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Tootsie

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Not to be confused with Tootsi or Tutsi.
This article is about the film. For the musical adaptation, see Tootsie (musical). For the candy, see Tootsie Roll.
Tootsie
Theatrical release poster
Directed bySydney Pollack
Screenplay by
Story by
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyOwen Roizman
Edited by
Music byDave Grusin
Production
company
Distributed byColumbia Pictures
Release date
  • December 17, 1982 (1982-12-17)
Running time
116 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$22 million[1]
Box office$241 million

Tootsie is a 1982 American satirical romantic comedy film directed by Sydney Pollack from a screenplay by Larry Gelbart and Murray Schisgal and a story by Gelbart and Don McGuire. It stars Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Lange, Teri Garr, Dabney Coleman, and Charles Durning. In the film, Michael Dorsey (Hoffman), a talented actor with a reputation for being professionally difficult, runs into romantic trouble after adopting a female persona to land a job.

Tootsie was partly inspired from a play written by McGuire in the early 1970s, and was first made into screenplay by Dick Richards, Bob Kaufman, and Robert Evans, in 1979. Richards, who was selected as director, introduced the project to Hoffman, who obtained complete creative control after signing on: revisions to the screenplay and from Richards and his successor, Hal Ashby, being replaced by Pollack caused delays to production, which eventually began in November 1981. Principal photography took place across New York and in New Jersey, with filming locations including Manhattan, Hurley, and Fort Lee. The film's theme song, "It Might Be You", performed by Stephen Bishop, peaked at No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Tootsie was theatrically released in the United States on December 17, 1982, by Columbia Pictures. The film grossed $241 million worldwide, becoming the third-highest grossing film of 1982, and received critical acclaim for its humor, Hoffman and Lange's performances, dialogue, and social commentary. It was nominated for ten awards at the 55th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won Best Supporting Actress for Lange. In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[2]

Plot

[edit]

Michael Dorsey is a respected actor, but nobody in New York City wants to hire him because he is a perfectionist and difficult to work with. He makes ends meet by working as a server in a restaurant and teaching acting classes.

After many months without an acting job, Michael hears of an opening on the popular daytime soap opera Southwest General from his friend and acting student Sandy Lester, who unsuccessfully auditions for the role of hospital administrator Emily Kimberly. In desperation, and following an argument with his agent, Michael disguises himself as a woman named "Dorothy Michaels" and auditions for Southwest General himself, and he is cast as Emily Kimberly. Michael takes the job as a way to raise $8,000 to produce a play by his roommate Jeff Slater, which will star himself and Sandy.

As "Dorothy", Michael plays Emily Kimberly as a plausible feminist, which surprises the other actors and the crew, who expected "Dorothy" to give a mild-mannered performance, in contrast to the empowered "Gloria Steinem type" suggested in the script. His character quickly becomes a national sensation.

When Sandy catches Michael in her bedroom half undressed because he wants to try on her clothes for ideas for Dorothy's wardrobe, he covers up by claiming he wants to have sex with her. Sandy is receptive and they sleep together. Exacerbating matters further, Michael is attracted to one of his co-stars, Julie Nichols, a single mother with a daughter from a previous relationship and in an unhealthy relationship with the show's amoral, sexist director, Ron Carlisle.

At a party, when Michael (as himself) approaches Julie with a pick-up line to which she had previously told "Dorothy" she would be receptive, she throws a drink in his face. Later, as Dorothy, when he makes tentative advances, Julie (having just ended her relationship with Ron per Dorothy's advice) makes it known that she is not a lesbian.

Meanwhile, Dorothy has her own admirers to contend with: older cast member John Van Horn and Julie's widowed father, Les. Les proposes marriage, insisting that Dorothy think about it before answering. When Michael returns home, he finds John, who almost forces himself on Dorothy until Jeff walks in on them. A few minutes later, Sandy arrives, asking why he has not answered her calls. Michael admits he is in love with another woman, and Sandy screams and breaks up with him.

The tipping point comes when, due to Dorothy's popularity, the show's producers want to extend her contract for another year. Michael extricates himself when a technical problem forces the cast to perform live, by improvising a revelation about Emily: that she is actually Edward, Emily's twin brother who took her place to avenge her. This allows everybody a way out, but Julie is so outraged at Michael's deception that she punches him in the stomach once the cameras have stopped rolling and storms off.

