentally ill individuals. In suburban Philadelphia, for example, “mental-illness-related incidents increased 227.6% from 1975 to 1979, whereas felonies increased only 5.6%.”

Of all the omens of deinstitutionalization’s failure on exhibit in 1970s California, the most frightening were homicides and other episodes of violence committed by mentally ill individuals who were not being treated.
1970: John Frazier, responding to the voice of God, killed a prominent surgeon and his wife, two young sons, and secretary. Frazier’s mother and wife had sought unsuccessfully to have him hospitalized.

1972: Herbert Mullin, responding to auditory hallucinations, killed 13 people over 3 months. He had been hospitalized three times but released without further treatment.
1973: Charles Soper killed his wife, three children, and himself 2 weeks after having been discharged from a state hospital.

1973: Edmund Kemper killed his mother and her friend and was charged with killing six others. Eight years earlier, he had killed his grandparents because “he tired of their company,” but at age 21 years had been released from the state hospital without further treatment.

1977: Edward Allaway, believing that people were trying to hurt him, killed seven people at Cal State Fullerton. Five years earlier, he had been hospitalized for paranoid schizophrenia but released without further treatment.

Such homicides were widely publicized. Many people perceived the tragedies as being linked to California’s efforts to shut its state hospitals and to the new LPS law, which made involuntary treatment virtually impossible. The foreman of the jury that convicted Herbert Mullin of the murders for which he was charged reflected the sentiments of many when he publicly stated:

I hold the state executive and state legislative offices as responsible for these ten lives as I do the defendant himself—none of this need ever have happened….In recent years, mental hospitals all over this state have been closed down in an economy move by the Reagan administration. Where do you think these . . . patients went after their release? . . . The closing of our mental hospitals is, in my opinion, insanity itself.
In response to queries about the homicides, the California Department of Mental Health had its deputy director, Dr. Andrew Robertson, testify before a state legislative inquiry in 1973. His testimony must rank among the all-time least successful attempts by a public official to reassure the public:

It [LPS] has exposed us as a society to some dangerous people; no need to argue about that. People whom we have released have gone out and killed other people, maimed other people, destroyed property; they have done many things of an evil nature without their ability to stop and many of them have immediately thereafter killed themselves. That sounds bad, but let’s qualify it. . . . the odds are still in society’s favor, even if it doesn’t make patients innocent or the guy who is hurt or killed feel any better.

1980s: THE PROBLEMS BECOME NATIONAL

Until the 1980s, most people in the United States were unaware that the deinstitutionalization of patients from state mental hospitals was going terribly wrong. Some were aware that homicides and other untoward things were happening in California, but such things were to be expected, because it was, after all, California. President Carter’s Commission on Mental Health issued its 1978 report and recommended doing more of the same things—more CMHCs, more prevention of mental illness, and more federal spending. The report gave no indication of a pending crisis. The majority of patients who had been discharged from state hospitals in the 1960s and 1970s had gone to their own homes, nursing homes, or board-and-care homes; they were, therefore, out of sight and out of mind.

In the 1980s, this all changed. Deinstitutionalization became, for the first time, a topic of national concern. The beginning of the discussion was heralded by a 1981 editorial in the New York Times that labeled deinstitutionalization “a cruel embarrassment, a reform gone terribly wrong.” Three years later, the paper added: “The policy that led to the release of most of the nation’s mentally ill patients from the hospital to the community is now widely regarded as a major failure.” During the following decade, there were increasing concerns publicly expressed about mentally ill individuals in nursing homes, board-and-care homes, and jails and prisons. There were also periodic headlines announcing additional high-profile homicides committed by individuals who were clearly psychotic. But the one issue that took center stage in the 1980s, and directed public attention to deinstitutionalization, was the problem of mentally ill homeless persons.

During the 1980s, an additional 40,000 beds in state mental hospitals were shut down. The patients being sent to community facilities were no longer those who were moderately well-functioning or elderly; rather, they included the more difficult, chronic patients from the hospitals’ back wards. These patients were often younger than patients previously discharged, less likely to respond to medication, and less likely to be aware of their need for medication. In 1988 the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) issued estimates of where patients with chronic mental illness were living. Approximately 120,000 were said to be still hospitalized; 381,000 were in nursing homes; between 175,000 and 300,000 were living in board-and-care homes; and between 125,000 and 300,000 were thought to be homeless. These broad estimates for those living in board-and-care homes and on the streets suggested that neither NIMH nor anyone else really knew how many there were.

