Basil Hoffman
Birth : 1938-01-18, Houston, Texas, USA
Death : 2021-09-17
History
Basil Harry Hoffman (January 18, 1938 — September 17, 2021) was an American actor with a film and television career spanning five decades, mostly in supporting roles. He starred in films with many award-winning directors, including Alan Pakula and Robert Redford. He has also authored two books about acting, including Acting and How to Be Good at It.
Hoffman was born in Houston, Texas in January 1938, the son of Beulah (née Novoselsky) and David Hoffman, an antique dealer. He graduated from Tulane University; and he spent two years at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, receiving a scholarship for the second, graduating year.
His thirteen years of work in New York included many plays, some roles in episodic television, a recurring character on One Life to Live on ABC, hundreds of commercials and a film role in Lady Liberty with Sophia Loren, directed by Mario Monicelli.
He made his first trip to Los Angeles in 1974. In that season, he filmed a theatrical feature, At Long Last Love, for Peter Bogdanovich. In the years that followed he appeared in two television movies, television episodes of Kung Fu, The Rockford Files, Sanford and Son (2 roles), Police Woman, Columbo, Kojak, M*A*S*H (2 roles), Barney Miller and several TV commercials. He had recurring roles as the fingerprint technician on Ellery Queen and as Principal Dingleman on Square Pegs.
Although most of his work was in film and television, he made a few stage appearances, most notably in Sand Mountain, by Romulus Linney, for which he won a Drama-Logue Award, the first staged reading of Martin E. Brooks’ Joe and Flo at the Actors Studio, and the world premiere of William Blinn's Walking Peoria.
He was best known for his work with distinguished film directors, including Peter Bogdanovich, Mario Monicelli, Richard Benjamin, Carl Reiner (twice), Peter Medak (six times) and Alan J. Pakula (twice); Academy Award winners Joel and Ethan Coen, Paolo Sorrentino, Michel Hazanavicius, Steven Spielberg, Delbert Mann, Blake Edwards, Stanley Donen, Sydney Pollack, Ron Howard and Robert Redford (twice as director); and others. His films include: All the President's Men, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, My Favorite Year, The Box, The Electric Horseman, Night Shift, Lucky Lady, Switch, The Milagro Beanfield War, Rio, I Love You, The Pineville Heist, and the Academy Award-winning Best Pictures Ordinary People and The Artist, among many others.
A long-time private acting teacher and coach, he was also a frequent guest lecturer and teacher at prestigious professional and academic institutions, including the American Film Institute, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Emerson College, the University of Southern California, Confederation College in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, and the Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts in Beirut, Lebanon.
In 2008, he returned to Beirut as a U.S. State Department Cultural Envoy to Lebanon to teach acting and directing at the University of Balamand's Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts, Lebanese University, Notre Dame University and St. Joseph University's Institut D'Etude Sceniques Audiovisuelles et Cinematographiques. ...
Source: Article "Basil Hoffman" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Mr. Roberts
The question is...do you ever really know anyone?
Christopher Georrge
A retired businesswoman – who tries to control everything around her – decides to write her own obituary. A young journalist takes up the task of finding out the truth, and the result is a life-altering friendship.
Principal Parker
A high school teen stumbles into the aftermath of a bank robbery gone wrong and finds himself locked inside his school trying to keep himself and his teacher alive as one of the psychotic robbers hunts them down.
Stu Schwartz (Accounting)
When a Hollywood star mysteriously disappears in the middle of filming, the studio sends their fixer to get him back.
Monsieur Tissot
The French American is a drama film directed by Darla Rae
Judge Eller
A young criminal defense attorney struggles with a homicide case that is not as cut and dry as it appears while battling a drinking habit. The story goes beyond the lives of those directly related to the case and shines a much needed spotlight on the horrific world of human trafficking in the United States.
James (segment "La Fortuna")
The third episode of the Cities of Love franchise, Rio, I Love You is an anthology, created by 10 visionary directors from across the globe. The story line of each segment focuses on an encounter of love in a different neighborhood of the city, demonstrating the distinctive qualities and character of that location. The film serves to bridge gaps between cultures, educating and entertaining the audience, while celebrating unique and universal expressions of love.
