Tootsie was released 35 years ago today

Should have been my Oscar for playing Robin Williams' mother! It took hours in make up!

(And you actually see cocks in our movie)

It Might Be You is one of the best soundtrack songs ever.

Dabney and Geena had such good chemistry they almost immediately did a series together.

[quote] Producers hired Holly Woodlawn, to coach Dustin Hoffman in the art of being a man acting as a woman.

And who was responsible for this which aired less than a month later?

“You were a tomato! A tomato doesn't have logic. A tomato can't move!”

Jessica's Oscar is rightfully mine.

My all-time favorite comedy film. Should have won Best Picture and Best Actor Oscars.

OP, the opening scene is not Michael dressing as Dorothy. It's the actor making himself up for a role, set to Grusin's "An Actor's Life." It's intercut with scenes of Michael working/Auditioning/quitting jobs.

Hoffman certainly learned well what women experience with men.

It certainly made him sensitive to how women are treated in social situations and how they are treated in the workplace.

[quote] It certainly made him sensitive to how women are treated in social situations and how they are treated in the workplace.

which allowed him to offer his girls tips. That's "tips".

[quote]Jessica's Oscar is rightfully mine.

No, dear. That Oscar was Terri's and she would have nabbed it if that ham Meryl Streep hadn't stolen Best Actress from Jessica.

I love this movie but not the title. I don't really get why it was called Tootsie, even though Dabney Coleman does say it once.

[quote]I don't really get why it was called Tootsie

Apparently, it's an in-joke; it was the name Hoffman's mother gave him as a child:

"Lillian Hoffman would throw little Dustin into the air and say, “How’s my tootsie wootsie?” Dustin called his mother “the heart” of the movie, and she looked forward to seeing it. Sadly, she suffered a fatal stroke while the film was still in pre-production."

"Tootsie" was nominated for 10 Oscars and won 1:

Best Supporting Actress - Jessica Lange

It’s a great title.

[quote]Coleman referred to the experience as “a pain in the a**,” and claimed that on his last day on set, Pollack said, “Thank God no one will see this piece of sh*t.” Coleman then conceded they were both wrong, calling Tootsie unquestionably one of the greatest comedies in the last 50 years.

I am probably alone in this, but I didn't think Dustin Hoffman deserved that Oscar. No way would his mannered and heavily pancaked Dorothy have fooled anyone. But then I'm not a fan of his by any means. I find him hammy and self-conscious at all times, except maybe in "The Graduate."

It makes me laugh to think of the blowback if they tried to make this movie today.

I saw it on Christmas Day 1982 with my family. We all loved it.

r17, Dustin Hoffman did not win for Tootsie.

Every time I see Betsy Devos I think she looks like Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie.

You're right. The skinny brown man in a dress won.

Oh, I thought people were saying that he should have gotten it, though, R20. Let me change that to "I don't think Dustin Hoffman deserves all that praise for 'Tootsie', " then.

"Hwoman" is the fourth gender.

So which TOOTSIE actress did sex pest Hoffman forcibly finger-bang? Jessica Lange? Teri Garr? Geena Davis? Doris Belack?

The whole premise is just so stupid, that he successfully duped them dressing up as a woman. Like no one wouldn't notice.

I agree that Terri should have gotten the Oscar over Jessica. Garr made a gem out of a throwaway character. Lange did nothing notable with her role other than be blonde and pretty.

Love this movie. So well-written and so well acted, and so very funny. One of my few favorites. They don't make 'em like this anymore.

Dabney and Genna were banging around the time of this movie. I used to see them Sunday mornings very early when my Dad took me to breakfast in Studio City.

Who was Dustin Hoffman groping 35 years ago? Another 15 year old maybe?

I love this. SCTV nailed Dustin Hoffman many years before he was exposed.

No r25, it was me. On Sal's nights off, of course.

You slut!

I adored this movie, thought it was perfection and that all of the actors and actresses were superb. I was very sad to read about how playing the role did not raise Dustin's respect for women, and how much he continued to harass and exploit them.

