Tootsie is a 1982 Americansatiricalromantic comedy film directed bySydney Pollack from a screenplay byLarry Gelbart andMurray Schisgal and a story by Gelbart andDon McGuire. It starsDustin Hoffman,Jessica Lange,Teri Garr,Dabney Coleman, andCharles Durning. In the film, Michael Dorsey (Hoffman), a talented actor with a reputation for being professionally difficult, runs into romantic trouble after adopting a female persona to land a job.

Tootsie
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Sydney Pollack
Screenplay by	Larry Gelbart Murray Schisgal
Story by	Don McGuire Larry Gelbart
Produced by	Sydney Pollack Dick Richards
Starring	Dustin Hoffman Jessica Lange Teri Garr Dabney Coleman Charles Durning
Cinematography	Owen Roizman
Edited by	Fredric Steinkamp William Steinkamp
Music by	Dave Grusin
Production company	Mirage Enterprises
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date	December 17, 1982 (1982-12-17)
Running time	116 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$22 million[1]
Box office	$241 million

Tootsie was partly inspired from a play written by McGuire in the early 1970s, and was first made into screenplay byDick Richards,Bob Kaufman, andRobert Evans, in 1979. Richards, who was selected as director, introduced the project to Hoffman, who obtained completecreative control after signing on: revisions to the screenplay and from Richards and his successor,Hal Ashby, being replaced by Pollack caused delays to production, which eventually began in November 1981.Principal photography took place acrossNew York and inNew Jersey, with filming locations includingManhattan,Hurley, andFort Lee. The film's theme song, "It Might Be You", performed byStephen Bishop, peaked at No. 25 on theBillboard Hot 100.

Tootsie was theatrically released in the United States on December 17, 1982, byColumbia Pictures. The film grossed $241 million worldwide, becoming the third-highest grossing film of 1982, and received critical acclaim for its humor, Hoffman and Lange's performances, dialogue, and social commentary. It was nominated for ten awards at the55th Academy Awards, includingBest Picture, and wonBest Supporting Actress for Lange. In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the U.S.National Film Registry by theLibrary of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".^[2]

Michael Dorsey is a respected actor, but nobody in New York City wants to hire him because he is a perfectionist and difficult to work with. He makes ends meet by working as a server in a restaurant and teaching acting classes.

After many months without an acting job, Michael hears of an opening on the popular daytimesoap operaSouthwest General from his friend and acting student Sandy Lester, who unsuccessfully auditions for the role of hospital administrator Emily Kimberly. In desperation, and following an argument with his agent, Michael disguises himself as a woman named "Dorothy Michaels" and auditions forSouthwest General himself, and he is cast as Emily Kimberly. Michael takes the job as a way to raise $8,000 to produce a play by his roommate Jeff Slater, which will star himself and Sandy.

As "Dorothy", Michael plays Emily Kimberly as a plausible feminist, which surprises the other actors and the crew, who expected "Dorothy" to give a mild-mannered performance, in contrast to the empowered "Gloria Steinem type" suggested in the script. His character quickly becomes a national sensation.

When Sandy catches Michael in her bedroom half undressed because he wants to try on her clothes for ideas for Dorothy's wardrobe, he covers up by claiming he wants to have sex with her. Sandy is receptive and they sleep together. Exacerbating matters further, Michael is attracted to one of his co-stars, Julie Nichols, a single mother with a daughter from a previous relationship and in an unhealthy relationship with the show's amoral, sexist director, Ron Carlisle.

At a party, when Michael (as himself) approaches Julie with a pick-up line to which she had previously told "Dorothy" she would be receptive, she throws a drink in his face. Later, as Dorothy, when he makes tentative advances, Julie (having just ended her relationship with Ron per Dorothy's advice) makes it known that she is not a lesbian.

Meanwhile, Dorothy has her own admirers to contend with: older cast member John Van Horn and Julie's widowed father, Les. Les proposes marriage, insisting that Dorothy think about it before answering. When Michael returns home, he finds John, who almost forces himself on Dorothy until Jeff walks in on them. A few minutes later, Sandy arrives, asking why he has not answered her calls. Michael admits he is in love with another woman, and Sandy screams and breaks up with him.

The tipping point comes when, due to Dorothy's popularity, the show's producers want to extend her contract for another year. Michael extricates himself when a technical problem forces the cast to perform live, by improvising a revelation about Emily: that she is actually Edward, Emily's twin brother who took her place to avenge her. This allows everybody a way out, but Julie is so outraged at Michael's deception that she punches him in the stomach once the cameras have stopped rolling and storms off.

Some weeks later, Michael is moving forward with producing Jeff's play. He returns Les's engagement ring, and Les says, "The only reason you're still living is because I never kissed you." Despite his anger, Les admits that Michael was good company as Dorothy, and Michael buys him a beer.

Michael later waits for Julie outside the studio. She is reluctant to talk to him, but he tells her that he and her father played pool and had a good time. She finally admits she misses Dorothy. Michael tells her Dorothy is within him and he misses her too. He remarks, "I was a better man with you as a woman than I ever was with a woman as a man." Julie forgives him and they walk away together, engaged in conversation.