Some weeks later, Michael is moving forward with producing Jeff's play. He returns Les's engagement ring, and Les says, "The only reason you're still living is because I never kissed you." Despite his anger, Les admits that Michael was good company as Dorothy, and Michael buys him a beer.

Michael later waits for Julie outside the studio. She is reluctant to talk to him, but he tells her that he and her father played pool and had a good time. She finally admits she misses Dorothy. Michael tells her Dorothy is within him and he misses her too. He remarks, "I was a better man with you as a woman than I ever was with a woman as a man." Julie forgives him and they walk away together, engaged in conversation.

Cast

[edit]
  • Dustin Hoffman as Michael Dorsey, an out-of-work actor who disguises himself as a woman, "Dorothy Michaels", to get a role on the soap opera Southwest General
  • Jessica Lange as Julie Nichols, an actress
  • Teri Garr as Sandy Lester, an actress
  • Dabney Coleman as Ron Carlisle, the director
  • Charles Durning as Leslie "Les" Nichols, Julie's father
  • Bill Murray as Jeff Slater, a playwright and Michael's roommate
  • Sydney Pollack as George Fields, Michael's agent
  • George Gaynes as John Van Horn, a soap opera actor
  • Geena Davis as April Page, a soap opera actress
  • Doris Belack as Rita Marshall, the producer
  • Ellen Foley as Jacqui, a production aide
  • Lynne Thigpen as Jo, a production aide
  • Amy Lawrence as Amy, Julie's daughter
  • Christine Ebersole as Linda, an actress at Michael's birthday party
  • Anne Shropshire as Mrs. Crawley, Julie's babysitter
  • Susan Egbert as Diane, Jeff's girlfriend

Production

[edit]

In the 1970s, fashion company executive Charles Evans began filmmaking, following in the path of his brother Robert Evans, a successful actor, producer and studio executive, "because I enjoy movies very much. I have the time to do it. And I believe if done wisely, it can be a profitable business."[3] In the early 1970s, Don McGuire's Would I Lie to You?, a play about an unemployed male actor who cross-dresses in order to find jobs, was shopped around Hollywood for several years until it came to the attention of comedian and actor Buddy Hackett in 1978. Interested in playing the role of the talent agent, Hackett showed Evans the script, and Evans purchased an option on the play. Delays in the film's production forced Evans to renew the option,[4] but in 1979, he cowrote a screenplay based on the play with director Dick Richards and screenwriter Bob Kaufman.[5] A few months into the process, Richards shared the screenplay with Dustin Hoffman, his partner in a company that bought and developed film-development properties. Hoffman wanted complete creative control and Evans agreed to remove himself from screenwriting tasks, instead becoming a producer of the film, which was retitled Tootsie.[4] Before Hoffman officially became involved, his role had been offered to Peter Sellers and Michael Caine.[6]

The film remained in development for another year as producers waited for a revised script.[7] As preproduction began, the project experienced additional delays when Richards left as director over "creative differences".[8] He instead became one of the film's producers, and Hal Ashby became the director. Columbia then forced Ashby to quit because of the threat of legal action that would ensue if his postproduction commitments on Lookin' to Get Out were not fulfilled.[9] Hoffman, in an attempt to get the interest of Sydney Pollack to direct, asked Elaine May, who provided a few weeks of work that added the character played by Murray to go along with suggesting Garr for a key role. May, alongside other writers who lent suggestions (such as Barry Levinson), albeit uncredited. [10][11] In November 1981, Sydney Pollack agreed to direct and produce the film at Columbia's suggestion.[12]

Hoffman suggested that Pollack play Michael's agent George Fields, a role written for Dabney Coleman. Pollack resisted the idea, but Hoffman eventually convinced him; it was Pollack's first acting work in years.[13] Pollack cast Coleman as the sexist, arrogant soap opera director Ron Carlisle.[14]

To prepare for his role, Hoffman watched the 1978 film La Cage aux Folles several times.[15] He also visited the set of General Hospital for research and conducted extensive makeup tests. Hoffman has stated that he was shocked to learn that although makeup could be used to allow him to credibly appear as a woman, he would never be a beautiful one. His epiphany occurred when he realized that although he found Dorothy interesting, he would not have spoken to her at a party because she was not beautiful, and because of this, he had missed the opportunity for many conversations with interesting women. He concluded that he had never regarded Tootsie as a comedy.[16]

