What is the title of the 1976 film about the Watergate Scandal, starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman?
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1976 in film Watergate scandal Robert Redford Dustin Hoffman
The year 1976 in film involved some significant events.

Highest-grossing films (U.S.)

The top ten 1976 released films by box office gross in North America are as follows:

Events

*March 22 - Filming begins on George Lucas' Star Wars science fiction film. In one of the most lucrative business decisions in film history, Lucas declines his directing fee of $500,000 in exchange for complete ownership of merchandising and sequel rights.
*April 1 - The Rocky Horror Picture Show is officially re-released as a midnight movie at the Waverly Theater (Now the IFC Center) in Greenwich Village in New York City, starting through the run and still being shown in there  all around the world. 

Awards 

Academy Awards:

Best Picture: Rocky - Chartoff-Winkler, United Artists
Best Director: John G. Avildsen - Rocky
Best Actor: Peter Finch - Network (first actor to win posthumously)
Best Actress: Faye Dunaway - Network
Best Supporting Actor: Jason Robards - All the President's Men
Best Supporting Actress: Beatrice Straight - Network
Best Foreign Language Film: Noirs et blancs en couleur (Black and White in Color), directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, Ivory Coast / France / W. Germany / Switzerland

Golden Globe Awards:

Drama:
Best Picture: Rocky
Best Actor: Peter Finch - Network
Best Actress: Faye Dunaway - Network

Musical or comedy:
Best Picture: A Star Is Born
Best Actor: Kris Kristofferson - A Star Is Born
Best Actress: Barbra Streisand - A Star Is Born

Other
Best Director: Sidney Lumet - Network
Best Foreign Language Film: Face to Face, Sweden

Palme d'Or (Cannes Film Festival):
Taxi Driver, directed by Martin Scorsese, United States

Golden Bear (Berlin Film Festival):
Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson, directed by Robert Altman, United States

