By sheer alignment of the planets I saw an incredible production of Arthur Miller’s, “A View From the Bridge” at the Circle on the Square in The Village in June, ’65, just after my sophomore year in college. Loved it. Years later I came across the ‘paper’ from that night: Lordy, no wonder it was impressive. John Voight & Robert Duval in the cast and Dustin was Assistant Director!! ALL unknowns at the time except by stage insiders in NYC.

I didn’t particularly like “Tootsie” either. For one thing, I didn’t think Hoffman was believable as a woman for a single second, so the whole premise didn’t work for me. As comedy it left a lot to be desired, too.

But my least favorite Hoffman offering was probably his turn as Willy Loman in “Death of a Salesman.” I like the play, but detested that movie. The only thing more absurd in it than Hoffman as Loman was John Malkovich as Biff. Completely miscast.

I thought Tootsie was stupid.

Separated at birth – Dustin Hoffman and Paul Anka?

But he certainly does bear a resemblance to his father alright.

Hey that reminds me, I loaned out a DVD copy of Straw Dogs and never got it back …

I wonder if that film would even get made these days, now that “gender-bending” has become such a charged issue.

Bancroft was 36 years old when she made “The Graduate.”

Hoffman was 30.

Not just in the graduate – Dustin Hoffman always seemed that way to me – good-looking or not; whiney and childish is not endearing.