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 by a play McGuire wrote in the early 1970s, and was first made into a screenplay in 1979 by Dick Richards, Bob Kaufman, and Robert Evans. Richards, who was selected as director, introduced the project to Hoffman, who obtained complete creative control after signing on: revisions to the screenplay and the replacement as director of Richards and his successor, Hal Ashby, by Pollack delayed the production, which began in November 1981. Principal photography took place across New York and in New Jersey, including in 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 U.S. on December 17, 1982, by Columbia Pictures to a critical and commercial success. The film grossed $241 million worldwide, becoming the third-highest-grossing film of 1982, and received critical acclaim for its humor, Hoffman's and Lange's performances, dialogue and social commentary. It was also 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 U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Plot
Michael Dorsey is a respected New York City actor who can't find employment 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 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, after an argument with his agent, Michael disguises himself as a woman named Dorothy Michaels and auditions for Southwest General. "Dorothy" 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 him and Sandy.
As Dorothy, Michael plays Emily Kimberly as a plausible feminist and ad-libs speeches and actions when he feels the script doesn't make Dorothy's points strongly enough. This surprises the other actors and the crew, who expected Dorothy to give a mild-mannered performance, in contrast to the empowered "Gloria Steinem type" the script suggests. 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 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 told Dorothy she would be receptive, she throws a drink in his face. Later, when Michael momentarily forgets himself and makes a tentative advance while still in the Dorothy persona, Julie (having just ended her relationship with Ron on Dorothy's advice) is sympathetic, but makes it known that she is not a lesbian.
Meanwhile, Dorothy contends with her own admirers: 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. When Sandy arrives, asking why he has not answered her calls, Michael admits he is in love with another woman, and Sandy breaks up with him.
Dorothy's popularity prompts the show's producers to extend her contract for a year. Michael realizes he cannot maintain the charade that long. When a technical problem forces the cast to perform live, Michael improvises the revelation that Emily is actually Edward, a twin brother who took her place to avenge her. Julie is so outraged at Michael's deception that she punches him in the stomach once the cameras stop rolling and storms off.
Weeks later, Michael is producing Jeff's play. He returns Les's engagement ring, and despite his anger at the deception, Les admits that Michael was good company as Dorothy. 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 admits she misses Dorothy. Michael tells her Dorothy is within him and he misses her too. He says, "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 engaged in conversation.
Cast
Production In the 1970s, fashion company executive Charles Evans began filmmaking, following in the path of his brother Robert Evans, the 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." In the early 1970s, Don McGuire's Would I Lie to You?, a play about an unemployed male actor who cross-dresses to find jobs, was shopped around Hollywood for years until it came to the attention of comedian and actor Buddy Hackett in 1978. Interested in playing 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,Cook, Philip S.; Gomery, Douglas; and Lichty, Lawrence Wilson (1989) American Media: The Wilson Quarterly Reader. Washington, D.C.: Wilson Center Press, p. 95, . but in 1979, he co-wrote a screenplay based on the play with director Dick Richards and screenwriter Bob Kaufman.Thompson, Kristin (2001) Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique. 2nd ed. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, p. 75, . Initially, George Hamilton was to play the lead and serve as an executive producer. Other actors Evans considered for the role included Elliott Gould, Chevy Chase, and George Segal. When Evans, at his brother Robert's suggestion, proposed a rewrite, Kaufman left the project and Hamilton moved to another film, Zorro, The Gay Blade. The lead role was then offered to Peter Sellers and Michael Caine. 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 the screenwriting, instead becoming a producer. The film was retitled Tootsie at Hoffman's suggestion, as a tribute to his mother, who used to throw him in the air and ask, "How’s my Tootsie Wootsie?!"
The film remained in development for another year as producers awaited the revised script. As pre-production began, the project was further delayed when Richards left as director over "creative differences". 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 post-production commitments on Lookin' to Get Out were not fulfilled. In an attempt to interest Sydney Pollack in directing, Hoffman asked Elaine May to work on the script. She provided a few weeks of work, adding the character Jeff Slater played by Bill Murray, and fleshing out Sandy Lester, the character played by Teri Garr, as well as suggesting Garr for the role. May was arguably the most significant of a number of writers who reworked the script (such as Barry Levinson), yet remained uncredited. In November 1981, Pollack agreed to direct and produce the film at Columbia's suggestion; his deal got him final cut as well as control over the cast and the script.
Hoffman suggested that Pollack play Michael's agent George Fields, a role written for Dabney Coleman. Pollack resisted, but Hoffman convinced him; it was Pollack's first acting work in years."How Conflict Gave Shape to 'Tootsie'." New York Times. December 19, 1982. p. 1, 16. Pollack cast Coleman as the sexist, arrogant soap opera director Ron Carlisle. Bill Murray's casting was Hoffman's idea, and he also pushed to have Polly Holliday play the soap opera producer Rita Marshall, a role that Pollack preferred to give to Doris Belack.
To prepare for his role, Hoffman watched the 1978 film La Cage aux Folles several times. He also visited the set of General Hospital for research and conducted extensive makeup tests. Hoffman has said 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. Voice, speech, and body language expert Lillian Glass taught Hoffman to speak like and have the body language of a woman.Trott, William C. "'Glimpses': Los Angeles speech pathologist Lillian Glass has worked with Hollywood clients like Dustin Hoffman to perfect his woman's voice for 'Tootsie,'." UPI.March 10, 1988. Scenes set at New York's Russian Tea Room were filmed there, with additional scenes shot in Central Park and in front of Bloomingdale's. Scenes were also filmed in Hurley, New York, and at National Video Studios in New York.Maslin, Janet. "'Tootsie': A Woman Who Is Dustin Hoffman." New York Times. July 13, 1982. Additional filming took place in Fort Lee, New Jersey.
Reception
Box office Tootsie opened in 943 theaters in the U.S. and Canada and grossed $5,540,470 during its opening weekend. After 115 days, it surpassed Close Encounters of the Third Kind as Columbia's greatest domestic hit of all time. Its final international gross in the U.S. and Canada was $177,200,000, 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.
The film grossed $63.8 million internationally and was the highest-grossing film in Germany, with a gross of $19 million. Worldwide, it grossed $241 million.
Critical response Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the a score of 88 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
Roger Ebert praised the film, awarding it four out of four stars and writing: "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."
Accolades