Notable films released in 1976

U.S.A. unless stated
#
*7 Man Army (Ba dao lou zi), directed by Chang Cheh - (Hong Kong)
*1900, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, starring Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu, Dominique Sanda, Donald Sutherland - (Italy/France)
A
*A Queda (The Fall) - (Brazil)
*All the President's Men, directed by Alan J. Pakula, starring Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jason Robards, Martin Balsam, Hal Holbrook
*The Anchorite (El anacoreta) - (Spain)
*Any Day Now (Vandaag of morgen) - (Netherlands)
*The Ascent (Voskhozhdeniye) - (U.S.S.R.) - Golden Bear winner
*Assault on Precinct 13, directed by John Carpenter, starring Austin Stoker
*The Astral Factor, starring Stefanie Powers
*At the Earth's Core, starring Peter Cushing and Doug McClure - (U.K.)
B
*Baby Blue Marine, starring Jan-Michael Vincent
*The Bad News Bears, directed by Michael Ritchie, starring Walter Matthau, Tatum O'Neal, Vic Morrow, Jackie Earle Haley
*Beach Guard in Winter (Čuvar plaže u zimskom periodu) - (Yugoslavia)
*The Best Way to Walk (La meilleure façon de marcher) - (France)
*The Big Bus, starring Joseph Bologna, Stockard Channing, John Beck
*The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings, starring Billy Dee Williams, James Earl Jones, Richard Pryor
*Black and White in Color (La Victoire en chantant), directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud - (France) - Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film
*The Blank Generation, with Patti Smith Group, Television, Ramones and Talking Heads
*Blue Puppy (Goluboy shchenok) - (U.S.S.R.)
*Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw, starring Marjoe Gortner and Lynda Carter
*Bound for Glory, a biopic of Woody Guthrie directed by Hal Ashby, starring David Carradine
*Breaking Point, starring Bo Svenson, Robert Culp, John Colicos
*The Bricklayers (Los albañiles) - (Mexico)
*Brother and Sister (Ani Imouto) - (Japan)
*Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson, directed by Robert Altman, starring Paul Newman, Geraldine Chaplin, Burt Lancaster - Golden Bear winner
*Bugsy Malone, directed by Alan Parker, starring Scott Baio and Jodie Foster - (U.K.)
*Burnt Offerings, starring Karen Black, Oliver Reed, Bette Davis
C
*Caddie, starring Helen Morse - (Australia)
*Canoa (Canoe) - (Mexico)
*Car Wash, starring Franklyn Ajaye and Richard Pryor
*The Career of a Chambermaid (Telefoni bianchi), directed by Dino Risi - (Italy)
*Caro Michele, directed by Mario Monicelli - (Italy)
*Carrie, directed by Brian De Palma, starring Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving
*The Cassandra Crossing, starring Sophia Loren, Richard Harris, Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Lee Strasberg, Martin Sheen, O. J. Simpson - (U.K.)
*A Child in the Crowd (Un enfant dans la foule) - (France)
*Chinese Roulette (Chinesisches Roulette), directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder - (West Germany)
*Chitchor (Heart Stealer) - (India)
*The Clown Murders
*Cop (Strømer) - (Denmark)
*Coup de Grâce (Der Fangschuß), directed by Volker Schlöndorff - (West Germany/France)
*A Cricket in the Ear (Shturets v uhoto), directed by Georgi K. Stoyanov, starring Pavel Popandov, Tatyana Lolova, Itzhak Fintzi - (Bulgaria)
D
*Deadly Hero, starring Don Murray and James Earl Jones
*The Desert of the Tartars (Il deserto dei Tartari), starring Vittorio Gassman - (Italy/France/West Germany)
*The Devil's Playground, directed by Fred Schepisi - (Australia)
*Diary of the Dead, starring Geraldine Fitzgerald and Héctor Elizondo
*The Divine Nymph (Divina creatura), starring Marcello Mastroianni and Terence Stamp - (Italy)
*Dixie Dynamite, starring Warren Oates
*Dogs, starring David McCallum, George Wyner and Linda Gray
*Don's Party, directed by Bruce Beresford, starring Ray Barrett, John Hargreaves and Pat Bishop - (Australia)
*Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos), starring Sônia Braga - (Brazil)
*Les douze travaux d'Asterix (The Twelve Trials of Asterix) - (France)
*Drum , starring Warren Oates and Yaphet Kotto
E-F
*The Eagle Has Landed, starring Michael Caine and Donald Sutherland - (U.K./U.S.A.)
*Eat My Dust, starring Ron Howard and Christopher Norris 
*Embryo, directed by Ralph Nelson, starring Rock Hudson and Barbara Carrera
*The Enforcer, starring Clint Eastwood, Harry Guardino, Tyne Daly
*Escape from the Dark, starring Alastair Sim - (U.K.)
*F comme Fairbanks (F Like Fairbanks), starring Patrick Dewaere and Miou-Miou - (France)
*Face to Face (Ansikte mot ansikte), directed by Ingmar Bergman, starring Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson - (Sweden)
*Family Plot, directed by Alfred Hitchcock (his final film), starring Barbara Harris, Bruce Dern, Karen Black, William Devane
*Farsighted for Two Diopters (Dva Dioptara Dalekogledstvo), directed by Petar B. Vasilev, starring Georgi Partsalev - (Bulgaria)
*Fellini's Casanova, directed by Federico Fellini, starring Donald Sutherland - (Italy)
*The Fifth Seal (Az ötödik pecsét), directed by Zoltán Fábri - (Hungary)
*The First Nudie Musical, directed by Bruce Kimmel, starring Cindy Williams, Stephen Nathan, Diana Canova
*The Food of the Gods, starring Marjoe Gortner, Pamela Franklin, Ralph Meeker, Ida Lupino
*Freaky Friday, directed by Gary Nelson, starring Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster
*From Noon till Three, starring Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland
*The Front, directed by Martin Ritt, starring Woody Allen, Zero Mostel, Andrea Marcovicci, Herschel Bernardi, Michael Murphy
*Fumō Chitai (Wasted Land) - (Japan)
*Futureworld, starring Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner
G-H
*Gable and Lombard, starring James Brolin and Jill Clayburgh
*Gator, starring Burt Reynolds and  Jerry Reed
*Giv'at Halfon Eina Ona (Halfon Hill Doesn't Answer) - (Israel)
*God Told Me To, starring Tony Lo Bianco, Deborah Raffin, Sandy Dennis
*Griffin and Phoenix, starring Peter Falk and Jill Clayburgh
*Grizzly, starring Christopher George
*The Gumball Rally, starring Michael Sarrazin
*Gus, starring Don Knotts and Ed Asner
*Harlan County, USA - a documentary film
*Harry and Walter Go to New York, starring James Caan, Elliott Gould, Diane Keaton, Michael Caine
*Heart of Glass (Herz aus Glas), directed by Werner Herzog - (West Germany)
*The House with Laughing Windows (La casa dalle finestre che ridono) - (Italy)
I-K
*Illustrious Corpses (Cadaveri eccellenti), directed by Francesco Rosi, starring Lino Ventura - (Italy)
*The Inheritance (L'eredità Ferramonti), starring Anthony Quinn and Dominique Sanda - (Italy)
*In the Realm of the Senses (Ai no Korīda), directed by Nagisa Oshima - (Japan)
*L'innocente, directed by Luchino Visconti - (Italy)
*The Inugamis (Inugami-ke no ichizoku), directed by Kon Ichikawa - (Japan)
*I Will, I Will... for Now, directed by Norman Panama, starring Elliott Gould, Diane Keaton, Victoria Principal
*Jackson County Jail, starring Tommy Lee Jones and Yvette Mimieux
*J. D.'s Revenge, starring Glynn Turman and Louis Gossett, Jr.
*Je t'aime moi non plus (I Love You...Me Neither), directed by Serge Gainsbourg, starring Jane Birkin and Joe Dallesandro - (France)
*Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000 (Jonas qui aura 25 ans en l'an 2000) - (Switzerland/France)
*The Judge and the Assassin (Le Juge et l'assassin), directed by Bertrand Tavernier, starring Philippe Noiret and Isabelle Huppert - (France)
*Kabhie Kabhie (Sometimes), starring Shashi Kapoor - (India)
*Kalicharan - (India)
*The Killer Inside Me, starring Stacy Keach
*The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, directed by John Cassavetes, starring Ben Gazzara, Timothy Carey, Seymour Cassel
*King Kong, directed by John Guillermin, starring Jessica Lange, Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin
*King Kung Fu, directed by and starring Lance D. Hayes
*Kings of the Road (Im Lauf der Zeit), directed by Wim Wenders - (West Germany)
L
*The Last Hard Men, starring Charlton Heston and James Coburn
*The Last Supper (La Última Cena) - (Cuba)
*The Last Tycoon, directed by Elia Kazan, starring Robert De Niro, Tony Curtis, Robert Mitchum, Ray Milland, Jeanne Moreau, Jack Nicholson
*Leadbelly, a biopic directed by Gordon Parks
*Lipstick, starring Margaux Hemingway, Mariel Hemingway, Chris Sarandon
*The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, starring Jodie Foster and Martin Sheen
*Logan's Run, directed by Michael Anderson, starring Michael York, Richard Jordan, Jenny Agutter
M
*Mako: The Jaws of Death, directed by William Grefe, starring Richard Jaeckel
*The Man on the Roof (Mannen på taket), directed by Bo Widerberg - (Sweden)
*The Man Who Fell to Earth, directed by Nicolas Roeg, starring David Bowie, Rip Torn, Candy Clark - (U.K.)
*Marecek, Pass Me the Pen! (Marečku, podejte mi pero!) - (Czechoslovakia)
*Marathon Man, directed by John Schlesinger, starring Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider, Marthe Keller, William Devane
*Mark of Zorro
*The Marquise of O, directed by Éric Rohmer - (West Germany/France)
*Master of the Flying Guillotine (a.k.a. One-Armed Boxer 2), starring Jimmy Wang - (Taiwan/Hong Kong)
*A Matter of Time, directed by Vincente Minnelli, starring Ingrid Bergman, Liza Minnelli, Charles Boyer, Isabella Rossellini - (U.S.A./Italy)
*Max Havelaar, directed by Fons Rademakers - (Netherlands)
*The Memory of Justice, a documentary film by Marcel Ophüls - (France/West Germany/U.K./U.S.A.)
*Midway, starring Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, Toshiro Mifune, Glenn Ford, Robert Mitchum, Hal Holbrook
*Mikey and Nicky, directed by Elaine May, starring John Cassavetes and Peter Falk
*The Missouri Breaks, directed by Arthur Penn, starring Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson
*Mohammad, Messenger of God, directed by Moustapha Akkad, starring Anthony Quinn - (Morocco/Libya)
*Mother, Jugs & Speed, directed by Peter Yates, starring Bill Cosby, Raquel Welch, Harvey Keitel
*Mr. Klein, directed by Joseph Losey, starring Alain Delon and Jeanne Moreau - (France)
*Murder by Death, starring Peter Sellers, David Niven, Maggie Smith, Alec Guinness, Peter Falk, Eileen Brennan, Elsa Lanchester, James Coco, Truman Capote
*The Mysterious Monsters, starring Peter Graves and Peter Hurkos
N
*Network, directed by Sidney Lumet, starring Peter Finch, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Robert Duvall
*The Next Man, starring Sean Connery
*Next Stop, Greenwich Village, starring Shelley Winters, Lenny Baker, Ellen Greene
*Nickelodeon, directed by Peter Bogdanovich, starring Ryan O'Neal, Burt Reynolds, Tatum O'Neal, John Ritter, Stella Stevens
*Nightmare in Badham County, starring Deborah Raffin and Chuck Connors
*No Deposit, No Return, starring David Niven, Darren McGavin, Don Knotts, Barbara Feldon, Kim Richards
O-P-Q
*Obsession, directed by Brian De Palma, starring Cliff Robertson, Geneviève Bujold, John Lithgow
*Ode to Billy Joe, directed by Max Baer, Jr., starring Robby Benson, Glynnis O'Connor, James Best
*The Omen, directed by Richard Donner, starring Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, Billie Whitelaw, Leo McKern - (U.K./U.S.A.)
*One Summer Love, aka Dragonfly, directed by Gilbert Cates, starring Susan Sarandon and Beau Bridges
*The Outlaw Josey Wales, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, with Chief Dan George, Sam Bottoms, Sondra Locke, John Vernon
*Oz or 20th Century Oz, a Rock 'N' Roll Road Movie, starring Bruce Spence, Joy Dunstan - (Australia)
*The Pink Panther Strikes Again, starring Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom, Lesley-Anne Down - (U.K.)
R
*Raise Ravens (Cria Cuervos), directed by Carlos Saura, starring Geraldine Chaplin - (Spain)
*The Rat Savior (Izbavitelj) - (Yugoslavia)
*Rich Man, Poor Man, television mini-series, starring Nick Nolte and Peter Strauss
*The Ritz, directed by Richard Lester, starring Rita Moreno, Jerry Stiller, Jack Weston
*Robin and Marian, directed by Richard Lester, starring Sean Connery, Audrey Hepburn, Robert Shaw - (U.K./U.S.A.)
*Rocky, directed by John G. Avildsen, starring Sylvester Stallone, Burgess Meredith, Carl Weathers, Talia Shire, Burt Young
*Rogue Male, starring Peter O'Toole - (U.K.)
S
*The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, starring Kris Kristofferson and Sarah Miles
*Salon Kitty, directed by Tinto Brass, starring Helmut Berger and Ingrid Thulin - (Italy/West Germany/France)
*The Scar (film), directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski
*Sebastiane, directed by Derek Jarman - (U.K.)
*Seclusion Near a Forest (Na samotě u lesa), directed by Jiří Menzel - (Czechoslovakia)
*The Sell Out, starring Richard Widmark 
*Seven Beauties (Pasqualino Settebellezze), starring Fernando Rey - (Italy)
*The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, directed by Herbert Ross, starring Nicol Williamson, Robert Duvall, Alan Arkin, Laurence Olivier - (U.K./U.S.A.)
*Shadow of Angels (Schatten der Engel), starring Ingrid Caven and Rainer Werner Fassbinder - (Switzerland)
*The Shaggy D.A., starring Dean Jones and Suzanne Pleshette
*The Shootist, directed by Don Siegel, starring John Wayne (his final film), Lauren Bacall, Ron Howard, Richard Boone, Harry Morgan, James Stewart
*Shout at the Devil, starring Lee Marvin, Roger Moore - (U.K.)
*Silent Movie, directed by and starring Mel Brooks, with Marty Feldman, Dom DeLuise, Bernadette Peters
*Silver Streak, directed by Arthur Hiller, starring Gene Wilder, Richard Pryor, Jill Clayburgh, Ned Beatty, Ray Walston, Patrick McGoohan
*Sister Street Fighter – Fifth Level Fist (Onna hissatsu godan ken) - (Japan)
*Sky Riders, starring James Coburn, Susannah York, Robert Culp
*The Slipper and the Rose, directed by Bryan Forbes, starring Gemma Craven and Richard Chamberlain - (U.K.)
*Small Change (L'Argent de poche), directed by François Truffaut - (France)
*The Smurfs and the Magic Flute (La Flûte à six schtroumpfs) - (Belgium)
*Snuff - (Argentina/U.S.A.)
*The Song Remains the Same, featuring Led Zeppelin - (U.K./U.S.A.)
*Soy un delincuente (I Am a Criminal) - (Venezuela)
*Sparkle, starring Irene Cara
*A Star Is Born, starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson
*Stay Hungry, directed by Bob Rafelson, starring Jeff Bridges, Sally Field, Arnold Schwarzenegger
*St. Ives, directed by J. Lee Thompson, starring Charles Bronson
*Storm Boy, starring David Gulpilil - (Australia)
*Swashbuckler, starring Robert Shaw
*The Swiss Conspiracy, starring David Janssen and Elke Sommer
*Sybil, starring Joanne Woodward and Sally Field
T
*Taxi Driver, directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Robert De Niro, Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel, Albert Brooks, Peter Boyle, Jodie Foster
*The Tenant (Le Locataire), directed by and starring Roman Polanski, with Isabelle Adjani and Melvyn Douglas - (France)
*That's Entertainment, Part II, documentary featuring Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly
*Tatlong taong walang Diyos (Three Godless Years) - (Philippines)
*To Fly!, a documentary film
*To the Devil a Daughter, starring Richard Widmark, Christopher Lee, Honor Blackman, Nastassja Kinski - (U.K.)
*Todo modo, starring Gian Maria Volontè and Marcello Mastroianni - (Italy)
*Tosun Paşa - (Turkey)
*The Town That Dreaded Sundown, starring Ben Johnson and Dawn Wells
*Trackdown, starring James Mitchum
*Tracks, directed by Henry Jaglom, starring Dennis Hopper
*Treasure of Matecumbe, starring Joan Hackett, Robert Foxworth, Peter Ustinov
*The Twist, directed by Claude Chabrol, starring Bruce Dern, Stéphane Audran, Charles Aznavour, Ann-Margret - (France)
*Two-Minute Warning, starring Charlton Heston, John Cassavetes, David Janssen, Jack Klugman, Gena Rowlands, Walter Pidgeon, Beau Bridges
U-V
*Ugly, Dirty and Bad (Brutti, sporchi e cattivi), directed by Ettore Scola, starring Nino Manfredi - (Italy)
*Up!, directed by Russ Meyer, featuring Raven De La Croix
*Vigilante Force, starring Kris Kristofferson and Victoria Principal
*Voyage of the Damned, starring Faye Dunaway, Lee Grant, James Mason, Katharine Ross, Max von Sydow, Orson Welles, Oskar Werner - (U.K.)
W-Z
*W.C. Fields and Me, starring Rod Steiger, Valerie Perrine, Jack Cassidy
*Wan Pipel (One People) - (Suriname/Netherlands)
*Welcome to L.A., directed by Alan Rudolph, starring Keith Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Sally Kellerman, Harvey Keitel
*The White Ship (Belyy parokhod) - (U.S.S.R.)
*Who Can Kill a Child? (¿Quién puede matar a un niño?) - (Spain)
*Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood, starring Madeline Kahn, Teri Garr, Bruce Dern, Art Carney

