Tootsie is a
1982 comedy film that tells the story of a talented but volatile
actor whose reputation for being difficult forces him to go to extreme lengths to land a job. The movie stars
Dustin Hoffman and
Jessica Lange, with a supporting cast that includes
Teri Garr,
Dabney Coleman,
Charles Durning,
Bill Murray, 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" by
singer-songwriter Stephen Bishop, was a
Top 40 hit in the U.S.
Plot
Michael Dorsey (
Dustin Hoffman) is a respected but
perfectionist actor on the verge of turning forty. Nobody in New York wants to hire him anymore because he is so difficult to work with. After four months without a job, he hears of an opening on the
soap opera Southwest General (a parody of
General Hospital) from his friend Sandy Lester (
Teri Garr), who tries out for a role but doesn't get it. In desperation, he
cross-dresses, auditions as ”Dorothy Michaels” and eventually wins the part.
Michael thinks it is just a temporary job to pay the bills, but he proves to be so popular as a feisty hospital administrator that, to his dismay, the producers sign him to a long-term contract. Dorothy is such a hit that she is even featured on the covers of a number of well-known magazines with such celebrities as
Andy Warhol.
When Sandy catches Michael taking off his clothes to try on hers (to get more ideas for Dorothy's outfits), he covers up by seducing her. Their romantic relationship complicates his now busy schedule and desire to keep his secret from her.
Exacerbating matters even further, he is strongly attracted to one of his co-stars, Julie Nichols (
Jessica Lange), a single mother in an unhealthy relationship with the show's amoral, sexist director, Ron Carlisle (
Dabney Coleman), a man not entirely unlike Michael in his attitude toward women. At a party, when Michael (as himself) approaches Julie with a line that she had previously told Dorothy she would be receptive to, she instead throws a drink in his face. Yet when he makes tentative advances (as Dorothy), Julie is shocked and later tells “her” 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). Les even proposes marriage. Michael’s roommate, writer Jeff Slater (
Bill Murray), and his agent, George Fields (
Sydney Pollack), are in on the masquerade and watch in amazement as the situation escalates out of control.
Michael finds a clever way to extricate himself. When the cast is forced to perform live, he improvises and reveals that he is actually the character’s twin brother who took her place to avenge her, just the sort of weird
plot twist for which soaps are noted (in particular the
General Hospital “Sally Armitage is really Max Hedges!” storyline). The revelation allows everybody a more-or-less graceful way out. Julie is so outraged, she slugs him in the stomach (after the cameras are turned off).
Some weeks later, Michael waits for her outside the studio and touchingly confesses that “…I was a better man with you as a woman than I ever was with a woman as a man”. She forgives him.
Cast
Academy Awards
Win
Nominations
Production
The idea of having director Sydney Pollack playing Hoffman’s agent, George Fields, was Hoffman’s. Pollack initially resisted the idea, but Hoffman eventually convinced him to take the role.
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 that:
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.
Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an 89% 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 highest grossing comedy of 1982.]
American Film Institute recognition
Video releases
The film was released on VHS by RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video in 1985 and on DVD in 2001. These releases were distributed by Columbia Pictures Home Entertainment. A special 25th Anniversary edition DVD, released by Sony Pictures, arrived in 2008.
See also
Notes
Reflist
External links
wikiquote
Sydney Pollack Films
GoldenGlobeAwardBestMotionPictureMusicalComedy 1981-2000
