Making Tootsie ─ Inside the Classic Film With Dustin Hoffman and Sydney Pollack

Back in print and now an ebook, the only book on the creation of the classic film that's ranked #2 on the American Film Institute list of 100 Best Comedies (after Some Like It Hot).

"Superb…worth a semester of film school." —David Brown, producer of Jaws

Susan Dworkin was the only writer given unprecedented access to the cast and crew during the shoot and editing of Tootsie in 1982 during the sweltering summer in New York City and editing bay in Los Angeles. A playwright, award-winning documentary writer, and Ms. contributing editor, Dworkin used her unique talent to tell how two superbly talented and driven men—actor Dustin Hoffman and director Sydney Pollack—actually made a movie about a serious actor, desperate for work, who takes on the challenge of playing a woman in a daily soap opera, becomes a star, and a better man for it.

Drawn from observation and interviews not only with Hoffman and Pollack, but with costume designer Ruth Morley, actors Teri Garr, Bill Murray, and Dabney Coleman, editors Fritz and Bill Steinkamp, and many others, Dworkin delivers an intimate view of the acting and filmmaking process, as well as insight into the release of comedy and the force of creative power.

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.