Scenes set at New York's Russian Tea Room were filmed in the actual restaurant, with additional scenes shot in Central Park and in front of Bloomingdale's. Scenes were also filmed in Hurley, New York and at the National Video Studios in New York.[17] Additional filming took place in Fort Lee, New Jersey.[18]

Reception

[edit]

Box office

[edit]

Tootsie opened in 943 theaters in the United States and Canada and grossed $5,540,470 during its opening weekend.[1] After 115 days, it surpassed Close Encounters of the Third Kind as Columbia's greatest domestic hit of all time.[19] Its final international gross in the United States and Canada was $177,200,000,[1] making it the second-highest-grossing movie of 1982 after E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold more than 56.9 million tickets in the U.S.[20]

The film grossed $63.8 million internationally[21] and was the highest-grossing film in Germany, with a gross of $19 million.[22] Worldwide, it grossed 241 million dollars.

Critical response

[edit]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 91% of 53 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.8/10. The website's consensus reads: "Tootsie doesn't squander its high-concept comedy premise, with fine dialogue and sympathetic treatment of the characters"[23] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 88 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[24]

Roger Ebert praised the film, awarding it four out of four stars and observing: "Tootsie is the kind of Movie with a capital M that they used to make in the 1940s, when they weren't afraid to mix up absurdity with seriousness, social comment with farce, and a little heartfelt tenderness right in there with the laughs. This movie gets you coming and going...The movie also manages to make some lighthearted but well-aimed observations about sexism. It also pokes satirical fun at soap operas, New York show business agents and the Manhattan social pecking order."[25]

Accolades

[edit]
Award Category Nominee(s) Result Ref.
Academy Awards Best Picture Sydney Pollack and Dick Richards Nominated [26]
Best Director Sydney Pollack Nominated
Best Actor Dustin Hoffman Nominated
Best Supporting Actress Teri Garr Nominated
Jessica Lange Won
Best Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen Larry Gelbart, Murray Schisgal, and Don McGuire Nominated
Best Cinematography Owen Roizman Nominated
Best Film Editing Fredric Steinkamp and William Steinkamp Nominated
Best Original Song "It Might Be You"
Music by Dave Grusin;
Lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman 		Nominated
Best Sound Arthur Piantadosi, Les Fresholtz,
Dick Alexander, and Les Lazarowitz 		Nominated
American Cinema Editors Awards Best Edited Feature Film Fredric Steinkamp and William Steinkamp Nominated
Bambi Awards Best Film – International Jessica Lange (also for The Postman Always Rings Twice) Won
Bodil Awards Best Non-European Film Sydney Pollack Won [27]
Boston Society of Film Critics Awards Best Actor Dustin Hoffman Won [28]
Best Supporting Actress Jessica Lange Won
British Academy Film Awards Best Film Sydney Pollack and Dick Richards Nominated [29]
Best Direction Sydney Pollack Nominated
Best Actor in a Leading Role Dustin Hoffman Won[a]
Best Actress in a Leading Role Jessica Lange Nominated
Best Actress in a Supporting Role Teri Garr Nominated
Best Adapted Screenplay Larry Gelbart and Murray Schisgal Nominated
Best Costume Design Ruth Morley Nominated
Best Make-Up Artist Dorothy Pearl, George Masters,
C. Romaina Ford, and Allen Weisinger 		Won
Best Original Song Written for a Film "It Might Be You"
Music by Dave Grusin;
Lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman 		Nominated
César Awards Best Foreign Film Sydney Pollack Nominated [30]
David di Donatello Awards Best Foreign Actor Dustin Hoffman Nominated
Best Foreign Actress Jessica Lange Nominated
Directors Guild of America Awards Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures Sydney Pollack Nominated [31]
Golden Globe Awards Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy Won [32]
Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy Dustin Hoffman Won
Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture Jessica Lange Won
Best Director – Motion Picture Sydney Pollack Nominated
Best Screenplay – Motion Picture Larry Gelbart and Murray Schisgal Nominated
Golden Screen Awards Golden Screen Won
Grammy Awards Best Instrumental Composition "An Actor's Life" – Dave Grusin Nominated [33]
Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television Special Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman, and Dave Grusin Nominated
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards Best Supporting Actress Jessica Lange Won [34]
Kinema Junpo Awards Best Foreign Language Film Sydney Pollack Won
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards Best Screenplay Larry Gelbart and Murray Schisgal Won [35]
National Board of Review Awards Top Ten Films 8th Place [36]
National Film Preservation Board National Film Registry Inducted [37]
National Society of Film Critics Awards Best Film Won [38]
Best Director Sydney Pollack 2nd Place
Best Actor Dustin Hoffman Won
Best Actress Jessica Lange (also for Frances) 2nd Place
Best Supporting Actress Teri Garr 3rd Place
Jessica Lange Won
Best Screenplay Murray Schisgal and Larry Gelbart Won
New York Film Critics Circle Awards Best Film Runner-up [39]
Best Director Sydney Pollack Won
Best Actor Dustin Hoffman Runner-up
Best Supporting Actor George Gaynes Runner-up
Best Supporting Actress Jessica Lange Won
Best Screenplay Murray Schisgal and Larry Gelbart Won
Online Film & Television Association Awards Film Hall of Fame: Productions Inducted [40]
Writers Guild of America Awards Best Comedy – Written Directly for the Screen Larry Gelbart and Murray Schisgal Won [41]