Abuse of mentally ill persons in nursing homes had originally come to public attention during 1974 hearings of the Senate Committee on Aging. Those hearings had described nursing homes actually bidding on patients in attempts to get those who were most easily managed; bounties of $100 paid by nursing homes to hospital psychiatrists for every patient sent to them; and exorbitant profits for the nursing homes. As a consequence of such hearings and a 1986 study of nursing homes by the Institute of Medicine, Congress passed legislation in 1987 requiring all Medicaid-funded nursing homes to screen new admissions to keep out patients who did not qualify for admission because they did not require skilled nursing care. Follow-up studies indicated that the screening mandate had little effect on admission policies or abuses.

Abuse of mentally ill persons in board-and-care homes also periodically surfaced at this time:

1982: “Nine ragged, emaciated adults” were found in an unlicensed home for mentally ill individuals in Jackson, Mississippi. They were living in a 10-by-10 foot building with “no toilet or running water, only a plastic bucket to collect body wastes. A hose and faucet outside the building were used for washing. There were two mattresses on the concrete floor and a single cot in the room.” There were also “two vicious dogs chained outside the room.”

1984: Seven “former patients” died in a fire in a “rooming house” in Worcester, Massachusetts. “The report released this week said officials of Worcester State Hospital who referred the former patients to the rooming house had been warned by community health workers that the privately owned house was not safe.”

Sociologist Andrew Scull in 1981 summarized the economics of the board-and-care industry: “The logic of the marketplace suffices to ensure that the operators have every incentive to warehouse their charges as cheaply as possible, since the volume of profit is inversely proportional to the amount expended on the inmates.” In addition, because many board-and-care homes were in crime-ridden neighborhoods, mentally ill individuals living in them were often victimized when they went outside. A 1984 study of 278 patients living in board-and-care homes in Los Angeles reported that one-third “reported being robbed and/or assaulted during the preceding year.”

The problems of mentally ill individuals in nursing homes and board-and-care homes rarely elicited media attention in the 1980s. By contrast, the problem of homeless persons, including the mentally ill homeless, became a major story. In Washington, Mitch Snyder and the National Coalition for the Homeless burst onto the national scene by staging hunger strikes and sleep-ins on sidewalk grates. Their message was that homeless persons are just like you and me and all they need is a house and a job. Snyder challenged President Reagan, accusing him of being the main cause of homelessness, and the media extensively covered the controversy. By the time Snyder committed suicide in 1990, homelessness had become a major topic of national discussion.

Despite the claims of homeless advocates, media attention directed to homeless persons made it increasingly clear that many of them were, in fact, seriously mentally ill. In 1981, Life magazine ran a story titled “Emptying the Madhouse: The Mentally Ill Have Become Our Cities’ Lost Souls.” In 1982, Rebecca Smith froze to death in a cardboard box on the streets of New York; the media focused on her death because it was said that she had been valedictorian of her college class before becoming mentally ill. In 1983, the media covered the story of Lionel Aldridge, the former all-pro linebacker for the Green Bay Packers; after developing schizophrenia, he had been homeless for several years on the streets of Milwaukee. In 1984, a study from Boston reported that 38% of homeless persons in Boston were seriously mentally ill. The report was titled “Is Homelessness a Mental Health Problem?” and confirmed what people were increasingly beginning to suspect—that many homeless persons had previously been patients in the state mental hospitals.

By the mid-1980s, a consensus had emerged that the total number of homeless persons was increasing. The possible reasons for this increase became a political football, but the failure of the mental health system was one option widely discussed. A 1985 report from Los Angeles estimated that 30% to 50% of homeless persons were seriously mentally ill and were being seen in “ever increasing numbers.” The study concluded that this was “in part the product of the deinstitutionalization movement….The ‘Streets’ have become ‘The Asylums’ of the 80s.”

