Tootsie

Tootsie Information

Tootsie is a 1982 American comedy film that tells the story of a talented but volatile actor whose reputation for being difficult forces him to adopt a new identity as a woman to land a job. The movie stars Dustin Hoffman, with a supporting cast that includes Jessica Lange, Teri Garr, Dabney Coleman, Charles Durning, Geena Davis, Bill Murray, Doris Belack and producer/director Sydney Pollack. Tootsie was adapted by Larry Gelbart, Barry Levinson (uncredited), Elaine May (uncredited) and Murray Schisgal from the story by Gelbart.

In 1998 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. The theme song to the film, "It Might Be You," which was sung by singer-songwriter Stephen Bishop, whose music was composed by Dave Grusin, and whose lyrics were written by Marilyn and Alan Bergman, was a Top 40 hit in the U.S., and also hit 1 on the U.S. adult contemporary chart.

Jessica Lange won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Julie Nichols. The movie earned a total of ten Academy Awards nominations and in 2000 the American Film Institute ranked Tootsie as the second funniest film of all time.

Plot

Michael Dorsey (Dustin Hoffman) is a respected but perfectionist actor. Nobody in New York wants to hire him anymore because it is difficult to work with him. According to his long-suffering agent George Fields (Sydney Pollack), Michael's attention to detail and difficult reputation got him fired from playing a tomato in a television commercial, because the idea of a tomato sitting down was "illogical" to him. After many months without a job, Michael hears of an opening on the soap opera Southwest General from his friend and acting student Sandy Lester (Teri Garr), who tries out for the role of a hospital administrator but does not get it. In desperation, he dresses as a woman, auditions as "Dorothy Michaels" and wins the part. Michael takes the job as a way to raise $8,000 to produce a play, written by his roommate Jeff Slater (Bill Murray), titled Return To Love Canal. Michael acts out his character as a feisty, feminist administrator, which surprises the other actors and crew who expected her to be another swooning female in the plot. Over time, however, his character becomes a television sensation.

When Sandy catches Michael in her bedroom half undressed (he wanted to try on her clothes in order to get more ideas for Dorothy's outfits), he covers up by professing he wants to have sex with her. They have sex despite his better judgment about her self-esteem issues. Michael believes Sandy is too emotionally fragile to handle the truth about him winning the part of Dorothy, especially after noticing her strong resentment of Dorothy getting the part. Their relationship, combined with his deception, complicates his now busy schedule. Exacerbating matters further, he is strongly attracted to one of his co-stars, lovely, soft-spoken Julie Nichols (Jessica Lange), a single mother in an unhealthy relationship with the show's amoral, sexist director, Ron Carlisle (Dabney Coleman). At a party, when Michael (as himself) approaches Julie with a line that she had previously told Dorothy to which she would be receptive, she throws a drink in his face. Later, as Dorothy, when he makes tentative advances, Julie is shocked and later tells Dorothy that she likes "her," but not in a romantic way.

Meanwhile, Dorothy has her own admirers to contend with: older cast member John Van Horn (George Gaynes) and Julie's widowed father Les (Charles Durning). John follows Dorothy home and almost forces himself on her, stopped only by Jeff walking in on them; Les even proposes marriage to Dorothy. Jeff and George are in on the masquerade and watch in amazement as the situation escalates out of control. The tipping point comes when, due to Dorothy's popularity, the show's producers want to extend her contract for another year. Michael finds a clever way to extricate himself. When the cast is forced to perform the show live, he improvises a grand speech on camera, pulls off his wig and reveals that he is actually the character's twin brother who took her place to avenge her. Sandy, Les, and Jeff, who are all watching at home, have varying reactions of shock, the exception being Jeff, who simply remarks, "That...is one nutty hospital." The revelation allows everybody a more-or-less graceful way out. Julie, however, is so outraged that she slugs him in the stomach off-camera. Some weeks later, Michael awkwardly makes peace with Les in a bar, and Les shows tentative support for Michael's attraction to Julie. Later, Michael waits for Julie outside the studio. Julie resists talking but finally admits she misses Dorothy. Michael confesses, "I was a better man with you as a woman than I ever was with a woman as a man." At that, she forgives him and they walk off, Julie asking him to lend her a dress.