In 2011, ABC aired a primetime special, Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time, that counted down the best movies chosen by fans based on results of a poll conducted by both ABC and People Weekly Magazine. Tootsie was selected as the No. 5 Best Comedy.[42]

National Film Registry — Inducted in 1998.[2]

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

Home media

[edit]

The film was first released on CED Videodisc in 1983, on VHS and Betamax videocassettes by RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video in 1985 and on DVD in 2001. These releases were distributed by Columbia TriStar Home Video. The film was also released by the Criterion Collection in a LaserDisc edition in 1992. A special 25th-anniversary edition DVD was released by Sony Pictures in 2008.[46] The film was released on Blu-ray disc in 2013, but only for selected international territories such as Germany and Japan. The film was released on Blu-ray and DVD by the Criterion Collection on December 16, 2014.[47]

Musical adaptation

[edit]
Main article: Tootsie (musical)

A stage musical of the film premiered at the Cadillac Palace Theatre in Chicago from September 11 to October 14, 2018, before opening on Broadway in the spring of 2019. The musical has music and lyrics by David Yazbek. Robert Horn wrote the book, Denis Jones choreographed and Scott Ellis directed. Santino Fontana starred as Michael Dorsey.[48] He was joined by Lilli Cooper as Julie Nichols, Sarah Stiles as Sandy Lester, John Behlmann as Max Van Horn, Andy Grotelueschen as Jeff Slater, Julie Halston as Rita Mallory, Tony Award winner Michael McGrath as Stan Fields and Tony nominee Reg Rogers as Ron Carlisle.

See also

[edit]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ Tied with Michael Caine for Educating Rita.