The appearance of Joyce Brown on the streets of New York in 1986 added a new dimension to the national dialogue. Prior to taking up residence on a steam grate at the corner of East 65th Street and Second Avenue, Brown had worked for 10 years as a secretary. She had then become mentally ill, was hospitalized, and discharged. While living on the street, Brown was observed urinating on the sidewalk, defecating in the gutter, tearing up money given to her by passersby, and running into traffic. New York mayor Ed Koch ordered her to be involuntarily hospitalized, well aware that the Civil Liberties Union’s lawyers would contest the case. Koch’s statement reflected the sentiments of many: “If the crazies want to sue me, they have every right to sue, and by crazies I’m . . . talking about those who say, ‘No, you have no right to intervene to help.’ ” The civil liberty lawyers prevailed, and the civil right to be both psychotic and homeless thus added another legal wrinkle to the ongoing homeless debate.

By the end of the 1980s, the origins of the increasing number of mentally ill homeless persons had become abundantly clear. A study of 187 patients discharged from Metropolitan State Hospital in Massachusetts reported that 27% had become homeless. A study of 132 patients discharged from Columbus State Hospital in Ohio reported that 36% had become homeless. In 1989, when a San Francisco television station wished to advertise its series on homelessness, it put up posters around the city saying, “You are now walking though America’s newest mental institution.” Psychiatrist Richard Lamb added: “Probably nothing more graphically illustrates the problems of deinstitutionalization than the shameful and incredible phenomenon of the homeless mentally ill.”

* * *

At the same time that mentally ill homeless persons were becoming an object of national concern during the 1980s, the number of mentally ill persons in jails and prisons was also increasing. A 1989 review of available studies concluded that “the prevalence rates for major psychiatric disorders . . . [in jails and prisons] have increased slowly and gradually in the last 20 years and will probably continue to increase.” Various studies reported rates ranging from 6% (Virginia) and 8% (New York) to 10% (Oklahoma and California) and 11% (Michigan and Pennsylvania). By 1990, a national survey concluded:

Given all the data, it seems reasonable to conclude that approximately 10 percent of inmates in prisons and jails, or approximately 100,000 individuals, suffer from schizophrenia or manic-depressive psychosis [bipolar disorder].
This 10% estimate contrasted with the 5% prevalence rate that had been widely cited a decade earlier.

Amid the various studies, disturbing trends were evident. Among 132 patients discharged from Columbus State Hospital in Ohio, 17% were arrested within 6 months. In California, seriously mentally ill individuals with a history of past violence, including armed robbery and murder, were being discharged from mental hospitals without any planned aftercare. In Colorado in 1984, George Wooton, diagnosed with schizophrenia, was booked into the Denver County Jail for the hundredth time; he would be the first prominent member of a group that would become widely known as “frequent flyers.” In several states the bizarre behavior of mentally ill inmates was also becoming problematic for jail personnel; in Montana a man “tried to drown himself in the jail toilet,” and in California inmates tried to escape “by smearing themselves with their own feces and flushing themselves down the toilet.” To make matters worse, civil liberties lawyers frequently defended the rights of mentally ill prisoners to refuse medication and remain psychotic. At a 1985 commitment hearing in Wisconsin, for example, a public defender argued that his jailed mentally ill client, who had been observed eating his feces, “was in no imminent danger of physical injury or dying” and should therefore be released; the judge agreed.

As more and more mentally ill individuals entered the criminal justice system in the 1980s, local police and sheriffs’ departments were increasingly affected. In New York City, calls associated with “emotionally disturbed persons,” referred to as “EDPs,” increased from 20,843 in 1980 to 46,845 in 1988, and “experts say similar increases have occurred in other large cities.” Many such calls required major deployments of police resources. The rescue of a mentally ill man from the top of a tower on Staten Island, for example, “required at least 20 police officers and supervisors, half a dozen emergency vehicles, several highway units and a helicopter.” In an attempt to deal with these psychiatric emergencies, the police department in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1988 created the first specially trained police Crisis Intervention Team, or CIT, as it would become known as it was replicated in other cities.

* * *

Finally, the 1980s witnessed increasing episodes of violence, including homicides, committed by mentally ill individuals who were not receiving treatment. The decade began ominously with three high-profile shootings between March 1980 and March 1981. Former congressman Allard Lowenstein was killed by Dennis Sweeney, John Lennon was killed by Mark David Chapman, and President Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley. All three perpetrators had untreated schizophrenia. Sweeney, for example, believed that Lowenstein, his former mentor, had implanted a transmitter in his teeth through which he was sending harassing voices.

