Basil Hoffman
Encyclopedia
Basil Hoffman is an American
actor
. He has had a film and TV career spanning five decades mostly in supporting roles. He has 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.
, Mario Monicelli
, Richard Benjamin
, Carl Reiner
(twice), Peter Medak
(four times) and Alan J. Pakula
(twice); Academy Award winners Steven Spielberg
, Delbert Mann
, Blake Edwards
, Stanley Donen
, Sydney Pollack
, Ron Howard
and Robert Redford
(twice as director); and many others. His films include: All the President's Men
, Close Encounters of the Third Kind
, Ordinary People
, and My Favorite Year
.
He was born in Houston, Texas
. He graduated from Tulane University
with a B.B.A. in economics; 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, two television movies, television episodes of Kung Fu
, Rockford Files, Sanford and Son
, Police Woman
and M*A*S*H, and several commercials.
Following one brief return to New York for One Life to Live, he moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Since then, although most of his work has been in film and television, he has 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.
A long-time private acting teacher and coach, he has also been a frequent guest lecturer and teacher at prestigious professional and academic institutions, including (among many others) the American Film Institute
, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts
, 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.
He is a former member of the Board of Directors of Screen Actors Guild
and the Fine Arts Advisory Council of Loyola Marymount University
. He is an Advisory Director of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and is a member of both the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
.
He is also the author of the acting textbooks, Cold Reading And How to Be Good At It, and Acting and How To Be Good At It, as well as the second edition with a foreword by Sydney Pollack
.
He will star in the upcoming movie Geezers!.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
. He has had a film and TV career spanning five decades mostly in supporting roles. He has starred in films with many award-winning directors, including Alan Pakula and Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
. He has also authored two books about acting, including Acting and How to Be Good at It.
Biography
Basil Hoffman is best known for his work with distinguished film directors, including Peter BogdanovichPeter Bogdanovich
Peter Bogdanovich is an American film historian, director, writer, actor, producer, and critic. He was part of the wave of "New Hollywood" directors, which included William Friedkin, Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Michael Cimino, and Francis Ford Coppola...
, Mario Monicelli
Mario Monicelli
Mario Monicelli was an Italian director and screenwriter and one of the masters of the Commedia all'Italiana , three times nominated for Oscar.-Biography:...
, Richard Benjamin
Richard Benjamin
Richard Benjamin is an American actor and film director. He has starred in a number of productions, including Goodbye, Columbus , based on the novella by Philip Roth, and Westworld .-Life and career:...
, Carl Reiner
Carl Reiner
Carl Reiner is an American actor, film director, producer, writer and comedian. He has won nine Emmy Awards and one Grammy Award during this career...
(twice), Peter Medak
Peter Medak
Peter Medak is a Hungarian-born film director of British and American films.-Early life:He was born in Budapest, Hungary to a Jewish family, but in 1956 fled his native country for England due to the Hungarian Revolution...
(four times) and Alan J. Pakula
Alan J. Pakula
Alan Jay Pakula was an American film director, writer and producer noted for his contributions to the conspiracy thriller genre.-Career:...
(twice); Academy Award winners Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
, Delbert Mann
Delbert Mann
Delbert Martin Mann, Jr. was an American television and film director. He won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Director for the film Marty...
, Blake Edwards
Blake Edwards
Blake Edwards was an American film director, screenwriter and producer.Edwards' career began in the 1940s as an actor, but he soon turned to writing radio scripts at Columbia Pictures...
, Stanley Donen
Stanley Donen
Stanley Donen ; is an American film director and choreographer whose most celebrated works are Singin' in the Rain and On the Town, both of which he co-directed with Gene Kelly. His other noteworthy films include Royal Wedding, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Funny Face, Indiscreet, Damn...
, Sydney Pollack
Sydney Pollack
Sydney Irwin Pollack was an American film director, producer and actor. Pollack studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City, where he later taught acting...
, Ron Howard
Ron Howard
Ronald William "Ron" Howard is an American actor, director, and producer. He came to prominence as a child actor, playing Opie Taylor in the sitcom The Andy Griffith Show for eight years, and later the teenaged Richie Cunningham in the sitcom Happy Days for six years...
and Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
(twice as director); and many others. His films include: All the President's Men
All the President's Men
All the President's Men is a 1974 non-fiction book by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, two of the journalists investigating the first Watergate break-in and ensuing scandal for The Washington Post. The book chronicles the investigative reporting of Woodward and Bernstein from Woodward's initial...
, Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a 1977 science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg. The film stars Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, and Cary Guffey...
, Ordinary People
Ordinary People
Ordinary People is a 1980 American drama film that marked the directorial debut of Robert Redford. It stars Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Judd Hirsch and Timothy Hutton....
, and My Favorite Year
My Favorite Year
My Favorite Year is a 1982 American comedy film directed by Richard Benjamin which tells the story of a young comedy writer. It stars Peter O'Toole, Mark Linn-Baker, Jessica Harper, Joseph Bologna, Lou Jacobi, Bill Macy, Lainie Kazan, Selma Diamond, Cameron Mitchell, and Gloria Stuart. O'Toole was...
.
He was born in Houston, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
. He graduated from Tulane University
Tulane University
Tulane University is a private, nonsectarian research university located in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States...
with a B.B.A. in economics; and he spent two years at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts
American Academy of Dramatic Arts
The American Academy of Dramatic Arts is a fully accredited two-year conservatory with facilities located in Manhattan, New York City – at 120 Madison Avenue, in a landmark building designed by noted architect Stanford White as the original Colony Club – and in Hollywood, California...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, 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
One Life to Live
One Life to Live is an American soap opera which debuted on July 15, 1968 and has been broadcast on the ABC television network. Created by Agnes Nixon, the series was the first daytime drama to primarily feature racially and socioeconomically diverse characters and consistently emphasize social...
on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
, hundreds of commercials and a film role in Lady Liberty
Lady Liberty (film)
Lady Liberty is a 1972 French-Italian comedy film directed by Mario Monicelli and starring Sophia Loren, William Devane, Gigi Proietti, Susan Sarandon and Danny DeVito.-Plot summary:...
with Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren, OMRI is an Italian actress.In 1962, Loren won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Two Women, along with 21 awards, becoming the first actress to win an Academy Award for a non-English-speaking performance...