Victor
Follow actor J Kimball as he researches what it's like to be old for a role in an upcoming movie. When he meets the residents at The Coconuts convalescent home, he quickly discovers that his perceptions of the elderly may be off from today's reality. After being on the wrong end of some pranks, J enlists the help of his Hollywood friends to turn the tides. Mayhem ensues.
Mr. Black
“SURREAL ESTATE” is a dark comedy short about a man, Mr. Smith, who attempts to rent a house and everything that can go wrong…does. It’s for anyone who has ever been to the DMV, changed checkout lines in a supermarket, or tried to navigate an automated telephone menu. It's the absurd chaos that develops in our minds as fantasy, but for Mr. Smith, it's all too real.
Auctioneer
Hollywood, 1927: As silent movie star George Valentin wonders if the arrival of talking pictures will cause him to fade into oblivion, he sparks with Peppy Miller, a young dancer set for a big break.
Calvin Adams
Retired Oscar-winning actor Calvin Adams attempts to outwit some neighborhood kids in a battle to sell the most lemonade.
Don Poates
Norma and Arthur Lewis, a suburban couple with a young child, receive a simple wooden box as a gift, which bears fatal and irrevocable consequences. A mysterious stranger delivers the message that the box promises to bestow upon its owner $1 million with the press of a button. However pressing this button will simultaneously cause the death of another human being somewhere in the world; someone they don't know. With just 24 hours to have the box in their possession, Norma and Arthur find themselves in the cross-hairs of a startling moral dilemma and must face the true nature of their humanity.
C. W. (uncredited)
In 1962 New York City, love blossoms between a playboy journalist and a feminist advice author.
Lawyer
The unauthorized biography of Hugh Hefner and the birth of the Playboy empire.
Culture is a 1997 short film directed by Josh Gordon and Will Speck, with Greg Germann, Florence Stanley, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film.
J.C. Kruck
US-agent West travels to Moscow for the CIA in order to buy Russian weapons and to send them to the rebels in Afghanistan. When West gets caught he hides his identity and receives 15 years in a working camp in Siberia as penalty
Professor Sauer
Mimi, a free spirited girl out shopping, is given a mysterious box by a dying man, who instructs her not to give it to his killers. While being chased by the thugs who killed him, she meets Howard, an uptight dental student, who enlists his private detective uncle to help them find out the truth about the box.
Higgins
Steve Brooks, a sexist womanizer, is killed by a group of his angry former lovers. In heaven, he makes a bargain with God for redemption and agrees to return to Earth. Once there, he must have a sincere relationship with a female and make her fall in love with him. If not, Steve's soul will become the property of the devil. But the devil hedges his bet, and Steve is reincarnated as a woman named Amanda Brooks.
Dr. Friedman
A novelist's wife and son see him changed by an apparent encounter with aliens in the mountains.
Frank Friedlander
A New Jersey trucker creates a hit TV show with help from his girlfriend in the ratings business.
Court Clerk
Just before stubborn millionaire Edwina Cutwater dies, she asks her uptight lawyer, Roger Cobb, to amend her will so that her soul will pass to the young, vibrant Terry Hoskins – but the spiritual transference goes awry. Edwina enters Roger's body instead, forcing him to battle Edwina for control of his own being.
A CBS Schoolbreak Special about a 12-year-old mentally-challenged girl whose parents decide to remove her from the institution where she was raised, and try to give her a home life.
Dwayne Hilson
Hard-working career wife Laura becomes the first female executive in an all-male office and is dismayed to find she now has to learn the rules of the corporate game.
Herb Lee
Fledgling comic Benjy Stone can't believe his luck when his childhood hero, the swashbuckling matinee idol Alan Swann, gets booked to appear on the variety show he writes for. But when Swann arrives, he fails to live up to his silver screen image. Instead, he's a drunken womanizer who suffers from stage fright. Benjy is assigned to look after him before the show, and it's all he can do to keep his former idol from going completely off the rails.