As the decade progressed, such widely publicized homicides became more common:
1985: Sylvia Seegrist, diagnosed with schizophrenia and with 12 past hospitalizations, killed three and wounded seven in a Pennsylvania shopping mall.

Bryan Stanley, diagnosed with schizophrenia and with seven past hospitalizations, killed a priest and two others in a Wisconsin Catholic church.

Lois Lang, diagnosed with schizophrenia and discharged from a mental hospital 3 months earlier, killed the chairman of a foreign exchange firm and his receptionist in New York.

1986: Juan Gonzalez, diagnosed with schizophrenia and psychiatrically evaluated 4 days earlier, killed two and injured nine others with a sword on New York’s Staten Island Ferry.

1987: David Hassan, discharged 2 days earlier from a mental hospital, killed four people by running them over with his car in California.

1988: Laurie Dann, who was known to both the police and FBI because of her threatening and psychotic behavior, killed a boy and injured five of his classmates in an Illinois elementary school.

Dorothy Montalvo, diagnosed with schizophrenia, was accused of murdering at least seven elderly individuals and burying them in her backyard in California.

Aaron Lindh, known to be mentally ill and threatening, killed the Dane County coroner in Madison, Wisconsin. This was one of six incidents in that county during 1988 “involving mentally ill individuals . . . [that] resulted in four homicides, three suicides, seven victims wounded by gunshots, and one victim mauled by a polar bear” when a mentally ill man climbed into its pen at the local zoo.

1989: Joseph Wesbecker, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, killed 7 and wounded 13 at a printing plant in Kentucky.

Another indication that such episodes of violence were increasing was a study that compared admissions to a New York state psychiatric hospital in 1975 and 1982. It reported that “the percentage of patients who had committed violence toward persons while living in the community in the 1982 cohort was nearly double the percentage in the 1975 cohort.” In addition, “the percentage of patients who had had encounters with the criminal justice system in the 1982 cohort was more than quadruple the percentage in the 1975 cohort.”

Is there any way to estimate the frequency of these episodes of violence committed by mentally ill person who were not being treated? There was then, and continues to be, no national database that tracks homicides committed by mentally ill persons. However, a small study published in 1988 provided a clue. In Contra Costa County, California, all 71 homicides committed between 1978 and 1980 were examined. Seven of the 71 homicides were found to have been done by individuals with schizophrenia, all of whom had been previously hospitalized at some point before the crime. The 10% rate was also consistent with the findings of another small study in Albany County, New York. Therefore, by the late 1980s, it appeared that violent acts committed by untreated mentally ill persons was one of the consequences of the deinstitutionalization movement, and the problem appeared to be a growing one.


Excerpted from “American Psychosis: How the Federal Government Destroyed the Mental Illness Treatment System” by E. Fuller Torrey with permission from Oxford University Press USA. Copyright 2014 E. Fuller Torrey.
MORE DR. E. FULLER TORREY.


This article tells a mixed story of the situations mentally ill people find themselves in. There are stories of unlicensed or otherwise abusive "homes" for the mentally ill which have sometimes come to light, and there is no doubt that oversight from the government is needed for all mental hospitals, but it is equally clear to me that the need for them goes back to the beginnings of mankind and today is no exception. There are people who can't be controlled or who can't afford meds or who just "forget" to take them, resulting in a dangerous situation to family or the public. An NPR article is about some new police training to help them deal with mentally unstable people in better ways than shooting them. The article also mentions this deinstitutionalization that occurred in the 1980's and has caused trouble ever since. I am sorry to see that Jimmy Carter signed the original law that opened so many of the nations hospitals after Ronald Reagan took office.

JAMES GARNER ON TV



http://www.tvweek.com/open-mic/2014/07/james-garner-a-tribute-to-a-tv-superstar-in-garners-two-most-famous-series-the-situation-was-always/

James Garner: The Inside Story of a TV Superstar. In Garner’s Two Most Famous Series, the ‘Situation Was Always Hopeless, But Never Serious’
Chuck Ross
Jul 21, 2014

During the 1950s, when television was first sweeping the country and putting a serious dent in movie going, there were not a lot of actors who became big stars primarily because of their association with scripted programming — as opposed to variety shows — on the small screen.

