Basil Hoffman
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.
After an encounter with UFOs, an electricity linesman feels undeniably drawn to an isolated area...
Movie page
Hollywood, 1927: As silent movie star George Valentin wonders if the arrival of talking pictures...
Movie page
Hail, Caesar!
as Stu Schwartz (Accounting)When a Hollywood star mysteriously disappears in the middle of filming, the studio sends their...
Movie page
The Box
as Don PoatesNorma and Arthur Lewis, a suburban couple with a young child, receive a simple wooden box as a...
Movie page
All the President's Men
as Assistant Metro EditorDuring the 1972 elections, two reporters' investigation sheds light on the controversial...
Movie page
In 1962 New York City, love blossoms between a playboy journalist and a feminist advice author.
Movie page
Communion
as Dr. FriedmanA novelist's wife and son see him changed by an apparent encounter with aliens in the mountains.
Movie page
Switch
as HigginsSteve Brooks, a sexist womanizer, is killed by a group of his angry former lovers. In heaven, he...
Movie page
Night Shift
as DrollhauserA nebbish of a morgue attendant gets shunted back to the night shift where he is shackled with...
Movie page
The Last Word
as Christopher GeorrgeA retired businesswoman – who tries to control everything around her – decides to write her own...
Movie page
Ordinary People
as SloanBeth, Calvin, and their son Conrad are living in the aftermath of the death of the other son....
Movie page
All of Me
as Court ClerkJust before stubborn millionaire Edwina Cutwater dies, she asks her uptight lawyer, Roger Cobb,...
Movie page
The Milagro Beanfield War
as In the Governor's OfficeThe accidental breakdown of an irrigation valve launches a hot confrontation between the mainly...
Movie page
The Electric Horseman
as TolandA former champion rodeo rider is reduced to using his saddle skills to promote a breakfast...
Movie page
Lambada
as Superintendent LelandKevin Laird is a Beverly Hills school teacher by day and a mystery man by night. Using his...
Movie page
Rio, I Love You
as James (segment "La Fortuna")The third episode of the Cities of Love franchise, Rio, I Love You is an anthology, created by...
Movie page
The Ratings Game
as Frank FriedlanderA New Jersey trucker creates a hit TV show with help from his girlfriend in the ratings business.
Movie page
Lady Liberty
as Willett (uncredited)The story concerns the difficulties and reactions of Maddalena (Sophia Loren), an Italian...
Movie page
Love at First Bite
as Hotel Manager (uncredited)Dracula and Renefield relocate to 70's era New York in search of Cindy Sondheim, the...
Movie page
Comes a Horseman
as George BascombElla Connors is a single woman who gets pressured to sell her failing cattle farm to her corrupt...
Movie page
At Long Last Love
as Movie Theatre ManagerFour socialites unexpectedly clash: heiress Brooke Carter runs into gambler Johnny Spanish at...
Movie page
My Favorite Year
as Herb LeeFledgling comic Benjy Stone can't believe his luck when his childhood hero, the swashbuckling...
Movie page
Hefner: Unauthorized
as LawyerThe unauthorized biography of Hugh Hefner and the birth of the Playboy empire.
Movie page
Ellery Queen: Too Many Suspects
as Fingerprint ExpertWhen a famous fashion designer is found murdered, Inspector Richard Queen of the NYPD is baffled...
Movie page
Throwdown
as Judge EllerA young criminal defense attorney struggles with a homicide case that is not as cut and dry as...
Movie page
Scout's Honor
as AlexanderGary Coleman stars as little Joey Seymour, a clever but lonely orphan shuffled from one foster...
Movie page
3 Geezers!
as VictorFollow actor J Kimball as he researches what it's like to be old for a role in an upcoming...
Movie page
Games Mother Never Taught You
as Dwayne HilsonHard-working career wife Laura becomes the first female executive in an all-male office and is...
Movie page
Cage Without a Key
as JudgeA high school girl who needs a ride accepts one from a boy she doesn't know. He then forces her...
Movie page
The Great Ice Rip-Off
as RichardsA retired cop goes up against a slick jewel thief and his gang, who have pulled a diamond heist...
Movie page
Welcome Home, Jellybean
as uncreditedA CBS Schoolbreak Special about a 12-year-old mentally-challenged girl whose parents decide to...
Movie page
Lucky Louie
as Wilbert MoserA retired cop teams up with four ex-convicts and a behavioral science student to solve a fifty...
Movie page
Love’s Dark Ride
as Dr. KanlanA young advertising executive, blinded in a gun accident, attempts to rebuild his life and...
Movie page
The Ice Runner
as J.C. KruckUS-agent West travels to Moscow for the CIA in order to buy Russian weapons and to send them to...
Movie page
Jennifer: A Woman’s Story
as Neil TurnerThe widow of a wealthy shipbuilder tries to hold onto his business and becomes involved with...
Movie page
Mr. Roberts
as Mr. RobertsThe question is...do you ever really know anyone?
Movie page
The Elvira Show
as Dr. Marvin ZislisFilmed for CBS in 1993, this unaired pilot features the witch Elvira, her aunt, and their pet...
Movie page
Culture
as uncreditedCulture is a 1997 short film directed by Josh Gordon and Will Speck, with Greg Germann, Florence...
Movie page
Third Act
as Uncle Paul"Third Act" follows a beloved theater troupe facing eviction, prompting them to scheme a bank...
Movie page
The Pineville Heist
as Principal ParkerA high school teen stumbles into the aftermath of a bank robbery gone wrong and finds himself...
Movie page
The West Wing
as CongressmanThe West Wing provides a glimpse into presidential politics in the nation's capital as it tells...
TV Show page
Columbo
as Jason DanzigerColumbo is a friendly, verbose, disheveled-looking police detective who is consistently...
TV Show page
M*A*S*H
as Major PfieferThe 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital is stuck in the middle of the Korean war. With little...
TV Show page
The Twilight Zone
as Mr. StewardThis 1980s revival of the classic sci-fi series features a similar style to the original...
TV Show page
Hill Street Blues
as Ed Greenglass (archive footage) (uncredited)A realistic glimpse into the daily lives of the officers and detectives at an urban police station.
TV Show page
Seinfeld
as SalesmanA stand-up comedian and his three offbeat friends weather the pitfalls and payoffs of life in...
TV Show page
The Practice
as Tucker's Atty. Art Hardiman (uncredited)A provocative legal drama focused on young associates at a bare-bones Boston firm and their...
TV Show page
The New Alfred Hitchcock Presents
as Dr. MichaelsThe New Alfred Hitchcock Presents is an American anthology series that aired on NBC from 1985 to...
TV Show page
Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction
as Gerald Stanley (segment "The Dresser")Can you tell the difference between fact and fiction? Several stories of strange, mysterious and...
TV Show page
Sledge Hammer!
as Sam SteinwaySledge Hammer! is an American satirical police sitcom produced by New World Television that ran...
TV Show page
Barney Miller
as Allen KorbelBarney Miller is an American situation comedy television series set in a New York City police...
TV Show page
Night Court
as Duane SedgwickNight Court is an American television situation comedy that aired on NBC from January 4, 1984 to...
TV Show page
Kojak
as Charlie WinstonA bald, lollipop sucking police detective with a fiery righteous attitude battles crime in New...
TV Show page
Kindred: The Embraced
as Charon the CoronerKindred: The Embraced is an American television series produced by John Leekley Productions and...
TV Show page