1938-01-18 ( 87 years old ) in Houston, Texas, USA
Basil Harry Hoffman (January 18, 1938 — September 17, 2021) was an American actor with a film and television career spanning five decades, mostly in supporting roles. He starred in films with many award-winning directors, including Alan Pakula and Robert Redford. He has also authored two books about acting, including Acting and How to Be Good at It.
Hoffman was born in Houston, Texas in January 1938, the son of Beulah (née Novoselsky) and David Hoffman, an antique dealer. He graduated from Tulane University; and he spent two years at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, receiving a scholarship for the second, graduating year.
His thirteen years of work in New York included many plays, some roles in episodic television, a recurring character on One Life to Live on ABC, hundreds of commercials and a film role in Lady Liberty with Sophia Loren, directed by Mario Monicelli.
He made his first trip to Los Angeles in 1974. In that season, he filmed a theatrical feature, At Long Last Love, for Peter Bogdanovich. In the years that followed he appeared in two television movies, television episodes of Kung Fu, The Rockford Files, Sanford and Son (2 roles), Police Woman, Columbo, Kojak, M*A*S*H (2 roles), Barney Miller and several TV commercials. He had recurring roles as the fingerprint technician on Ellery Queen and as Principal Dingleman on Square Pegs.
Although most of his work was in film and television, he made a few stage appearances, most notably in Sand Mountain, by Romulus Linney, for which he won a Drama-Logue Award, the first staged reading of Martin E. Brooks’ Joe and Flo at the Actors Studio, and the world premiere of William Blinn's Walking Peoria.
He was best known for his work with distinguished film directors, including Peter Bogdanovich, Mario Monicelli, Richard Benjamin, Carl Reiner (twice), Peter Medak (six times) and Alan J. Pakula (twice); Academy Award winners Joel and Ethan Coen, Paolo Sorrentino, Michel Hazanavicius, Steven Spielberg, Delbert Mann, Blake Edwards, Stanley Donen, Sydney Pollack, Ron Howard and Robert Redford (twice as director); and others. His films include: All the President's Men, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, My Favorite Year, The Box, The Electric Horseman, Night Shift, Lucky Lady, Switch, The Milagro Beanfield War, Rio, I Love You, The Pineville Heist, and the Academy Award-winning Best Pictures Ordinary People and The Artist, among many others.
A long-time private acting teacher and coach, he was also a frequent guest lecturer and teacher at prestigious professional and academic institutions, including the American Film Institute, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Emerson College, the University of Southern California, Confederation College in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, and the Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts in Beirut, Lebanon.
In 2008, he returned to Beirut as a U.S. State Department Cultural Envoy to Lebanon to teach acting and directing at the University of Balamand's Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts, Lebanese University, Notre Dame University and St. Joseph University's Institut D'Etude Sceniques Audiovisuelles et Cinematographiques. ...
Source: Article "Basil Hoffman" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Movies
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Lucky Louie
2023-05-02
Third Act
2022-01-01
Mr. Roberts
2019-05-17
The Last Word
2017-03-03
Mommy I Didn't Do It
2017-01-01
The Pineville Heist
2016-04-06
Hail, Caesar!
2016-02-05
The French American
2015-10-15
Throwdown
2014-12-31
Rio, I Love You
2014-09-12
3 Geezers!
2013-05-22
Surreal Estate
2011-10-20
The Artist
2011-10-12
When Life Gives You Lemons
2010-01-01
The Box
2009-10-29
Down with Love
2003-05-08
Hefner: Unauthorized
1999-12-08
Culture
1997-10-01
The Elvira Show
1993-01-01
The Ice Runner
1992-01-01
Mimi & Me
1991-09-07
Switch
1991-05-10
Lambada
1990-03-16
Communion
1989-11-10
The Milagro Beanfield War
1988-03-18
The Ratings Game
1984-12-15
All of Me
1984-09-21
Welcome Home, Jellybean
1984-03-24
Games Mother Never Taught You
1982-11-27
My Favorite Year
1982-10-01
Night Shift
1982-07-30
Scout's Honor
1980-09-30
Ordinary People
1980-09-19
The Electric Horseman
1979-12-21
Love at First Bite
1979-04-26
Jennifer: A Woman’s Story
1979-03-05
Comes a Horseman
1978-10-25
Love’s Dark Ride
1978-04-02
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
1977-12-14
All the President's Men
1976-04-09
America on Parade
1976-04-03
Ellery Queen: Too Many Suspects
1975-03-23
Cage Without a Key
1975-03-14
At Long Last Love
1975-03-01
The Great Ice Rip-Off
1974-11-06
Lady Liberty
1971-12-22
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