Lucille Ball became one, and Jack Webb another. They were the stars of “I Love Lucy” and “Dragnet,” respectively. Raymond Burr became a household name as the title character in “Perry Mason.” James Arness became familiar to millions in “Gunsmoke.”

And James Garner, who died this past Saturday night, July 19, 2014 at age 86, became a TV superstar by playing, twice, a character its creator once told Newsweek was “a happy existentialist. His motives all derive from himself, never from others or from ‘the community.’ These motives are profit, curiosity, anger, sex and self-preservation.”

These two roles that fit Garner like a well-worn favorite sweatshirt were Bret Maverick in the late 1950s and Jim Rockford in the mid-1970s.

Roy Huggins, who was the creator of  “Maverick” and the co-creator (with Stephen J. Cannell) of “The Rockford Files,” is quoted in Raymond Strait’s 1985 biography “James Garner” (a book with which Garner did not participate), saying: “ ‘The Rockford Files’ was simply ‘Maverick’ as a modern-day private eye. That’s all. Played by the same character. [The main character in both shows] was a guy who didn’t like to put himself in danger. Didn’t like to work too hard … somewhat cowardly. Was not a superman or superhero. When he hit the villain with his fist he would wince and go ‘Oww!,’ which is what Maverick did.

Previously Huggins had said about "Maverick": "In the traditional Western story the situation is always serious, but never hopeless. In a 'Maverick' story the situation is always hopeless but never serious."

Now, talking about the Rockford character really being an incarnation of Bret Maverick, Huggins said, “Doing ‘Maverick’ in modern-day circumstances meant that I had to have a guy who is kind of an outsider, which is why I made him a former convict. As an ex-con, he was an outsider because of his background, whereas Maverick had been an outsider by choice. In both he maintained a certain sense of humor. Garner humor — and that’s the difference.”

In his own 2011 memoir, “The Garner Files,” (co-written by Jon Winokur), Garner writes: “If you look at Maverick and Rockford, they’re pretty much the same guy. One is a gambler and one is a detective, but their attitudes are identical.”

Of course, like most folks, in the case of “Maverick” I pretty much thought I was just watching a Western that was different because its main character had such a great sense of humor and was a gambling card player with the fastest verbal jab in town, compensating for a lack of quickness in the draw.

Similarly, like most viewers, what I enjoyed so much about “The Rockford Files” was its wry sensibility and the panache with which Garner and the show’s terrific ensemble played off one another.

And do you remember how each “Rockford” episode started with an answering machine joke, such as "Jim, it's Eddie. You were right about Sweet Talk in the seventh. He breezed in, paid $72.50. But I didn't get your bet down." Just that bit alone every week I thought was a hilarious send-up of “Mission: Impossible,” with its oh-so-serious beginning of each episode having the tape intoning “Your mission, Jim, should you decide to accept it …”

Garner became a TV star virtually within weeks of “Maverick’s” premiere on Sept. 22, 1957. Even Garner's becoming an actor to begin with is storybook. Here’s how Garner, who was born and spent his childhood in Oklahoma, told the story, from an article by Pete Martin that appeared in the Saturday Evening Post on Oct. 11, 1958:

“When I was 16 I went into the merchant marine. It was 1944 and every boy my age wanted to get himself a piece of the war. We didn’t have much sense. My father signed a letter so I could join up. I stayed in the service over a year, then came home and stayed with my father in Los Angeles. I intended to ship out again, but dad talked me into going back to school. I enrolled in Hollywood High.”

Garner went there for about a year and then says a model agency called the school looking for 10 fellows to model bathing suits. The phys-ed teacher picked Garner as one of the 10.

Garner picks up the story: “When I quit Hollywood High, I worked at a service station on Hollywood Boulevard, and Paul [Gregory] worked across the street as a soda jerk. … [H]e was trying to be a theatrical agent, and he thought maybe I should be an actor, but I wanted no part of it. I had read stories about actors in the fan magazines and I didn’t like what I’d read. Some of these stories were so maudlin they were stomach-turning. I don’t care for nightclubs, and it seemed to me that all those people did was nightclub crawling. I didn’t like those multiple love affairs, either.”

