Making Tootsie - Paperback

by Susan Dworkin (Author)

"A perceptive and provocative work."
--Los Angeles Times

"A stunning job of research, observation and reporting."
--Larry Gelbart, co-writer of Tootsie and writer on TV's "M*A*S*H*"

"This fluid, marvelously detailed book goes a long way toward explaining why Tootsie has already achieved a reputation as a classic film comedy."
--People

Making Tootsie is back, three decades after the creation of the blockbuster Hollywood motion picture that the American Film Institute rated as #2 on its list of the 100 Best Comedies of All Time (second only to Some Like it Hot). Playwright, author, and Ms. magazine contributing writer Susan Dworkin was granted unprecedented access to the film set, the cast, and the crew during the filming and through post-production of the 1982 classic, and her riveting, detailed chronicle offers a fascinating window into the art of movie making--as well as painting indelible portraits of the two main men who made Tootsie happen: director Sidney Pollack and star Dustin Hoffman. No movie buff, film historian, student, or fan will want to miss Making Tootsie.

Back Jacket

In 1982, two superbly talented and driven men--director Sydney Pollack and actor Dustin Hoffman--collaborated to create what became an enduring classic: a movie about a serious, out-of-work actor who takes on the challenge of playing a woman in a TV soap opera and becomes a better man for it.

Hoffman had already dedicated four years to the comedy. Pollack was hot off of Absence of Malice when he chose the project, which had lost two earlier directors, had no final guiding script at the start of production, and was the butt of many Hollywood bad jokes.

As the only journalist Pollack and Columbia Pictures permitted on the set and in the editing room, Susan Dworkin, a playwright, award-winning documentary writer, and Ms. magazine contributing editor, conducted in-depth interviews not only with its director and star but also with the costume designer, the film editors, costars Teri Garr, Bill Murray, and Dabney Coleman, and many others. In Making 'Tootsie, ' Dworkin captures their voices while describing how the movie became an award-winning box office sensation and the classic motion picture that the American Film Institute rates as number two on its list of the 100 Funniest American Movies of All Time.

Author Biography

Susan Dworkin's documentary "She's Nobody's Baby" won the coveted Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting. "Making Tootsie" was her first book. Her later books included "The Viking in the Wheat Field," "Miss America, 1945: The Bess Myerson Story," "The Nazi Officer's Wife," "Double De Palma" and the novels "Stolen Goods" and "Desperately Seeking Susan." She lives in New York City.