“The Graduate,” “Marathon Man,” “Kramer vs. Kramer,” “Tootsie,” “Rain Man,” “Hook” – American actor Dustin Hoffman has been one of Hollywood’s most successful and popular stars for decades. Hoffman, who turns 90 next year, looks back on his life and career in his memoir. Titled “Look at Me,” the book will be published internationally on November 10 and 11. Goldmann, a Penguin Random House imprint, has acquired the German-language rights to the memoir, which Hoffman wrote with American journalist Ariel Levy.
A passionate and entertaining storyteller
In “Look at Me,” Dustin Hoffman describes, among other things, how he prepared for his roles. He recounts growing up in a lower-middle-class Jewish family in Los Angeles in the 1940s. In his twenties, he moved to New York City, full of passion, and by the late 1960s, “Life” magazine had hailed him as the “voice of his generation.” Over the following decades, Hoffman demonstrated his talent and versatility in some of the 20th century’s most famous films. Goldmann describes Hoffman as a passionate, entertaining, and deeply empathetic storyteller who reflects on the meaning of life as he approaches his 90th birthday.
“I remember someone once writing in a review that my career tells the story of my generation,” Dustin Hoffman writes in the foreword to “Look at Me.” “You could just as well say that it tells the story of what it was like to be alive at a particular time. ‘Midnight Cowboy,’ ‘Lenny,’ ‘All the President’s Men,’ ‘Marathon Man,’ ‘Kramer vs. Kramer,’ ‘Tootsie,’ ‘Rain Man,’ ‘Wag the Dog,’ even ‘Meet the Fockers.’ It’s uncanny how many of these films seem to have become emblematic of their time.”
Two-time Oscar winner
Born in Los Angeles in 1937, Dustin Hoffman is regarded as one of the most acclaimed actors of our time. His international breakthrough came in 1967 with “The Graduate.” He has won multiple Golden Globe Awards and two Oscars, for “Kramer vs. Kramer” and “Rain Man.” Hoffman is married to entrepreneur and designer Lisa Hoffman and has six children. Journalist Ariel Levy joined “The New Yorker” as a staff writer in 2008 and won the National Magazine Award for Essays and Criticism in 2014.