Flash forward seven or eight years later. By this time Garner has served in the Korean War and is back in Los Angeles with his dad. He had read that Paul Gregory had become a theatrical agent. He sees Gregory’s name on a building and decides to stop in and say hello to his old friend. “He not only talked me into being an actor, he also signed me to a contract,” Garner said.

After a non-speaking part in a play in New York, “I came back to California and waited," Garner says. "Bill Orr, a TV executive producer at Warners, hired me for ‘Cheyenne.’ It was my first show. … I was terrible. After that I don’t know why they hired me again. I quite honestly thought it was poor judgment on their part. Then Warners screen-tested  me and signed me. I’ve been there ever since.”

He was in a few movies, including “Sayonara” in 1957, which starred Marlon Brando. It was filmed in Japan. Garner says, “I don’t know what their thought processes were, but the studio cabled Japan, ‘When you finish with Jim in “Sayonara,” send him back here.’ I have no idea what the link was between [the character I played in ‘Sayonara,’ Captain] Bailey and Maverick, other than in both of them I was a carefree guy always having a ball. There was some humor in my scenes in ‘Sayonara.’ Maybe that did it.” Garner was 29 years old.

Tim Brooks, in the book he co-wrote, “The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows,” notes that when “Cheyenne” and “Gunsmoke” debuted in September 1955, it started a huge trend in TV to adult Westerns. Only four adult Westerns were on  the prime-time network schedule a year  later, in the fall of 1956. A year after that, in 1957, the three networks, ABC, CBS and NBC, had 14 Westerns on their prime-time schedule. By the fall of 1958, “Twenty–one Westerns are being put on film,” reported Look magazine.

Writes Brooks: “By 1958-1959, seven out of the top ten series [in the ratings] were Westerns — a dominance seldom achieved by any program type.” The ten top-rated shows for the 1958-‘59 season were, in order from 1 to 10: “Gunsmoke,” “Wagon Train,” “Have Gun Will Travel,” “The Rifleman,” “The Danny Thomas Show,” “Maverick,” “Tales of Wells Fargo,” “The Real McCoys,” “I’ve Got a Secret,” and “The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp.” Another Western, “Bonanza,” which would become a ratings juggernaut, would not premiere until the next season.

The year before “Maverick” went on the air, the No. 1-rated show on TV was “I Love Lucy,” with an average weekly rating of 43.7. No. 2 that year was “The Ed Sullivan Show,” with an average weekly rating of 38.4. Sullivan was already long a staple of CBS’s Sunday prime-time schedule when, in 1956, Steve Allen, the first host of “The Tonight Show,” had quit that program to challenge Sullivan with Allen’s own variety show. Allen had some ratings success against Sullivan, but not a lot.

The hour-long shows of both Sullivan and Allen started at 8 p.m. on Sundays. Helping Sullivan’s show was the fact that it was on immediately after the popular “Jack Benny Show.”

Remarkably, “Maverick,” starring the then unknown Garner, had an almost immediate impact in the ratings. So dramatic and unexpected was this that Allen sent Garner the following note, according to a Time magazine article on Dec. 30, 1957: “Somebody told me you carry a .45 and I got pretty scared, I thought it was your rating.” Added Time, “It darn near was. Maverick Garner was giving Allen and his fellow TV Titan Ed Sullivan plenty to worry about in the Sunday-at-8 spot. Last week, for the fifth time, ‘Maverick’ (on 7:30 to 8:30) outrode both of them in the Trendex [ratings] derby — for what that is worth (and to TV and ad moguls it still seems to be worth millions). Also, ‘Maverick’ for the first time kicked dust into the face of the almost peerless Jack Benny.”

By the end of "Maverick's" first season, Sullivan's program was down by more than 10 ratings points.

Despite the fact that Roy Huggins, who passed away 12 years ago at age 87, was so pleased with Garner’s performance as Maverick that he wanted him almost 20 years later to play the lead in “The Rockford Files,” Garner wrote in his 2011 memoir, “Roy did have a great line about me: ‘Jim Garner and I have a love/hate relationship: I love him and he hates me.’ It  wasn’t true. Roy didn’t love me at all.