1976 film releases

January–March

*February 1976
**4 February
***Next Stop, Greenwich Village
*March 1976
**11 March
***Robin and Marian
**18 March
***The Man Who Fell to Earth
**26 March
***Dumbo (re-release)
***Ride a Wild Pony
***Sky Riders
**31 March
***W.C. Fields and Me

April–June

*April 1976
**1 April
***The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox
**5 April
***The Blue Bird
**7 April
***Sparkle
**9 April
***All the President's Men
***Family Plot
*May 1976
**21 May
***1900
*June 1976
**1 June
***The Last Hard Men
**11 June
***The Tenant
**17 June
***Silent Movie
**23 June
***Murder by Death
***Logan's Run
**24 June
***Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson
**25 June
***The Omen
**30 June
***The Outlaw Josey Wales

July–September

*July 1976
*Moving Violation
**1 July
***Treasure of Matecumbe
**7 July
***Gus
**16 July
***The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings
**28 July
***Futureworld
**29 July
***Swashbuckler
*August 1976
**1 August
***Obsession
**25 August
***Gator
**26 August
***The Last Tycoon
*September 1976
*High Velocity
**15 September
***In the Realm of the Senses
**17 September
***The Front

October–December

*October 1976
**18 October
***Burnt Offerings
**22 October
***Car Wash
*November 1976
**3 November
***Carrie
**13 November
***Alice, Sweet Alice
**27 November
***Network
*December 1976
**3 December
***Rocky
**5 December
***Bound for Glory
**8 December
***A Star Is Born
***Silver Streak
**15 December
***The Pink Panther Strikes Again
**17 December
***The Shaggy D.A.
***Freaky Friday
***King Kong
**21 December
***Nickelodeon
**22 December
***The Enforcer
**24 December 
***The Town That Dreaded Sundown
**25 December
***The Eagle Has Landed

Births

*January 6
**Danny Pintauro, American actor
**Johnny Yong Bosch, American actor, voice actor
*February 11 - Brice Beckham, American actor.
*February 23 
** Aaron Aziz, Singaporean actor
**Kelly Macdonald, Scottish actress.
*February 25 - Rashida Jones, American actress.
*March 16 - Paul Schneider, American actor.
*March 22 - Reese Witherspoon, American actress.
*March 23 - Michelle Monaghan, American actress.
*April 1
** David Oyelowo, British actor, producer, director
** Troy Baker, American voice actor, voice actor
*April 13 - Jonathan Brandis, American actor. (d.2003)
*April 15 - Susan Ward, American actress.
*April 23 - Gabriel Damon, American actor.
*April 27 - Sally Hawkins, English actress.
*May 25 
**Cillian Murphy, Irish actor
**Ethan Suplee, American film and television actor
**J. Michael Tatum, American voice actor
*July 15 - Diane Kruger, German actress.
*July 19 - Benedict Cumberbatch, English actor.
*July 31 - Mela Lee, American voice actress
*August 9 - Audrey Tautou, French actress.
*September 6 - Naomie Harris, British actress
*September 7 - Shannon Elizabeth, American actress.
*September 20 - Enuka Okuma, Canadian actress.
*October 4 - Alicia Silverstone, American actress.
*October 21 - Andrew Scott, Irish actor.
*October 23 - Ryan Reynolds, Canadian actor.
*October 31 - Piper Perabo, American actress.
*November 29 - Chadwick Boseman, American actor.
*December 8 - Dominic Monaghan, English actor.

Notable deaths

Film debuts

*Albert Brooks - Taxi Driver
*Chow Yun-fat - Tou tai ren
*Ernie Hudson - Leadbelly
*Amy Irving - Carrie
*Jessica Lange - King Kong
*Delroy Lindo - Find the Lady
*Brooke Shields - Alice, Sweet Alice Watergate was a major political scandal that occurred in the United States in the 1970s, following a break-in at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. and President Richard Nixon's administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement. When the conspiracy was discovered and investigated by the U.S. Congress, the Nixon administration's resistance to its probes led to a constitutional crisis. 

The term Watergate has come to encompass an array of clandestine and often illegal activities undertaken by members of the Nixon administration. Those activities included such "dirty tricks" as bugging the offices of political opponents and people of whom Nixon or his officials were suspicious. Nixon and his close aides ordered harassment of activist groups and political figures, using the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The scandal led to the discovery of multiple abuses of power by the Nixon administration, articles of impeachment,  and the resignation of Nixon as President of the United States on August 9, 1974. The scandal also resulted in the indictment of 69 people, with trials or pleas resulting in 25 being found guilty and incarcerated, many of whom were Nixon's top administration officials.

The affair began with the arrest of five men for breaking and entering into the DNC headquarters at the Watergate complex on Saturday, June 17, 1972. The FBI investigated and discovered a connection between cash found on the burglars and a slush fund used by the Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CREEP), the official organization of Nixon's campaign.   In July 1973, evidence mounted against the President's staff, including testimony provided by former staff members in an investigation conducted by the Senate Watergate Committee. The investigation revealed that President Nixon had a tape-recording system in his offices and that he had recorded many conversations.  

After a protracted series of bitter court battles, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the president was obligated to release the tapes to government investigators, and he eventually complied. These audio recordings implicated the president, revealing he had attempted to cover up activities that took place after the break-in and to use federal officials to deflect the investigation. 
Facing near-certain impeachment in the House of Representatives and equally certain conviction by the Senate, Nixon resigned the presidency on August 9, 1974.   On September 8, 1974, his successor, Gerald Ford, pardoned him.

The name "Watergate" and the suffix "-gate" have since become synonymous with political scandals in the United States and elsewhere.     

Wiretapping of the Democratic Party's headquarters 

In January 1972, G. Gordon Liddy, general counsel to the Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CREEP), presented a campaign intelligence plan to CREEP's Acting Chairman Jeb Stuart Magruder, Attorney General John Mitchell, and Presidential Counsel John Dean, that involved extensive illegal activities against the Democratic Party. According to Dean, this marked "the opening scene of the worst political scandal of the twentieth century and the beginning of the end of the Nixon presidency." 

Mitchell viewed the plan as unrealistic. Two months later, he was alleged to have approved a reduced version of the plan, to include burgling the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate Complex in Washington, D.C.—ostensibly to photograph campaign documents and install listening devices in telephones. Liddy was nominally in charge of the operation, but has since insisted that he was duped by Dean and at least two of his subordinates. These included former CIA officers E. Howard Hunt and James McCord, then-CREEP Security Coordinator (John Mitchell had by then resigned as Attorney General to become chairman of the CREEP).[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/stories/mitchobit.htm Lawrence Meyer, "John N. Mitchell, Principal in Watergate, Dies at 75"], The Washington Post, November 10, 1988

In May, McCord assigned former FBI agent Alfred C. Baldwin III to carry out the wiretapping and monitor the telephone conversations afterward.[http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKbaldwinA.htm Alfred C. Baldwin] Spartacus Educational. Retrieved May 17, 2015 McCord testified that he selected Baldwin's name from a registry published by the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI to work for the Committee to Re-elect the President.  Baldwin first served as  bodyguard to Martha Mitchell, the wife of John Mitchell, who was living in Washington.  Baldwin accompanied Martha Mitchell to Chicago.  Martha did not like Baldwin and described him as the "gauchest character I've ever met." The Committee replaced Baldwin with another security man.