Anna Craig from One Life To Live was in Tootsie.

Dustin likes to get his tootsies massaged.

Really Dustin?

Always makes me laugh.

That was horrible, R38. Phenomenally bad. I’m still cringing. I can’t believe what was acceptable in the 1980s.

[quote]Jessica's Oscar is rightfully mine. —Lesley Anne Warren

I absolutely agree.

Worst comedy since How Sweet it Is.

Hoffman is about as convincing as a woman as Rod Steiger would be. Terri Garr was the only good thing in the movie.

So who came up with Billy Sol Hurock?

I remember all the hype about how hard Hoffman worked to be convincing as a woman and how convincing he turned out to be. Then when everyone saw the movie, he turned out to be completely unconvincing . And the conceit of the soap sometimes shooting live was just weird.

It was never a good film.

The biggest problem is that the plot is completely predictable at every stage. The possibilities were huge for where this could go and it went nowhere.

Loved the film then. Love it now.

Perfection.

I've never understood the appeal. Extremely overrated film.

I think I laughed the hardest at Bill Murray's "Mom?" when Dustin Hoffman, in Dorothy drag, was trying to wake Bill up.

“Michael, dear god I BEGGED you to get therapy.”

A million times better than the dreadful Soapdish.

[quote] So which TOOTSIE actress did sex pest Hoffman forcibly finger-bang? Jessica Lange? Teri Garr? Geena Davis? Doris Belack?

I tried. Man, how I tried.

I've always loved this movie. Pissed at Dustin being such a sex pest that he may have ruined it for me.

It’s sad that all of Dustin’s movies are forever tainted now since he is a serial sexual harasser

Tootsie is so much funnier and smarter than Victor/Victoria , Soap Dish and any number of "beloved" comedies from the 1980s.

Soap dish was 1991...just sayin...

What R51 said.

Jessie was beautiful, though.

Bill Murray was sexy cute.

Soap Dish felt like it was made in the 1980s.

He was believable as a woman back then. People weren't as skilled as identifying cross-dressers and transexuals as they are now, due to lack of media exposure.

yes r56 '90-91' style was still stuck in the 80's, it took Nirvana to change that.

Didn’t see it on opening day but in early spring of ‘83 on a double bill with “Victor/Victoria” at the local art house. Vastly preferred “Victor/Victoria” and still do.

R57, no. Lots of people saw the movie "back then" and one of the big topics of discussion whenever the movie came up was how unconvincing Hoffman was as a woman. Even people who loved the film thought he was not convincing.

We just said this in conversation because there was no Facebook or DL to post to.

OK r60, but if you compare it to something like Some Like It Hot, Tootsie requires a lot less suspension of disbelief.

Black and white films are in themselves stylized (for one obvious reason), so it's easier to accept when they have a less realistic narrative.

This is not an actual theory (I think), just something I believe.

She may not have been the most lissome thing around, but it's not impossible to find a woman with that build and physiognomy.

I am a film lover and Tootsie is up there in my top two favourite films of all time (other is Jaws).

It’s so well paced. I feel Hoffman should have won best actor, but the academy are always sniffy over awarding overtly comic performances. I also agree that out of Lange and Garr (for best supporting actress) Garr should have won. That character would have been entirely forgettable (as written) had another actress played that part. But notice how Garr flavours her entire performance as this poor insecure woman who stumbles (unwittingly) into Dorsey’s Double life.

It’s just a great movie where actors, director, script, score and look all come together to make a perfect film.

In Some Like it Hot Wilder's direction has such a light touch you easily go along with the premise. When I was watching Tootsie I was thinking if anybody thought Hoffman was a woman they would have had to have been out of their minds.

It took me completely out of the movie. Perhaps this was intentional. If Hoffman could convincingly play a woman it would have turned the majority of moviegoers off.

Men looking ugly as women is funny. Men looking like they could really pass as a woman is not.

One of my favourite movies.