“But I may not be an impartial witness. I knew more than I should about Roy because [one of my friends] was his brother-in-law. More than that I can’t say.”

Whoa! What a curveball. Garner and the man most responsible for his signature roles didn’t get along. Huggins was a huge TV talent. Besides “Maverick” and “The Rockford Files,” he created “77 Sunset  Strip,” “The Fugitive” and “Baretta.”

Raymond Strait, in his bio about Garner, says one dispute between the two men stems from the 1958 Emmys. “Maverick” won for Best Western, and Huggins went up to receive the Emmy. But instead of giving the traditional speech thanking people connected with the show, he just said “Thank You” and sat down. Huggins later explained to a number of people on the show — but not Garner — that the Emmy broadcast was running late and he was asked by the Emmy folks not to give a speech.

Later on “Rockford,” Garner, in his memoir, claims he finally fired Huggins from the show. Huggins claimed he was leaving anyway.

Ed Robertson, an author who has written books about both “Maverick” and “The Rockford Files,” is also quoted in Garner’s memoir. Robertson says, “Talk to anyone who worked with Jim, and the word 'family' will emerge almost immediately. In many cases, their association with Jim lasted several decades. No wonder they consider him, and he considers them, family.

“Roy Huggins was never part of that extended family — which seems odd at first, considering how integral Roy was to Jim’s two greatest successes.”

After explaining that Huggins worked odd hours, so he had actually little contact with Garner, Robertson says, “I respect and admire both men. Whatever personal differences kept them apart, their professional collaborations changed the face of television in two genres. Along the way, they each left their own distinctive mark, for which we should all be grateful.”

James Garner also made almost 50 movies for the big screen. I love “The Great Escape,” but Garner’s just an ensemble player in that. Garner’s favorite movie was “The Americanization of Emily,” from a script by Paddy Chayefsky. It’s easily his best film.

But it was on TV that Garner was a superstar. Not only are Maverick and Rockford his signature roles, he made some absolutely outstanding TV movies, including “Heartsounds,” “Promise,” “My Name Is Bill W” and “Barbarians at the Gate.” I highly recommend all of these TV movies, especially HBO’s “Barbarians at the Gate” from 1993. It’s based on a well-known book –  a non-fiction business book — about RJR Nabisco being bought out. I know that sounds like it might make a decent documentary, but not a very engrossing regular movie.

In fact, Garner won a Golden Globe for “Barbarians” as best actor in a TV movie. The movie also won the Golden Globe and Emmy as the best TV movie of the year. That’s primarily because of Larry Gelbart’s script. It’s a must-see that hasn’t lost any of its satirical bite. 

In his memoir — which I urge you to read in its entirety — Garner says, “If anybody asks how do you want to be remembered, I tell them ‘With a smile.’"

I also like this, from Garner’s readers note at the beginning of his memoir:

“Above all, I want you to know I have no regrets. Here’s this dumb kid from Oklahoma, raised during the Depression, comes to Hollywood, gets a career, becomes famous, makes some money, has a wonderful family … what would I change? Nothing. I wouldn’t change a thing.”




James Garner is one of the best TV actors, and had a number of movie roles as well, and in all cases he could portray a character without appearing to be “acting,” the key, and gave every impression of being a gentle and often humorous person. The writer of this article said that he was motivated by “profit, curiosity, anger, sex and self-preservation.” Being motivated by anger and sex doesn't sound completely good, but I do think those things are part of the human being's survival kit, and they are instinctive. Garner was always manly, but benign in his main TV roles, with a great deal of “sex appeal.” He also was clearly a very intelligent man, and could be very funny. I always like a comic actor more than someone who is just a standup comedian. I have seen some comedians play very convincing serious roles, including of all people, Jerry Lewis and Andy Griffith. I looked for this article when I saw an actor who looked like an unsmiling James Garner on the Perry Mason show, but I wasn't sure. Sure enough, this article names Perry Mason as one of his acting roles. Many actors did early work on Perry Mason and Gunsmoke. I have started collecting biographies on my favorite stars, and Garner was one of them. I'd like to read his memoir. See the following on Amazon: The Garner Files: A Memoir by Jon Winokur, James Garner and Julie Andrews (Oct 23, 2012).