On May 11, McCord arranged for Baldwin, whom investigative reporter Jim Hougan described as "somehow special and perhaps well known to McCord," to stay at the Howard Johnson's motel across the street from the Watergate complex.  The room 419 was booked in the name of McCord’s company.  At behest of G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, McCord and his team of burglars prepared for their first Watergate break-in, which began on May 28.

Two phones inside the offices of the DNC headquarters were said to have been wiretapped. One was the phone of Robert Spencer Oliver, who at the time was working as the executive director of the Association of State Democratic Chairmen, and the other was the phone of DNC secretary Larry O'Brien.   The FBI found no evidence that O'Brien's phone was bugged.  However, it was determined that an effective listening device had been installed in Oliver's phone.

Despite the success in installing the listening devices, the Committee agents soon determined that they needed to be repaired. They planned a second "burglary" in order to take care of this.

Shortly after midnight on June 17, 1972, Frank Wills, a security guard at the Watergate Complex, noticed tape covering the latches on some of the doors in the complex leading from the underground parking garage to several offices (allowing the doors to close but remain unlocked). He removed the tape, and thought nothing of it. He returned an hour later and, having discovered that someone had retaped the locks, Wills called the police. Five men were discovered inside the DNC office and arrested. They were Virgilio González, Bernard Barker, James McCord, Eugenio Martínez, and Frank Sturgis, who were charged with attempted burglary and attempted interception of telephone and other communications. On September 15, a grand jury indicted them, as well as Hunt and Liddy,  for conspiracy, burglary, and violation of federal wiretapping laws. The five burglars who broke into the office were tried by a jury, Judge John Sirica officiating, and were convicted on January 30, 1973. 

Cover-up and its unraveling 

Initial cover-up 

Within hours of the burglars' arrest, the FBI discovered the name of E. Howard Hunt in the address books of Barker and Martínez. Nixon administration officials were concerned because Hunt and Liddy were also involved in a separate secret activity known as the White House Plumbers, which was set up to stop security "leaks" and to investigate other sensitive security matters. Dean would later testify he was ordered by top Nixon aide John Ehrlichman to "deep six" the contents of Howard Hunt's White House safe. Ehrlichman subsequently denied that. In the end, the evidence from Hunt's safe was destroyed (in separate operations) by Dean and the FBI's Acting Director, L. Patrick Gray.

Nixon's own reaction to the break-in, at least initially, was one of skepticism. Watergate prosecutor James Neal was sure Nixon had not known in advance of the break-in. As evidence, he cited a June 23 taped conversation between the President and his Chief of Staff, H. R. Haldeman, in which Nixon asked, "Who was the asshole who ordered it?"  But Nixon subsequently ordered Haldeman to have the CIA block the FBI's investigation into the source of the funding for the burglary.

A few days later, Nixon's Press Secretary, Ron Ziegler, described the event as "a third-rate burglary attempt." On August 29, at a news conference, President Nixon stated Dean had conducted a thorough investigation of the matter, when in fact Dean had not conducted any investigation at all. Nixon also said, "I can say categorically that... no one in the White House staff, no one in this Administration, presently employed, was involved in this very bizarre incident." On September 15, Nixon congratulated Dean, saying, "The way you've handled it, it seems to me, has been very skillful, because you—putting your fingers in the dikes every time that leaks have sprung here and sprung there."

Money trail 

On June 19, 1972, the press reported that one of the Watergate burglars was a Republican Party security aide.  Former Attorney General John Mitchell, who at the time was the head of the Nixon re-election campaign (CRP), denied any involvement with the Watergate break-in or knowledge of the five burglars. On August 1, a $25,000 cashier's check earmarked for the Nixon re-election campaign was found in the bank account of one of the Watergate burglars. Further investigation by the FBI would reveal the team had thousands of dollars more to support their travel and expenses in the months leading up to their arrests. Examination of their funds showed a link to the finance committee of CRP.

Several donations (totaling $86,000) were made by individuals who thought they were making private donations by certified and cashier's checks for the President's re-election. Investigators' examination of the bank records of a Miami company run by Watergate burglar Barker revealed an account controlled by him personally had deposited a check and then transferred it (through the Federal Reserve Check Clearing System).

The banks that had originated the checks were keen to ensure the depository institution used by Barker had acted properly in ensuring the checks had been received and endorsed by the check's payee, before its acceptance for deposit in Bernard Barker's account. Only in this way would the issuing banks not be held liable for the unauthorized and improper release of funds from their customers' accounts.

The investigation by the FBI, which cleared Barker's bank of fiduciary malfeasance, led to the direct implication of members of the CRP, to whom the checks had been delivered. Those individuals were the Committee bookkeeper and its treasurer, Hugh Sloan.

As a private organization, the Committee followed normal business practice in allowing only duly authorized individual(s) to accept and endorse checks on behalf of the Committee.  No financial institution could accept or process a check on behalf of the Committee unless a duly authorized individual endorsed it. The checks deposited into Barker's bank account were endorsed by Committee treasurer Hugh Sloan, who was authorized by the Finance Committee. However, once Sloan had endorsed a check made payable to the Committee, he had a legal and fiduciary responsibility to see that the check was deposited only into the accounts named on the check. Sloan failed to do that. When confronted with the potential charge of federal bank fraud, he revealed that Committee deputy director Jeb Magruder and finance director Maurice Stans had directed him to give the money to G. Gordon Liddy.

Liddy, in turn, gave the money to Barker, and attempted to hide its origin. Barker tried to disguise the funds by depositing them into accounts in banks outside of the United States. What Barker, Liddy, and Sloan did not know was that the complete record of all such transactions were held for roughly six months. Barker's use of foreign banks in April and May 1972, to deposit checks and withdraw the funds via cashier's checks and money orders, resulted in the banks keeping the entire transaction records until October and November 1972.

All five Watergate burglars were directly or indirectly tied to the 1972 CRP, thus causing Judge Sirica to suspect a conspiracy involving higher-echelon government officials. 

On September 29, 1972, the press reported that John Mitchell, while serving as Attorney General, controlled a secret Republican fund used to finance intelligence-gathering against the Democrats. On October 10, the FBI reported the Watergate break-in was part of a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage on behalf of the Nixon re-election committee. Despite these revelations, Nixon's campaign was never seriously jeopardized; on November 7, the President was re-elected in one of the biggest landslides in American political history.

Role of the media 

The connection between the break-in and the re-election committee was highlighted by media coverage—in particular, investigative coverage by The Washington Post, Time, and The New York Times. The coverage dramatically increased publicity and consequent political repercussions. Relying heavily upon anonymous sources, Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered information suggesting that knowledge of the break-in, and attempts to cover it up, led deeply into the upper reaches of the Justice Department, FBI, CIA, and the White House. Woodward and Bernstein interviewed Judy Hoback Miller, the bookkeeper for Nixon, who revealed to them information about the mishandling of funds and records being destroyed. 

Chief among the Post's anonymous sources was an individual whom Woodward and Bernstein had nicknamed Deep Throat; 33 years later, in 2005, the informant was identified as William Mark Felt, Sr., deputy director of the FBI during that period of the 1970s, something Woodward later confirmed. Felt met secretly with Woodward several times, telling him of Howard Hunt's involvement with the Watergate break-in, and that the White House staff regarded the stakes in Watergate extremely high. Felt warned Woodward that the FBI wanted to know where he and other reporters were getting their information, as they were uncovering a wider web of crimes than the FBI first disclosed. All of the secret meetings between Woodward and "Deep Throat" (W. Mark Felt) took place at an underground parking garage somewhere in Rosslyn over a period from June 1972 to January 1973. Prior to resigning from the FBI on June 22, 1973, Felt also anonymously planted leaks about Watergate to Time magazine, the Washington Daily News and other publications.[http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/14/v-fullstory/2639954/the-profound-lies-of-deep-throat.html "The profound lies of Deep Throat"], The Miami Herald, February 14, 2012 

During this early period, most of the media failed to grasp the full implications of the scandal, and concentrated reporting on other topics related to the 1972 presidential election. After the reporting that one of the convicted burglars wrote to Judge Sirica alleging a high-level cover-up, the media shifted its focus. Time magazine described Nixon as undergoing "daily hell and very little trust." The distrust between the press and the Nixon administration was mutual and greater than usual due to lingering dissatisfaction with events from the Vietnam War. At the same time, public distrust of the media was polled at more than 40%.

Nixon and top administration officials discussed using government agencies to "get" (or retaliate against) those they perceived as hostile media organizations. The discussions had precedent. At the request of Nixon's White House in 1969, the FBI tapped the phones of five reporters. In 1971, the White House requested an audit of the tax return of the editor of Newsday, after he wrote a series of articles about the financial dealings of Charles Rebozo, a friend of Nixon. 

The Administration and its supporters accused the media of making "wild accusations," putting too much emphasis on the story, and of having a liberal bias against the Administration. Nixon said in a May 1974 interview with supporter Baruch Korff that if he had followed the liberal policies that he thought the media preferred, "Watergate would have been a blip."  The media noted that most of the reporting turned out to be accurate; the competitive nature of the media guaranteed widespread coverage of the far-reaching political scandal. Applications to journalism schools reached an all-time high in 1974.