And the great joke at the end of Some Like It Hot is that at least one person knew they were men all along.

Shepherd sucked----she really made it easy not to care about her character. Coleman was a wonderful heel and Billy Murray's "That's one nutty hospital" is what makes Hoffman's monologue worth the time.

Shepherd, R68?

Did someone just confuse Jessica Lange with Cybill Shepherd?

Tootsie looked more like a woman than Doris Belack did.

R68 thinks Three's Company, Full House and Facts of Life are funny. Isn't able to appreciate great comedy.

And it's Bill, not Billy.

[quote]She may not have been the most lissome thing around, but it's not impossible to find a woman with that build and physiognomy.

Yeah, like this.

What's clever about the film and Hoffman's look is that she's very homely yet hugely successful and relateable as a soap star. If the actor playing that role looked like a conventionally "beautiful" drag queen there would be nothing funny about it.

Has a female soap star ever been really homely?

In the world of soap operas homely is a once beautiful woman who is over 40.

Her homeliness (relateability) is what makes her an overnight sensation. Tootsie isn't a documentary based on a real soap star, r75.

True story .... Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight stayed good friends after MIDNIGHT COWBOY. Voight was with a date at the Russian Tea Room and Hoffman was in full Tootsie regalia nearby, went to Voight's table ane fan--gushed to an irritating degree. Voight was completely taken in, never knew it was Hoffman. Until. In the film Hoffman looked a real woman, just was one of the plain but well turned-out not-pretty professional women people don't much notice. Not pretty, don't exist.

[quote] A million times better than the dreadful Soapdish.

I couldn't agree more! Saw Soapdish when it came out in 1991 and was scratching my head wondering why people were raving about it. Rewatched it a year or two ago. Still a bland movie, especially given all the things about behind-the-scenes at soaps that are ripe for comedy.

Saw Tootsie the day it opened. It was a charming film. I quite enjoyed it. No, Dustin wasn't completely convincing as a woman, but he pulled it off better than Milton Berle, Tony Curtis or Jack Lemmon. Just going with it and accepting that his coworkers didn't see through the disguise made it easier to enjoy the movie.

As has been mentioned, audiences were less accustomed to the concept of men dressing as women in 1982. They also just went with it and that's why the movie did so well at the box office.

It would be significantly harder to pull off this movie today. Although I hear they are making a Broadway musical of Tootsie.

R72 is an idiot if you think all those shows are equal in quality. [italic]Full House[/italic] is terrible beyond belief, the other two are actually watchable.

Honestly I have to agree with whoever said [italic]Some Like It Hot[/italic] and [italic]Victor / Victoria [/italic] aged better. Honestly, I rewatched [italic]Soapdish[/italic] and found that more consistently funny as well, if absurd (no more than what real soaps degenerated into after that movie came out).

Even in terms of movies George Gaynes made in 1982, [italic]Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid[/italic] was funnier.

"Screw me Sydney.........please?"

I thought Pollack was highly fuckable right up to his untimely death. Something very masculine about him. Loved his voice.

Or lets look at Mrs Doubtfire which featured a homely "relatable" woman played by a male star. The big difference, is that Mrs. Doubtfire was actually a believable woman. You could forget that it was a male actor, which meant that the other characters did not appear to be idiots and the impersonator did not come off as a failed drag queen.

Mrs. Doubtfire was an over-the-top caricature. And for the level of comedy it presented, it should have had a happier (albeit more unbelievable) ending.

Mrs, Doubtfire's look was accomplished with a bucket of protheses.

I don't normally find him attractive, but I thought Bill Murray was very sexy in Tootsie.

Jessica and Meryl - 1983 Oscars

[quote] He was believable as a woman back then. People weren't as skilled as identifying cross-dressers and transexuals as they are now, due to lack of media exposure.

I was probably 10 or 11 yrs old when I saw the movie (television), and my first thought was no one would believe he was a woman.

Tootsie is #2 in AFI's list of 100 Funniest American Movies of All Time, right below "Some Like it Hot." Both are among my favorite comedies.