, directed by Mario Monicelli.
He made his first trip to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
in 1974. In that season, he filmed a theatrical feature, At Long Last Love
At Long Last Love
At Long Last Love is an American motion picture musical that was released in 1975. It was written, produced and directed by Peter Bogdanovich and stars Burt Reynolds and Cybill Shepherd....
, for Peter Bogdanovich, two television movies, television episodes of Kung Fu
Kung Fu (TV series)
Kung Fu is an American television series that starred David Carradine. It was created by Ed Spielman, directed and produced by Jerry Thorpe, and developed by Herman Miller, who was also a writer for, and co-producer of, the series...
, Rockford Files, Sanford and Son
Sanford and Son
Sanford and Son is an American sitcom, based on the BBC's Steptoe and Son, that ran on the NBC television network from January 14, 1972, to March 25, 1977....
, Police Woman
Police Woman (TV series)
Police Woman is an American television police drama starring Angie Dickinson that ran on NBC for four seasons, from September 13, 1974, to March 29, 1978.-Synopsis:...
and M*A*S*H, and several commercials.
Following one brief return to New York for One Life to Live, he moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Since then, although most of his work has been in film and television, he has made a few stage appearances, most notably in Sand Mountain, by Romulus Linney
Romulus Linney (playwright)
Romulus Zachariah Linney IV was an American playwright and professor.-Life and career:Linney was born in Philadelphia, the son of Maitland Clabaugh and Romulus Zachariah Linney III. His great-grandfather was Republican Congressman Romulus Zachariah Linney. Linney was raised in Boone, North...
, for which he won a Drama-Logue Award
Drama-Logue Award
The Drama-Logue Award was a theater award established in 1977, given by the publishers of Drama-Logue newspaper, a weekly west-coast theater trade publication. Winners were selected by the publication's theater critics, and would receive a certificate at an annual awards ceremony...
, the first staged reading of Martin E. Brooks
Martin E. Brooks
Martin E. Brooks is an American character actor known for playing scientist Dr. Rudy Wells in the television series The Six Million Dollar Man and its spin-off, The Bionic Woman, from 1975 onward .Brooks reprised the role of Wells in three television movies: The Return of the...
’ Joe and Flo at the Actors Studio, and the world premiere of William Blinn
William Blinn
William Frederick Blinn is an American screenwriter and television producer.-Career:Born in Toledo, Ohio, Blinn began his career in television in the 1960s. As a screenwriter, Blinn has written episodes of Rawhide, Here Come the Brides, Gunsmoke, The Rookies, and Fame...
's Walking Peoria.
A long-time private acting teacher and coach, he has also been a frequent guest lecturer and teacher at prestigious professional and academic institutions, including (among many others) the American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts
American Academy of Dramatic Arts
The American Academy of Dramatic Arts is a fully accredited two-year conservatory with facilities located in Manhattan, New York City – at 120 Madison Avenue, in a landmark building designed by noted architect Stanford White as the original Colony Club – and in Hollywood, California...
, the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
, Confederation College
Confederation College
Confederation College is a provincially funded college of applied arts and technology located in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. It was established in 1967, and has area campuses in Dryden, Fort Frances, Geraldton, Kenora, Marathon, Sioux Lookout, Red Lake and Wawa. The college, with its area...
in Thunder Bay
Thunder Bay
-In Canada:Thunder Bay is the name of three places in the province of Ontario, Canada along Lake Superior:*Thunder Bay District, Ontario, a district in Northwestern Ontario*Thunder Bay, a city in Thunder Bay District*Thunder Bay, Unorganized, Ontario...
, Ontario, Canada, and the Academie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts
Académie libanaise des beaux-arts
LAcadémie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts is a Lebanese institution.Founded in 1937, it is exlusively dedicated to teaching fine arts in Lebanon. In 1943 ,it became the first Lebanese school of Architecture.-External links:*...
in Beirut
Beirut
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
, 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
University of Balamand
The University of Balamand is a private, secular university located at El-Koura, Lebanon. It was founded by the Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius IV of Antioch in 1988...
's Academie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts, Lebanese University, Notre Dame University and St. Joseph University's Institut D'Etude Sceniques Audiovisuelles et Cinematographiques.
He is a former member of the Board of Directors of Screen Actors Guild
Screen Actors Guild
The Screen Actors Guild is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide...
and the Fine Arts Advisory Council of Loyola Marymount University
Loyola Marymount University
Loyola Marymount University is a comprehensive co-educational private Roman Catholic university in the Jesuit and Marymount traditions located in Los Angeles, California, United States...
. He is an Advisory Director of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and is a member of both the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences was founded in 1946, just one month after network television was born. It is a nonprofit organization devoted to the advancement of telecommunications arts and sciences and to fostering creative leadership in the telecommunications industry...
and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...
.
He is also the author of the acting textbooks, Cold Reading And How to Be Good At It, and Acting and How To Be Good At It, as well as the second edition with a foreword by Sydney Pollack
Sydney Pollack
Sydney Irwin Pollack was an American film director, producer and actor. Pollack studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City, where he later taught acting...
.
He will star in the upcoming movie Geezers!.
External links
- Basil Hoffman at IMDb
- http://basilhoffman.nowcasting.com/