Drollhauser
A nebbish of a morgue attendant gets shunted back to the night shift where he is shackled with an obnoxious neophyte partner who dreams of the "one great idea" for success. His life takes a bizarre turn when a prostitute neighbor complains about the loss of her pimp. His partner, upon hearing the situation, suggests that they fill that opening themselves using the morgue at night.
Alexander
Gary Coleman stars as little Joey Seymour, a clever but lonely orphan shuffled from one foster home to the next, who is also determined to be the best Cub Scout ever. Pearl Bartlett (Katherine Helmond) is a hard-working executive who dislikes children, but she must take on a troop of Cub Scouts and become a den mother to save her job. Somewhere along the way, Joey teaches Pearl the true meaning of caring.
Sloan
Beth, Calvin, and their son Conrad are living in the aftermath of the death of the other son. Conrad is overcome by grief and misplaced guilt to the extent of a suicide attempt. He is in therapy. Beth had always preferred his brother and is having difficulty being supportive to Conrad. Calvin is trapped between the two trying to hold the family together.
Toland
A former champion rodeo rider is reduced to using his saddle skills to promote a breakfast cereal in a gaudy Las Vegas show. When he's asked to perform with a $12 million horse that he discovers is being doped to remain docile, he flees into the desert astride the beast in an act of defiance. A story-hungry female reporter gives chase.
Hotel Manager (uncredited)
Dracula and Renefield relocate to 70's era New York in search of Cindy Sondheim, the reincarnation of Dracula's one true love, Mina Harker. "Trouble adjusting" is a wild understatement for the Count as he battles Cindy's psychiatrist, Jeffrey Rosenberg, a descendant of Van Helsing, who may almost certainly, possibly, may be in love with Cindy too.
Neil Turner
The widow of a wealthy shipbuilder tries to hold onto his business and becomes involved with boardroom intrigue in her bitter struggle to maintain control of the company. Based on British TV series "The Foundation." Pilot to a prospective series.
George Bascomb
Ella Connors is a single woman who gets pressured to sell her failing cattle farm to her corrupt ex-suitor, Jacob Ewing. She asks for help from her neighbor, Frank Athearn. As Ella and Frank fight back through stampedes, jealousy, betrayal, and sabotage... they eventually find love.
Dr. Kanlan
A young advertising executive, blinded in a gun accident, attempts to rebuild his life and career by living through a nightclub entertainer who befriends him.
Longly (uncredited)
After an encounter with UFOs, an electricity linesman feels undeniably drawn to an isolated area in the wilderness where something spectacular is about to happen.
Photographer
Tired of being short, a sixth-grader buys a magical book that enables him to "Think Big".
Assistant Metro Editor
During the 1972 elections, two reporters' investigation sheds light on the controversial Watergate scandal that compels President Nixon to resign from his post.
Fingerprint Expert
When a famous fashion designer is found murdered, Inspector Richard Queen of the NYPD is baffled by her dying clue, prompting him to bring in his son, mystery writer Ellery Queen, to help in the investigation. This was the pilot film for the short-lived TV series.
Judge
A high school girl who needs a ride accepts one from a boy she doesn't know. He then forces her to participate in a robbery, in which a clerk is killed. They are soon caught, and the girl, despite her protestations of innocence, is convicted of first-degree murder and sent to prison. Once she gets there, she finds out that her troubles are just beginning.
Movie Theatre Manager
Four socialites unexpectedly clash: heiress Brooke Carter runs into gambler Johnny Spanish at the race track while playboy Michael O. Pritchard nearly runs into stage star Kitty O'Kelly with his car. Backstage at Kitty's show, it turns out she and Brooke are old friends who attended public school together. The foursome do the town, accompanied by Brooke's companion Elizabeth, who throws herself at Michael's butler and chauffeur Rodney James.
Richards
A retired cop goes up against a slick jewel thief and his gang, who have pulled a diamond heist and are trying to smuggle the diamonds cross-country.
Willett (uncredited)
The story concerns the difficulties and reactions of Maddalena (Sophia Loren), an Italian visitor to New York City. She has come to the country carrying a huge mortadella sausage which she intends as a gift for her fiancé. But Customs do not allow processed meat to enter the U.S., so she is held at JFK airport...