Scandal Escalates 

Rather than ending with the conviction and sentencing to prison of the five Watergate burglars on January 30, 1973, the investigation into the break-in and the Nixon Administration's involvement grew broader. Nixon's conversations in late March and all of April 1973 revealed that not only did he know he needed to remove Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Dean to gain distance from them, but he had to do so in a way that was least likely to incriminate him and his presidency. Nixon created a new conspiracy—to effect a cover-up of the cover-up—which began in late March 1973 and became fully formed in May and June 1973, operating until his presidency ended on August 9, 1974.  On March 23, 1973, Judge Sirica read the court a letter from Watergate burglar James McCord, who alleged that perjury had been committed in the Watergate trial, and defendants had been pressured to remain silent. Trying to make them talk, Sirica gave Hunt and two burglars provisional sentences of up to 40 years.

On March 28, on Nixon's orders, aide John Ehrlichman told Attorney General Richard Kleindienst that nobody in the White House had prior knowledge of the burglary. On April 13, Magruder told U.S. attorneys that he had perjured himself during the burglars' trial, and implicated John Dean and John Mitchell.

John Dean believed that he, Mitchell, Ehrlichman and Haldeman could go to the prosecutors, tell the truth, and save the presidency. Dean wanted to protect the presidency and have his four closest men take the fall for telling the truth. During the critical meeting with Dean and Nixon on April 15, 1973, Dean was totally unaware of the president's depth of knowledge and involvement in the Watergate cover-up. It was during this meeting that Dean felt that he was being recorded. He wondered if this was due to the way Nixon was speaking, as if he were trying to prod attendees; recollections of earlier conversations about fundraising. Dean mentioned this observation while testifying to the Senate Committee on Watergate, exposing the thread of what were taped conversations that would unravel the fabric of Watergate. 

Two days later, Dean told Nixon that he had been cooperating with the U.S. attorneys. On that same day, U.S. attorneys told Nixon that Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Dean and other White House officials were implicated in the cover-up.  

On April 30, Nixon asked for the resignation of Haldeman and Ehrlichman, two of his most influential aides. They were later both indicted, convicted, and ultimately sentenced to prison. He asked for the resignation of Attorney General Kleindienst, to ensure no one could claim that his innocent friendship with Haldeman and Ehrlichman could be construed as a conflict. He fired White House Counsel John Dean, who went on to testify before the Senate Watergate Committee and said that he believed and suspected the conversations in the Oval Office were being taped. This information became the bombshell that helped force Richard Nixon to resign rather than be impeached. 

Writing from prison for New West and New York magazines in 1977, Ehrlichman claimed Nixon had offered him a large sum of money, which he declined. 

The President announced the resignations in an address to the American people:

On the same day, Nixon appointed a new attorney general, Elliot Richardson, and gave him authority to designate a special counsel for the Watergate investigation who would be independent of the regular Justice Department hierarchy. In May 1973, Richardson named Archibald Cox to the position.

Senate Watergate hearings and revelation of the Watergate tapes 

On February 7, 1973, the United States Senate voted 77–0 to approve Senate Resolution  and establish a select committee to investigate Watergate, with Sam Ervin named chairman the next day.[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,942983-1,00.html "WATERGATE RETROSPECTIVE: THE DECLINE AND FALL"], Time, August 19, 1974 The hearings held by the Senate committee, in which Dean and other former administration officials testified, were broadcast from May 17 to August 7, 1973. The three major networks of the time agreed to take turns covering the hearings live, each network thus maintaining coverage of the hearings every third day, starting with ABC on May 17 and ending with NBC on August 7. An estimated 85% of Americans with television sets tuned into at least one portion of the hearings. 

On Friday, July 13, 1973, during a preliminary interview, deputy minority counsel Donald Sanders asked White House assistant Alexander Butterfield if there was any type of recording system in the White House. 
Butterfield said he was reluctant to answer, but finally stated there was a new system in the White House that automatically recorded everything in the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room and others, as well as Nixon's private office in the Old Executive Office Building.

On Monday, July 16, 1973, in front of a live, televised audience, chief minority counsel Fred Thompson asked Butterfield whether he was "aware of the installation of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the President." Butterfield's revelation of the taping system transformed the Watergate investigation. Cox immediately subpoenaed the tapes, as did the Senate, but Nixon refused to release them, citing his executive privilege as president, and ordered Cox to drop his subpoena. Cox refused. 

"Saturday Night Massacre" 

On October 20, 1973, after Cox refused to drop the subpoena, Nixon commanded Attorney General Elliot Richardson, and then Richardson's deputy, William Ruckelshaus, to fire the special prosecutor. Richardson and Ruckelshaus both refused to fire Cox and resigned in protest. Nixon's search for someone in the Justice Department willing to fire Cox ended with the Solicitor General Robert Bork. Though Bork claims to believe Nixon's order was valid and appropriate, he considered resigning to avoid being "perceived as a man who did the President's bidding to save my job."  Bork carried out the presidential order and dismissed the special prosecutor.

These actions met considerable public criticism. Responding to the allegations of possible wrongdoing, in front of 400 Associated Press managing editors on November 17, 1973, Nixon stated emphatically, "I'm not a crook."   He needed to allow Bork to appoint a new special prosecutor; Bork chose Leon Jaworski to continue the investigation.

Legal action against Nixon Administration members 

On March 1, 1974, a grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicted several former aides of President Nixon, who became known as the "Watergate Seven": Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, Charles Colson, Gordon C. Strachan, Robert Mardian and Kenneth Parkinson, for conspiring to hinder the Watergate investigation. The grand jury secretly named President Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator. The special prosecutor dissuaded them from an indictment of Nixon, arguing that a President can only be indicted after he leaves office. John Dean, Jeb Stuart Magruder, and other figures had already pleaded guilty. On April 5, 1974, Dwight Chapin, the former Nixon appointments secretary, was convicted of lying to the grand jury. Two days later, the same grand jury indicted Ed Reinecke, the Republican lieutenant governor of California, on three charges of perjury before the Senate committee.

Release of the transcripts 

The Nixon administration struggled to decide what materials to release. All parties involved agreed that all pertinent information should be released. Whether to release unedited profanity and vulgarity divided his advisers. His legal team favored releasing the tapes unedited, while Press Secretary Ron Ziegler preferred using an edited version where "expletive deleted" would replace the raw material. After several weeks of debate, they decided to release an edited version. Nixon announced the release of the transcripts in a speech to the nation on April 29, 1974. Nixon noted that any audio pertinent to national security information could be redacted from the released tapes. 

Initially, Nixon gained a positive reaction for his speech. As people read the transcripts over the next couple of weeks, however, former supporters among the public, media and political community called for Nixon's resignation or impeachment. Vice President Gerald Ford said, "While it may be easy to delete characterization from the printed page, we cannot delete characterization from people's minds with a wave of the hand."  The Senate Republican Leader Hugh Scott said the transcripts revealed a "deplorable, disgusting, shabby, and immoral" performance on the part of the President and his former aides.  The House Republican Leader John Jacob Rhodes agreed with Scott, and Rhodes recommended that if Nixon's position continued to deteriorate, he "ought to consider resigning as a possible option." 

The editors of The Chicago Tribune, a newspaper that had supported Nixon, wrote, "He is humorless to the point of being inhumane. He is devious. He is vacillating. He is profane. He is willing to be led. He displays dismaying gaps in knowledge. He is suspicious of his staff. His loyalty is minimal."  The Providence Journal wrote, "Reading the transcripts is an emetic experience; one comes away feeling unclean." This newspaper continued, that, while the transcripts may not have revealed an indictable offense, they showed Nixon contemptuous of the United States, its institutions, and its people. According to Time magazine, the Republican Party leaders in the Western United States felt that while there remained a significant number of Nixon loyalists in the party, the majority believed that Nixon should step down as quickly as possible. They were disturbed by the bad language and the coarse, vindictive tone of the conversations in the transcripts. 

Supreme Court 

The issue of access to the tapes went to the US Supreme Court. On July 24, 1974, in United States v. Nixon, the Court, which did not include the recused Justice William Rehnquist (who had recently been appointed by Nixon and had served as Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Nixon Justice Department), ruled unanimously that claims of executive privilege over the tapes were void. They ordered the president to release them to the special prosecutor. On July 30, 1974, President Nixon complied with the order and released the subpoenaed tapes for the public.

Release of the tapes 

The tapes revealed several crucial conversations  that took place between the President and his counsel, John Dean, on March 21, 1973. In this conversation, Dean summarized many aspects of the Watergate case, and focused on the subsequent cover-up, describing it as a "cancer on the presidency." The burglary team was being paid hush money for their silence and Dean stated: "That's the most troublesome post-thing, because Bob [Haldeman] is involved in that; John [Ehrlichman] is involved in that; I am involved in that; Mitchell is involved in that. And that's an obstruction of justice." Dean continued, stating that Howard Hunt was blackmailing the White House, demanding money immediately; President Nixon replied that the blackmail money should be paid: "…just looking at the immediate problem, don't you have to have – handle Hunt's financial situation damn soon? […] you've got to keep the cap on the bottle that much, in order to have any options." 

