The Graduate was the film that made audiences sit up and notice Dustin Hoffman. Released in 1967, it had the visionary Mike Nichols as the director, Anne Bancroft and Katharine Ross in supporting roles, and Hoffman as the wonky anti-hero Benjamin Braddock. He was ideal in the role. At a time of seismic social unrest when boundaries and rules were being smashed like little kids' playthings, Hoffman was a brand new kind of star. Not conventional, not predictable, not popped from a cookie-cutter mold crafted for Hollywood's leading men. He was just starting his career. In later years, Dustin Hoffman would be widely acclaimed in movies like Midnight Cowboy, Kramer vs. Kramer, Papillon, Marathon Man, and dozens of other classics. But a kitchen fire almost derailed Hoffman's plans.
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Hoffman Suffered Serious Burns
According to an account of the incident in Dustin Hoffman's new book, Look at Me, "...{H]e received third-degree burns shortly before he was set to star in a Broadway play titled The Subject Was Roses in 1964," per People. The budding actor was at his girlfriend's place where she was cooking something. However, in a mishap, she unintendedly had some oil start burning. Hoffman, in an attempt to quell the fire fast, seized the flaming pot and stuck it beneath the faucet.
That was disastrous for Hoffman, who got severely burned himself. He recalled in the book, "There was a doctor in the building, and Susie got him to bandage me up. I refused to go to the hospital. I knew if I went, I'd lose the part...as I would later learn, when you get third-degree burns your nerve endings are cooked: the real pain comes later, when they grow back. Still, it hurt."
His Refusal To Properly Care for His Burns Could Have Proven Dire
Hoffman's stoicism nearly turned out to be catastrophic. He tried to move forward with rehearsals for the play he was in, then he developed a fever. That finally sent him in the hospital. Per People, "He recalled asking a surgeon, Lloyd Bergner, if he was going to die, and Bergner told him, "You can go either way," the night before Hoffman underwent surgery."
His agony was just starting. Hoffman shared, "After I awoke from the surgery, it felt like I was in flames, all the time. It was something past 'pain,' at least the way I'd previously defined it."
Dustin Hoffman did have to sacrifice his role in The Subject Was Roses. But he went on to snag parts in other stage productions. That, according to People, was how Mike Nichols and producer Lauren Turman came to pinpoint Hoffman for the top spot in The Graduate.