However, between Lange and Garr, I would choose Lange. Her character was a "real" '80s woman, juggling career, single motherhood, family, relationships, etc., and she evolves from a weak-willed woman clinging on to a man who is bad for her, to a newly liberated one who is not going to put up with bullshit anymore. Garr is funny, but she's doing neurotic woman schtick.

r87 M looks like she is thinking why is this King Kong actress touching me.

I don't think Teri Garr or Lesley Ann Warren would have won had Jess been in lead actress. I think G would have won for her daring performance as the transgender nurse in The World According to Garp. Transgender people were not highly represented in film back then and she and Lithgow both did excellent work advancing the cause.

Meryl auditioned for King Kong but was she was too ugly for the part.

R90, M is thinking, "I lost 'King Kong'and 'The Postman Always Rings Twice' to her."

Never get tired of watching this movie.

Cher supposedly turned down Kong. That would have been a camp classic. Pity she didn't do it.

WHET that girl who won the Tootsie Oscar?

Meryl also lost Sweet Dreams to Jessica.

and then Jess lost her film career to..........me. (as did Sally, Sissy, Sarandon, G, etc.)

Fuck Meryl and Jessica too. I could beat them both at scrabble.

What's a Geena? Is she a television actress like Glenn?

M she played one of those suicidal lesbians in Laverne and Shirley type movie where they drive off a cliff. That repug bitch I outshone in Feud played the other one.

The M and G jokes are so bad and unfunny,

And I was just coming on here to defend Three's Company?

Has no one mentioned Sydney Pollack's performance yet?

Still my favorite scene in any movie.

don't read them then r102

The M and G joke started out well enough but gross overuse and generally weak unfunny application has ridden it into the ground. It's a very common pattern.

[quote]started out well enough but gross overuse and generally weak unfunny application

that is exactly how I felt about G's Amazon pilot

It has the fast-pace, quick cut editing that all movies and TV shows have today.

Lynne Thigpen, who counted down before the camera rolled, died suddenly in 2003 of a cerebral hemorrhage in 2003.

I still cannot believe a DL poster confused Jessica Lange for Cybill Shepherd. For fuck’s sake!

Give it a rest. At least the Lange troll went away after awhile. She really wasn't very good in this--probably the weakest member of the cast. Part of the problem was her dull acting, but she probably was the weakest character in terms of the writing. There were plenty of great lines all around.

Brilliant script.

Maybe some of you don't get that Tootsie was supposed to be frumpy, and that some women actually dressed like that back then. In the 80s, the mayor of Houston was Kathy Whitmire, who was likened to Tootsie because of the hairstyle and glasses.

I saw this movie with friends when it came out. We were dying laughing, as was the rest of the audience.

Did Dustin touch Jess' titties too?

Yeah, Dorothy Michaels was supposed to dress like a respectable middle-aged professional woman, not a fashion model or a hoor. Undoubtedly modest and loose-fitting clothes were the best way to disguise the male body under them, plus the man wearing them wouldn't want to attract the slightest bit of male sexual attention.

I loved that movie when it came out, I was twenty-ish and it seemed both hilarious and profound. Of course I don't love it as much as I did, as it takes itself a bit too seriously, but it's still an excellent farcial comedy.

It's very funny (especially Bill Murray & Teri Garr), but the music (including the songs) sucks and the script gets sappy in a "life lesson" way that I hate.

R115 I think it’s one of the few movies that earns the sentiment. That’s kind of what makes it special. It’s much easier to stay detached and cool and not risk getting sappy at all, but if you can truly earn those moments and keep a sharp yet rounded balance, then you’ve really achieved something great.

Joyce (of her album over fame) also looked like Tootsie

Great comment, R116!

[quote]It makes me laugh to think of the blowback if they tried to make this movie today.

It would provoke a Twitter meltdown/SJW screechfest if it were made today.

Which character would be trans?

Now this movie knew how to do a movie montage