At the time of the initial congressional impeachment, it was not known if Nixon had known and approved of the payments to the Watergate defendants earlier than this conversation. Nixon's conversation with Haldeman on August 1, 1972, is one of several that establishes he did. Nixon states: "Well…they have to be paid. That's all there is to that. They have to be paid."  During the congressional debate on impeachment, some believed that impeachment required a criminally indictable offense. President Nixon's agreement to make the blackmail payments was regarded as an affirmative act to obstruct justice. 

On December 7, 1973, investigators found that an 18½ minute portion of one recorded tape had been erased. Rose Mary Woods, Nixon's longtime personal secretary, said she had accidentally erased the tape by pushing the wrong pedal on her tape player when answering the phone. The press ran photos of the set-up, showing that it was unlikely for Woods to answer the phone while keeping her foot on the pedal. Later forensic analysis in 2003 determined that the tape had been erased in several segments – at least five, and perhaps as many as nine. 

Final investigations and resignation 

Nixon's position was becoming increasingly precarious. On February 6, 1974, the House of Representatives approved  giving the Judiciary Committee authority to investigate impeachment of the President.   On July 27, 1974, the House Judiciary Committee voted 27–11 to recommend the first article of impeachment against the president: obstruction of justice. The House recommended the second article, abuse of power, on July 29, 1974. The next day, on July 30, 1974, the House recommended the third article: contempt of Congress. On August 20, 1974, the House authorized the printing of the Committee report H. Rept. 93-1305, which included the text of the resolution impeaching President Nixon and set forth articles of impeachment against him.  

"Smoking Gun" tape 

On August 5, 1974, the White House released a previously unknown audio tape from June 23, 1972. Recorded only a few days after the break-in, it documented the initial stages of the cover-up: it revealed Nixon, Swingle, and Haldeman meeting in the Oval Office and formulating a plan to block investigations by having the CIA falsely claim to the FBI that national security was involved.

Haldeman introduced the topic as follows:
…the Democratic break-in thing, we're back to the–in the, the problem area because the FBI is not under control, because Gray doesn't exactly know how to control them, and they have… their investigation is now leading into some productive areas […] and it goes in some directions we don't want it to go.

After explaining how the money from CRP was traced to the burglars, Haldeman explained to Nixon the cover-up plan: "the way to handle this now is for us to have Walters [CIA] call Pat Gray [FBI] and just say, 'Stay the hell out of this …this is ah, business here we don't want you to go any further on it.

President Nixon approved the plan, and after he was given more information about the involvement of his campaign in the break-in, he told Haldeman: "All right, fine, I understand it all. We won't second-guess Mitchell and the rest." Returning to the use of the CIA to obstruct the FBI, he instructed Haldeman: "You call them in. Good. Good deal. Play it tough. That's the way they play it and that's the way we are going to play it."  

Nixon denied that this constituted an obstruction of justice, as his instructions ultimately resulted in the CIA truthfully reporting to the FBI that there were no national security issues. Nixon urged the FBI to press forward with the investigation when they expressed concern about interference. 

Before the release of this tape, President Nixon had denied any involvement in the scandal. He claimed that there were no political motivations in his instructions to the CIA, and claimed he had no knowledge before March 21, 1973, of involvement by senior campaign officials such as John Mitchell. The contents of this tape persuaded Nixon's own lawyers, Fred Buzhardt and James St. Clair, that, "The tape proved that the President had lied to the nation, to his closest aides, and to his own lawyers - for more than two years."  The tape, which was referred to as a "smoking gun" by Barber Conable, proved that Nixon had been involved in the cover-up from the beginning.

In the week before Nixon's resignation, Ehrlichman and Haldeman tried unsuccessfully to get Nixon to grant them pardons—which he had promised them before their April 1973 resignations. 

Resignation 

The release of the "smoking gun" tape destroyed Nixon politically. The ten congressmen who had voted against all three articles of impeachment in the House Judiciary Committee announced they would all support impeachment when the vote was taken in the full House.

On the night of August 7, 1974, Senators Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott and Congressman John Jacob Rhodes met with Nixon in the Oval Office and told him that his support in Congress had all but disappeared. Rhodes told Nixon that he would face certain impeachment when the articles came up for vote in the full House. Goldwater and Scott told the president that there were enough votes in the Senate to convict him, and that no more than 15 Senators were willing to vote for acquittal.

Realizing that he had no chance of staying in office, Nixon decided to resign. In a nationally televised address from the Oval Office on the evening of August 8, 1974, the president said, in part:

The morning that his resignation took effect, the President, with Mrs. Nixon and their family, said farewell to the White House staff in the East Room.  A helicopter carried them from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. Nixon later wrote that he thought, "As the helicopter moved on to Andrews, I found myself thinking not of the past, but of the future. What could I do now?" At Andrews, he and his family boarded Air Force One to El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in California, and then were transported to his home in San Clemente.

President Ford's pardon of Nixon 

With President Nixon's resignation, Congress dropped its impeachment proceedings. Criminal prosecution was still a possibility both on the federal and state level. Nixon was succeeded by Vice President Gerald Ford as President, who on September 8, 1974, issued a full and unconditional pardon of Nixon, immunizing him from prosecution for any crimes he had "committed or may have committed or taken part in" as president.  In a televised broadcast to the nation, Ford explained that he felt the pardon was in the best interest of the country. He said that the Nixon family's situation "is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must." 

Nixon proclaimed his innocence until his death in 1994. In his official response to the pardon, he said that he "...was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate, particularly when it reached the stage of judicial proceedings and grew from a political scandal into a national tragedy." 

Some commentators have argued that pardoning Nixon contributed to President Ford's loss of the presidential election of 1976.  Allegations of a secret deal made with Ford, promising a pardon in return for Nixon's resignation, led Ford to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on October 17, 1974.  

In his autobiography A Time to Heal, Ford wrote about a meeting he had with Nixon's Chief of Staff, Alexander Haig. Haig was explaining what he and Nixon's staff thought were Nixon's only options. He could try to ride out the impeachment and fight against conviction in the Senate all the way, or he could resign. His options for resigning were to delay his resignation until further along in the impeachment process, to try and settle for a censure vote in Congress, or to pardon himself and then resign. Haig told Ford that some of Nixon's staff suggested that Nixon could agree to resign in return for an agreement that Ford would pardon him.

Aftermath 

Final legal actions and effect on the law profession 

Charles Colson pleaded guilty to charges concerning the Daniel Ellsberg case; in exchange, the indictment against him for covering up the activities of the Committee to Re-elect the President was dropped, as it was against Strachan. The remaining five members of the Watergate Seven indicted in March went on trial in October 1974.  On January 1, 1975, all but Parkinson were found guilty. In 1976, the U.S. Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for Mardian; subsequently, all charges against him were dropped.

Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Mitchell exhausted their appeals in 1977. Ehrlichman entered prison in 1976, followed by the other two in 1977.  Since Nixon and many senior officials involved in Watergate were lawyers, the scandal severely tarnished the public image of the legal profession.   

The Watergate scandal resulted in 69 government officials being charged and 48 being found guilty, including:
#John N. Mitchell, Attorney General of the United States who resigned to become Director of Committee to Re-elect the President, convicted of perjury about his involvment in the Watergate break-in. Served 19 months of a one- to four-year sentence.
#Richard Kleindienst, Attorney General, convicted of "refusing to answer questions" (contempt of court); given one month in jail. 
#Jeb Stuart Magruder, Deputy Director of Committee to Re-elect the President, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to the burglary, and was sentenced to 10 months to four years in prison, of which he served 7 months before being paroled. 
#Frederick C. LaRue, Advisor to John Mitchell, convicted of obstruction of justice. He served four and a half months.
#H. R. Haldeman, Chief of Staff for Nixon, convicted of conspiracy to the burglary, obstruction of justice, and perjury. Served 18 months in prison. 
#John Ehrlichman, Counsel to Nixon, convicted of conspiracy to the burglary, obstruction of justice, and perjury. Served 18 months in prison. 
#Egil Krogh, aide to John Ehrlichman, sentenced to six months.
#John W. Dean III, counsel to Nixon, convicted of obstruction of justice, later reduced to felony offenses and sentenced to time already served, which totaled 4 months.
#Dwight L. Chapin, deputy assistant to Nixon, convicted of perjury.
#Herbert W. Kalmbach, personal attorney to Nixon, convicted of illegal campaigning.
#Charles W. Colson, special counsel to Nixon, convicted of obstruction of justice. Served 7 months in Federal Maxwell Prison.
#Herbert L. Porter, aide to the Committee to Re-elect the President. Convicted of perjury.
... and the actual Watergate "Burglary" team:
#G. Gordon Liddy, Special Investigations Group, convicted of masterminding the burglary, original sentence of up to 20 years in prison. Served 4½ years in federal prison.
#E. Howard Hunt, Security consultant, convicted of masterminding and overseeing the burglary, original sentence of up to 35 years in prison.  Served 33 months in prison. 
#James W. McCord Jr., convicted of six charges of burglary, conspiracy and wiretapping.  Served 2 months in prison.
#Virgilio Gonzalez, convicted of burglary, original sentence of up to 40 years in prison. Served 13 months in prison.
#Bernard Barker, convicted of burglary, original sentence of up to 40 years in prison. Served 18 months in prison. 
#Eugenio Martinez, convicted of burglary, original sentence of up to 40 years in prison. Served 15 months in prison.
#Frank Sturgis, convicted of burglary, original sentence of up to 40 years in prison.  Served 10 months in prison.