In the 1970s, fashion company executive Charles Evans began filmmaking, following in the path of his brotherRobert Evans, a successful actor, producer and studio executive, "because I enjoy movies very much. I have the time to do it. And I believe if done wisely, it can be a profitable business."^[3] In the early 1970s, Don McGuire'sWould I Lie to You?, a play about an unemployed male actor who cross-dresses in order to find jobs, was shopped around Hollywood for several years until it came to the attention of comedian and actorBuddy Hackett in 1978. Interested in playing the role of the talent agent, Hackett showed Evans the script, and Evans purchased anoption on the play. Delays in the film's production forced Evans to renew the option,^[4] but in 1979, he cowrote a screenplay based on the play with directorDick Richards and screenwriter Bob Kaufman.^[5] A few months into the process, Richards shared the screenplay withDustin Hoffman, his partner in a company that bought and developed film-development properties. Hoffman wanted completecreative control and Evans agreed to remove himself from screenwriting tasks, instead becoming a producer of the film, which was retitledTootsie.^[4] Before Hoffman officially became involved, his role had been offered toPeter Sellers andMichael Caine.^[6]

The film remained in development for another year as producers waited for a revised script.^[7] As preproduction began, the project experienced additional delays when Richards left as director over "creative differences".^[8] He instead became one of the film's producers, andHal Ashby became the director. Columbia then forced Ashby to quit because of the threat of legal action that would ensue if his postproduction commitments onLookin' to Get Out were not fulfilled.^[9] Hoffman, in an attempt to get the interest ofSydney Pollack to direct, askedElaine May, who provided a few weeks of work that added the character played by Murray to go along with suggesting Garr for a key role. May, alongside other writers who lent suggestions (such asBarry Levinson), albeit uncredited.^[10][11] In November 1981,Sydney Pollack agreed to direct and produce the film at Columbia's suggestion.^[12]

Hoffman suggested that Pollack play Michael's agent George Fields, a role written forDabney Coleman. Pollack resisted the idea, but Hoffman eventually convinced him; it was Pollack's first acting work in years.^[13] Pollack cast Coleman as the sexist, arrogant soap opera director Ron Carlisle.^[14]

To prepare for his role, Hoffman watched the 1978 filmLa Cage aux Folles several times.^[15] He also visited the set ofGeneral Hospital for research and conducted extensive makeup tests. Hoffman has stated that he was shocked to learn that although makeup could be used to allow him to credibly appear as a woman, he would never be a beautiful one. His epiphany occurred when he realized that although he found Dorothy interesting, he would not have spoken to her at a party because she was not beautiful, and because of this, he had missed the opportunity for many conversations with interesting women. He concluded that he had never regardedTootsie as a comedy.^[16]

Scenes set at New York'sRussian Tea Room were filmed in the actual restaurant, with additional scenes shot inCentral Park and in front ofBloomingdale's. Scenes were also filmed inHurley, New York and at the National Video Studios in New York.^[17] Additional filming took place inFort Lee, New Jersey.^[18]

Tootsie opened in 943 theaters in the United States and Canada and grossed $5,540,470 during its opening weekend.^[1] After 115 days, it surpassedClose Encounters of the Third Kind as Columbia's greatest domestic hit of all time.^[19] Its final international gross in the United States and Canada was $177,200,000,^[1] making it thesecond-highest-grossing movie of 1982 afterE.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold more than 56.9 million tickets in the U.S.^[20]

The film grossed $63.8 million internationally^[21] and was the highest-grossing film in Germany, with a gross of $19 million.^[22] Worldwide, it grossed 241 million dollars.

On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 91% of 53 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.8/10. The website's consensus reads: "Tootsie doesn't squander its high-concept comedy premise, with fine dialogue and sympathetic treatment of the characters"^[23]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 88 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".^[24]

Roger Ebert praised the film, awarding it four out of four stars and observing: "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...The movie also manages to make some lighthearted but well-aimed observations about sexism. It also pokes satirical fun at soap operas, New York show business agents and the Manhattan social pecking order."^[25]

In 2011,ABC aired a primetime special,Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time, that counted down the best movies chosen by fans based on results of a poll conducted by both ABC andPeople Weekly Magazine.Tootsie was selected as theNo. 5 Best Comedy.[42]

National Film Registry — Inducted in 1998.^[2]

The film is recognized byAmerican Film Institute in these lists:

• 1998:AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – #62^[43]
• 2000:AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs – #2^[44]
• 2007:AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – #69^[45]

The film was first released onCED Videodisc in 1983, onVHS andBetamax videocassettes byRCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video in 1985 and onDVD in 2001. These releases were distributed byColumbia TriStar Home Video. The film was also released bythe Criterion Collection in aLaserDisc edition in 1992. A special 25th-anniversary edition DVD was released bySony Pictures in 2008.^[46] The film was released onBlu-ray disc in 2013, but only for selected international territories such as Germany and Japan. The film was released on Blu-ray and DVD by the Criterion Collection on December 16, 2014.^[47]

A stage musical of the film premiered at theCadillac Palace Theatre in Chicago from September 11 to October 14, 2018, before opening onBroadway in the spring of 2019. The musical has music and lyrics byDavid Yazbek. Robert Horn wrote the book, Denis Jones choreographed andScott Ellis directed.Santino Fontana starred as Michael Dorsey.^[48] He was joined byLilli Cooper as Julie Nichols,Sarah Stiles as Sandy Lester,John Behlmann as Max Van Horn, Andy Grotelueschen as Jeff Slater,Julie Halston as Rita Mallory,Tony Award winnerMichael McGrath as Stan Fields and Tony nomineeReg Rogers as Ron Carlisle.

• Cross-dressing in film and television
• List of highest-grossing films in Canada and the United States

• Tootsie atIMDb  
• Tootsie atBox Office Mojo 
• Tootsie at theAFI Catalog of Feature Films 
• Tootsie at theTCM Movie Database 
• Tootsie essay by Brian Scott Mednick atNational Film Registry
• Tootsie essay by Daniel Eagan inAmerica's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010ISBN 0826429777, pages 780–781
• The 25th AnniversaryTootsie by Billy Mernit
• Tootsie: One Great Dame – an essay byMichael Sragow atThe Criterion Collection