Cast

Dustin Hoffman as Michael Dorsey / Dorothy Michaels
Jessica Lange as Julie Nichols
Teri Garr as Sandy Lester
Dabney Coleman as Ron Carlisle
Charles Durning as Leslie "Les" Nichols
Bill Murray as Jeff Slater
Sydney Pollack as George Fields
George Gaynes as John Van Horn
Geena Davis as April Page
Doris Belack as Rita Marshall
Lynne Thigpen as Jo
Estelle Getty as Middle Aged Woman
Willy Switkes as Man at Cab

Academy Awards

The film was nominated for ten Academy Awards; Lange was the only winner, for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.

The other nominations were:

Best Picture: Sydney Pollack and Dick Richards
Best Actor in a Leading Role: Dustin Hoffman
Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Teri Garr
Best Director: Sydney Pollack
Best Original Screenplay: Larry Gelbart, Murray Schisgal and Don McGuire
Best Original Song ("It Might Be You"): Dave Grusin (music), Alan Bergman (lyrics) and Marilyn Bergman (lyrics)
Best Sound: Arthur Piantadosi, Les Fresholtz, Dick Alexander and Les Lazarowitz
Best Cinematography: Owen Roizman
Best Film Editing: Fredric Steinkamp and William Steinkamp

Production

In the 1970s, fashion company executive Charles Evans decided to get into movie-making. It was an industry which his brother, Robert Evans, was successful in as an actor, producer, and studio executive. Evans told the Los Angeles Times in 1995 that he got into producing "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." His first foray into film production was a massive success. Playwright Don McGuire had written a play in the early 1970s about an unemployed male actor who cross-dresses in order to get jobs. Titled Would I Lie to You?, the play was shopped around Hollywood for several years until it came to the attention of comedian and actor Buddy Hackett in 1978. Hackett, interested in playing the role of the talent agent, showed the script to Evans. Evans purchased an option on the play. (Delays in the film's production forced Evans to renew the option once or twice.) During 1979, Evans co-wrote a screenplay based on the film with director Dick Richards and screenwriter Bob Kaufman. A few months into the writing process, Richards showed it to actor Dustin Hoffman, his partner in a company which bought and developed properties for development into films, but Hoffman wanted complete creative control, and Evans agreed to remove himself from screenwriting tasks. Instead, Evans became a producer on the film, which was renamed Tootsie.

The idea of having director Sydney Pollack acting out Hoffman's agent, George Fields, was Hoffman's. Originally the role was written for, and to be acted out by, Dabney Coleman. Pollack initially resisted the idea, but Hoffman eventually convinced him to take the role; it was Pollack's first acting work in years. Afterwards, Pollack still wanted to keep Coleman on board, and recast him, as the sexist, arrogant soap opera director Ron Carlisle.

To prepare for his role, Hoffman watched the film La Cage aux Folles several times. He also visited the set of General Hospital for research.

Scenes set in the New York City Russian Tea Room were filmed in the actual restaurant.

Reception

Roger Ebert praised the film, giving it 4 out of 4 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.

Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an 88% "Certified Fresh" rating.

Its opening weekend gross in the United States was $5,540,470. Its final gross in the United States was $177,200,000, making it the second highest grossing movie of 1982 after E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

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 5 Best Comedy.

Video releases

The film was first released on CED Videodisc in 1983, on VHS by RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video in 1985 and on DVD in 2001. These releases were distributed by Columbia Tristar Home Video. A special 25th Anniversary edition DVD, released by Sony Pictures, arrived in 2008.