To defuse public demand for direct federal regulation of lawyers (as opposed to leaving it in the hands of state bar associations or courts), the American Bar Association (ABA) launched two major reforms. First, the ABA decided that its existing Model Code of Professional Responsibility (promulgated 1969) was a failure. In 1983 it replaced it with the Model Rules of Professional Conduct.  The MRPC have been adopted in part or in whole by 49 states (and is being considered by the last one, California). Its preamble contains an emphatic reminder that the legal profession can remain self-governing only if lawyers behave properly. Second, the ABA promulgated a requirement that law students at ABA-approved law schools take a course in professional responsibility (which means they must study the MRPC). The requirement remains in effect.

On June 24 and 25, 1975, Nixon gave secret testimony to a grand jury. According to news reports at the time, Nixon answered questions about the 18½-minute tape gap, altering White House tape transcripts turned over to the House Judiciary Committee, using the Internal Revenue Service to harass political enemies, and a $100,000 contribution from billionaire Howard Hughes. Aided by the Public Citizen Litigation Group, the historian Stanley Kutler, who has written several books about Nixon and Watergate and had successfully sued for the 1996 public release of the Nixon White House tapes,  sued for release of the transcripts of the Nixon grand jury testimony.

On July 29, 2011, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth granted Kutler's request, saying historical interests trumped privacy, especially considering that Nixon and other key figures were deceased, and most of the surviving figures had testified under oath, have been written about, or were interviewed. The transcripts were not immediately released pending the government's decision on whether to appeal.[http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/29/us-nixon-watergate-idUSTRE76S4ZH20110729 "Nixon's secret Watergate testimony ordered released"], Reuters, July 29, 2011 They were released in their entirety on November 10, 2011, although the names of people still alive were redacted. 

Texas A&M University–Central Texas professor Luke Nichter wrote the chief judge of the federal court in Washington to release hundreds of pages of sealed records of the Watergate Seven. In June 2012 the U.S. Department of Justice wrote the court that it would not object to their release with some exceptions.  On November 2, 2012, Watergate trial records for G. Gordon Liddy and James McCord were ordered unsealed by Federal Judge Royce Lamberth. 

Political and cultural reverberations 

According to Thomas J. Johnson, a professor of journalism at University of Texas at Austin, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger predicted during Nixon's final days that history would remember Nixon as a great president and that Watergate would be relegated to a "minor footnote." 

When Congress investigated the scope of the president's legal powers, it belatedly found that consecutive presidential administrations had declared the United States to be in a continuous open-ended state of emergency since 1950. Congress enacted the National Emergencies Act in 1976 to regulate such declarations. The Watergate scandal left such an impression on the national and international consciousness that many scandals since then have been labeled with the suffix "-gate".

Disgust with the revelations about Watergate, the Republican Party, and Nixon strongly affected results of the November 1974 Senate and House elections, which took place three months after Nixon's resignation. The Democrats gained five seats in the Senate and forty-nine in the House (the newcomers were nicknamed "Watergate Babies"). Congress passed legislation that changed campaign financing, to amend the Freedom of Information Act, as well as to require financial disclosures by key government officials (via the Ethics in Government Act). Other types of disclosures, such as releasing recent income tax forms, became expected albeit not legally required. Presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt had recorded many of their conversations but the practice purportedly ended after Watergate.

Ford's pardon of Nixon played a major role in his defeat in the 1976 presidential election against Jimmy Carter.

In 1977, Nixon arranged an interview with British journalist David Frost in the hopes of improving his legacy. Based on a previous interview in 1968,  he believed that Frost would be an easy interviewer and was taken aback by Frost's incisive questions. The interview displayed the entire scandal to the American people, and Nixon formally apologized, but his legacy remained tarnished. 

In the aftermath of Watergate, "follow the money" became part of the American lexicon and is widely believed to have been uttered by Mark Felt to Woodward and Bernstein. The phrase was never used in the 1974 book All The President's Men and did not become associated with it until the movie of the same name was released in 1976. 

Purpose of the break-in 

Despite the enormous impact of the Watergate scandal, the purpose of the break-in of the DNC offices has never been conclusively established. Records from the United States v. Liddy trial, made public in 2013, showed that four of the five burglars testified that they were told the campaign operation hoped to find evidence that linked Cuban funding to Democratic campaigns. The longtime hypothesis suggests that the target of the break-in was the offices of Larry O'Brien, the DNC Chairman.  However, O'Brien's name was not on Alfred C. Baldwin III's list of targets that was released in 2013. Among those listed were senior DNC official R. Spencer Oliver, Oliver's secretary Ida "Maxine" Wells, co-worker Robert Allen and secretary Barbara Kennedy.

Based on these revelations, Texas A&M history professor Luke Nichter, who had successfully petitioned for the release of the information,  argued that Woodward and Bernstein were incorrect in concluding, based largely on Watergate burglar James McCord's word, that the purpose of the break-in was to bug O'Brien's phone to gather political and financial intelligence on the Democrats. Instead, Nichter sided with late journalist J. Anthony Lukas of the New York Times, who had concluded that the committee was seeking to find evidence linking the Democrats to prostitution, as Oliver's office had frequently been used to arrange such meetings. However, Nichter acknowledged that Woodward and Bernstein's theory of O'Brien as the target could not be debunked unless information was released about what Baldwin heard in his bugging of conversations.

In 1968, O'Brien was appointed by Vice President Hubert Humphrey to serve as the national director of Humphrey's presidential campaign and, separately, by Howard Hughes to serve as Hughes' public-policy lobbyist in Washington. O'Brien was elected national chairman of the DNC in 1968 and 1970. In late 1971, the president's brother, Donald Nixon, was collecting intelligence for his brother at the time and asked John H. Meier, an adviser to Howard Hughes, about O'Brien. In 1956, Donald Nixon had borrowed $205,000 from Howard Hughes and had never repaid the loan. The loan's existence surfaced during the 1960 presidential election campaign, embarrassing Richard Nixon and becoming a political liability. According to author Donald M. Bartlett, Richard Nixon would do whatever was necessary to prevent another family embarrassment.  From 1968 to 1970, Hughes withdrew nearly half a million dollars from the Texas National Bank of Commerce for contributions to both Democrats and Republicans, including presidential candidates Humphrey and Nixon. Hughes wanted Donald Nixon and Meier involved but Nixon opposed this. 

Meier told Donald that he was sure the Democrats would win the election because they had considerable information on Richard Nixon's illicit dealings with Hughes that had never been released, and that it resided with Larry O'Brien.  O'Brien, who had received $25,000 from Hughes, did not have any documents but Meier claims to have wanted Richard Nixon to think that he did. It is conjecture that Donald told his brother that Meier had given the Democrats all the damaging Hughes information and that O'Brien had the proof.  According to Fred Emery, O'Brien had been a lobbyist for Hughes in a Democrat-controlled Congress, and the possibility of his finding out about Hughes' illegal contributions to the Nixon campaign was too much of a danger for Nixon to ignore. 

James F. Neal, who prosecuted the Watergate 7, did not believe Nixon had ordered the break-in because of Nixon's surprised reaction when he was told about it. He cited the June 23, 1972 conversation when Nixon asked Haldeman, "Who was the asshole that did it?" 

Reactions

Nation-states 

 – In July 1975, according to then-Prime Minister Kukrit Pramoj of Thailand, Chairman Mao Zedong called the Watergate scandal "the result of 'too much freedom of political expression in the U.S.'"  Mao called it "an indication of American isolationism, which he saw as 'disastrous' for Europe." He further said, "Do Americans really want to go isolationist? ... In the two world wars, the Americans came [in] very late, but all the same, they did come in. They haven't been isolationist in practice." 

 – Then-leader Fidel Castro said in his December 1974 interview that, of the crimes committed by the Cuban exiles, like killings, attacks on Cuban ports, and spying, the Watergate burglaries and wiretappings were "probably the least of [them]." 

 – Then-Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi told the press, "I want to say quite emphatically that everything that would weaken or jeopardize the President's power to make decisions in split seconds would represent grave danger for the whole world."

 – In August 1973, then-Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka said that the scandal had "no cancelling influence on U.S. leadership in the world." Tanaka further said, "The pivotal role of the United States has not changed, so this internal affair will not be permitted to have an effect." In March 1975, Tanaka's successor, Takeo Miki, said at a convention of the Liberal Democratic Party, "At the time of the Watergate issue in America, I was deeply moved by the scene in the House Judiciary Committee, where each member of the committee expressed his own or her own heart based upon the spirit of the American Constitution. It was this attitude, I think, that rescued American democracy." 

 – An unnamed senior official of Foreign Affairs Ministry accused President Nixon of lacking interest in Africa and its politics and then said, "American President is so enmeshed in domestic problems created by Watergate that foreign policy seems suddenly to have taken a ."