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c "Tootsie (1982) > Summary > Production Budget > Domestic Total Gross". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2012-08-31.
  2. ^ a b "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Retrieved February 27, 2020.
  3. ^ Eller, Claudia (July 28, 1995). "Company Town : Real Key Is How Goldwyn Is Treated". Los Angeles Times.
  4. ^ a b Cook, Philip S.; Gomery, Douglas; and Lichty, Lawrence Wilson (1989) American Media: The Wilson Quarterly Reader. Washington, D.C.: Wilson Center Press, p. 95, ISBN 0943875102.
  5. ^ Thompson, Kristin (2001) Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique. 2nd ed. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, p. 75, ISBN 0674010639.
  6. ^ Evans, Bradford (31 January 2013). "The Lost Roles of Peter Sellers". Splitsider. Archived from the original on 14 July 2015. Retrieved 15 August 2015.
  7. ^ "Marilyn Beck's Hollywood: Angie Dickinson bares all for 'Dressed to Kill role". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. July 25, 1980. p. 3. Retrieved September 30, 2013.
  8. ^ Blowen, Michael (December 12, 1982). "Dustin Hoffman tells why he was tough about 'Tootsie'". The Boston Globe. ProQuest 294165702. Retrieved September 30, 2013. [better source needed]
  9. ^ Dawson, Nick (2011). Being Hal Ashby: Life of a Hollywood Rebel. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0813134635.
  10. ^ "She Has a Name. It's Elaine. Not Tootsie or Toots or Sweetie or Hon".
  11. ^ "Why 'Tootsie' is One of the Finest (And Most Important) Comedies Ever Made". 2 January 2015.
  12. ^ Dworkin, Susan (2012). Making Tootsie: A Film Study with Dustin Hoffman and Sydney Pollack. Newmarket Press. ISBN 978-1557049667.
  13. ^ "How Conflict Gave Shape to 'Tootsie'." New York Times. December 19, 1982. p. 1, 16.
  14. ^ Morgenstern, Joe (February 8, 2008). "Sketches of Sydney Pollack". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on December 20, 2008. Retrieved February 15, 2008.
  15. ^ Beck, Marilyn (1980-04-03). "Marilyn Beck's Hollywood: Producers Finding Financing Rough". The Victoria Advocate. Victoria, Texas. p. 11D. Retrieved 2010-09-02.
  16. ^ Dustin Hoffman on TOOTSIE and his character Dorothy Michaels. American Film Institute. 2012-12-17. Retrieved 2022-02-10 – via YouTube.
  17. ^ Maslin, Janet. "'Tootsie': A Woman Who Is Dustin Hoffman." New York Times. July 13, 1982.
  18. ^ Anderson, Betsy (24 March 1991). "And the Winner Is . . . New Jersey, as a Location for Top Films". The New York Times – via NYTimes.com.
  19. ^ "'Tootsie' Windfall". Variety. April 13, 1983. p. 3.
  20. ^ "Tootsie (1982)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved May 31, 2016.
  21. ^ "'Tootsie,' 'Gandhi' Hit $120-Mil Abroad, Despite Hard Dollar Drag". Variety. June 15, 1983. p. 5.
  22. ^ "Pollack: From 'Eyes' To 'Hearts'". Variety. October 11, 1999. p. 28.
  23. ^ "Tootsie". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved September 21, 2023. Edit this at Wikidata
  24. ^ "Tootsie". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved September 21, 2023.
  25. ^ Roger Ebert (December 17, 1982). "Tootsie". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2007-12-22.
  26. ^ "The 55th Academy Awards (1983) Nominees and Winners". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on September 5, 2012. Retrieved October 9, 2011.
  27. ^ "The Bodil Prize 1983". Bodil Awards. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  28. ^ "BSFC Winners: 1980s". Boston Society of Film Critics. 27 July 2018. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  29. ^ "BAFTA Awards: Film in 1984". British Academy Film Awards. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  30. ^ "The 1984 César Awards". César Awards. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  31. ^ "35th Annual DGA Awards". Directors Guild of America Awards. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  32. ^ "Tootsie". Golden Globe Awards. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  33. ^ "26th Annual GRAMMY Awards". Grammy Awards. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  34. ^ "KCFCC Award Winners – 1980-89". Kansas City Film Critics Circle. 14 December 2013. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  35. ^ "The 8th Annual Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards". Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  36. ^ "1982 Award Winners". National Board of Review. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  37. ^ "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  38. ^ "Past Awards". National Society of Film Critics. 19 December 2009. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  39. ^ "1982 New York Film Critics Circle Awards". Mubi. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  40. ^ "Film Hall of Fame: Productions". Online Film & Television Association. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  41. ^ "Awards Winners". Writers Guild of America Awards. Archived from the original on December 5, 2012. Retrieved June 6, 2010.
  42. ^ "Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time". ABC News. March 16, 2011.
  43. ^ "AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies" (PDF). American Film Institute. Retrieved July 16, 2016.
  44. ^ "AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs" (PDF). American Film Institute. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 24, 2016. Retrieved July 16, 2016.
  45. ^ "AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)" (PDF). American Film Institute. Retrieved July 16, 2016.
  46. ^ "Tootsie - 25th Anniversary Edition". DVD Talk. 5 February 2008. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
  47. ^ "Tootsie (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] [2016]". Amazon UK. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
  48. ^ McPhee, Ryan. " 'Tootsie' Musical, Starring Santino Fontana, Will Play Chicago Before 2019 Broadway Premiere" Playbill, January 24, 2018
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