 – Then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew said in August 1973, "As one surprising revelation follows another at the Senate hearings on Watergate, it becomes increasingly clear that Washington, [D.C.], today is in no position to offer the moral or strong political and economic leadership for which its friends and allies are yearning." Moreover, Lee said that the scandal may have led the United States to lessen its interests and commitments in world affairs, to weaken its ability to enforce the Paris Peace Accords on Vietnam, and to not react to violations of the Accords. Lee said further that the United States "makes the future of this peace in Indonesia an extremely bleak one with grave consequence for the contiguous states." Lee then blamed the scandal for economic inflation in Singapore because the Singapore dollar was pegged to the United States dollar at the time, assuming the U.S. dollar was stronger than the British pound sterling. 

 – In the press conference of May 1973, General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev told Secretary of State Henry Kissinger how the United States handled the scandal was different from how the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had operated. There, without any opposition party back then, members of the Party had been wiretapped for any possible wrongdoing.  In June 1973, when Brezhnev arrived in the United States to have a one-week meeting with President Nixon,  Brezhnev told the press, "I do not intent to refer to that matter—[the Watergate]. It would be completely indecent for me to refer to it. [...] My attitude toward Mr. Nixon is of very great respect." When one reporter suggested that President Nixon and his position with Brezhnev were "weakened" by the scandal, Brezhnev replied, "It does not enter my mind to think whether Mr. Nixon has lost or gained any influence because of the affair." Then he said further that he had respected Nixon because of Nixon's "realistic and constructive approach to Soviet Union–United States relations [...] passing from an era of confrontation to an era of negotiations between nations." 

 – Talks between Nixon and Prime Minister Edward Heath may have been bugged. Heath did not publicly display his anger, with aides saying that he was unconcerned about having been bugged at the White House. According to officials, Heath commonly had notes taken of his public discussions with Nixon so a recording would not have bothered him. However, officials privately said that if private talks with Nixon were bugged, then Heath would be outraged. Even so, Heath privately was outraged over being taped without his prior knowledge. 

 – In May 1975, after the fall of Saigon ended the Vietnam War, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said if the scandal had not caused Nixon to resign, and the Congress did not override Nixon's veto of the War Powers Resolution, North Vietnam would not have captured South Vietnam. 

Others 

In January 1975, publisher of The Sacramento Union John P. McGoff said that the media overemphasized the scandal, although "an important issue," overshadowing more serious topics, like declining economy and the energy crisis. Charles Robert Redford Jr. (born August 18, 1936)  is an American actor, director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, and philanthropist. Redford is the founder of the Sundance Film Festival. 

Redford's career began in 1960 as a guest star on numerous TV programs, including: The Untouchables, Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and The Twilight Zone, among others. He earned an Emmy nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Voice of Charlie Pont (1962). His greatest Broadway success was as the stuffy newlywed husband of Elizabeth Ashley in Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1963).

Redford made his film debut in War Hunt (1962). His role in Inside Daisy Clover (1965) won him a Golden Globe for best new star. He starred in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), which was a huge success and made him a major star. In 1972, he had a critical and box office hit with Jeremiah Johnson (1972), and in 1973 had the greatest hit of his career, the blockbuster crime caper The Sting, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. The popular and acclaimed All the President's Men (1976) was a landmark film for Redford.

The first film that Redford directed, Ordinary People (1980), was one of the most critically and publicly acclaimed films of the decade, winning four Oscars, and in the same year, he starred in Brubaker (1980). He starred in Out of Africa (1985), which was an enormous critical and box office success, and won seven Oscars including Best Picture, proving to be his greatest success of the decade. He released his third film as a director, A River Runs Through It, in 1992. 

Redford won the Academy Award for Best Director in 1981 for directing Ordinary People. He was previously nominated Best Actor in 1974 for his performance in The Sting, and went on to receive Best Director and Best Picture nominations in 1995 for Quiz Show. He won a second Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2002. In 2010, he was made a chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur. He has won BAFTA, Directors Guild of America, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Awards.

In April 2014, Time Magazine included Redford in their annual TIME 100 as one of the "Most Influential People in the World", declaring him the "Godfather of Indie Film".  

Early life 

Redford was born on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California. His mother, Martha W. (; 1914–55), was born in Texas, to Archibald Hart and Sallie Pate Green; and his father, Charles Robert Redford, Sr. (1914–91),  was a milkman-turned-accountant from Pawcatuck, New London County, Connecticut,   son of Charles Elijah Redford and Lena Taylor.    He has a stepbrother,Stated on Inside the Actors Studio, 2005 William, from his father's remarriage. Redford is of English, Irish, Scottish, and Scots-Irish ancestry (his surname originates in England).    

Redford's family moved to Van Nuys, California, while his father worked in El Segundo. He attended Van Nuys High School, where he was classmates with baseball player Don Drysdale. He has described himself as having been a "bad" student, finding inspiration outside the classroom, and being interested in art and sports. He hit tennis balls with Pancho Gonzales at the Los Angeles Tennis Club to warm him up.

After graduating from high school in 1954,  he attended the University of Colorado for a year and a half, where he was a member of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity.  While there, he worked at the restaurant/bar The Sink; a painting of his likeness is prominent in the bar's murals.  While at Colorado, Redford began drinking heavily, and as a result lost his scholarship and was kicked out of school.  Later he traveled in Europe, living in France, Spain, and Italy. He later studied painting at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and took classes at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.

Career 

Television 

Redford's career—like that of almost all major stars who emerged in the 1950s—began in New York, where an actor could find work both in television and on stage. Starting in 1959, he appeared as a guest star on numerous programs, including Naked City, The Untouchables, The Americans, Whispering Smith, Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Route 66, Dr. Kildare, Playhouse 90, Tate,  The Twilight Zone, and "Captain Brassbound's Conversion" with a young Christopher Plummer, among others.

In 1960, Redford was cast as Danny Tilford, a mentally disturbed young man trapped in the wreckage of his family garage, in "Breakdown", one of the last episodes of the syndicated adventure series, Rescue 8, starring Jim Davis and Lang Jeffries.

Redford earned an Emmy nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Voice of Charlie Pont (ABC, 1962). One of his last television appearances was on October 7, 1963, on Breaking Point, an ABC medical drama about psychiatry.

Theater 

Redford's Broadway debut was in a small role in Tall Story (1959), followed by parts in The Highest Tree (1959) and Sunday in New York (1961). His biggest Broadway success was as the stuffy newlywed husband of Elizabeth Ashley in Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1963).

Film 

Redford made his screen debut in Tall Story (1960). It was a minor role. The stars of the film were Anthony Perkins, Jane Fonda (her debut), and Ray Walston. The film was about a college basketball star, played by Perkins, who gets himself into trouble debating as to whether or not he should accept a bribe to throw a basketball game against a team from Russia. After his Broadway success, he was cast in larger feature roles in movies. In 1962 Robert Redford got his second film role in War Hunt. He was cast alongside screen legend Alec Guinness in the war comedy Situation Hopeless ... But Not Serious, in which he played a soldier who has to spend years of his life hiding behind enemy lines. In Inside Daisy Clover (1965), which won him a Golden Globe for best new star, he played a bisexual movie star who marries starlet Natalie Wood, and rejoined her along with Charles Bronson for Pollack's This Property Is Condemned (1966)—again as her lover, though this time in a film which achieved even greater success. The same year saw his first teaming (on equal footing) with Jane Fonda, in Arthur Penn's The Chase. This film marked the only time Redford would star with Marlon Brando. Fonda and Redford were paired again in the popular big-screen version of Barefoot in the Park (1967) and were again co-stars much later in Pollack's The Electric Horseman (1979).

After this initial success, Redford became concerned about his blond male stereotype image and turned down roles in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate.  Redford found the niche he was looking for in George Roy Hill's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), scripted by William Goldman, in which he was paired for the first time with Paul Newman. The film was a huge success and made him a major bankable star, cementing his screen image as an intelligent, reliable, sometimes sardonic good guy.

Redford suffered through a few films that did not achieve box office success during this time, including Downhill Racer (1969); Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969); Little Fauss and Big Halsy (1970), and The Hot Rock (1972). But his overall career was flourishing with the critical and box office hit Jeremiah Johnson (1972); the political satire The Candidate (1972); the hugely popular period drama The Way We Were (1973); and the biggest hit of his career, the blockbuster crime caper The Sting (1973), which became one of the top 20 highest-grossing movies of all time when adjusted for inflation and for which he was also nominated for an Oscar.

Between 1974 and 1976, exhibitors voted Redford Hollywood's top box-office name.  His hits included The Great Gatsby (1974), The Great Waldo Pepper (1975), and Three Days of the Condor (1975). The popular and acclaimed All the President's Men (1976), directed by Alan J. Pakula and scripted once again by Goldman, was a landmark film for Redford. Not only was he the executive producer and co-star, but the film's serious subject matter—the Watergate scandal—and its attempt to create a realistic portrayal of journalism, also reflected the actor's offscreen concerns for political causes.

He also appeared in a segment of the war film A Bridge Too Far (1977) before starring in the prison drama Brubaker (1980), playing a prison warden attempting to reform the system, and the baseball drama The Natural (1984). Redford continued his involvement in mainstream Hollywood movies, though with a newfound focus on directing. The first film he directed, Ordinary People, which followed the disintegration of an upper-class American family after the death of a son, was one of the most critically and publicly acclaimed films of the decade, winning four Oscars, including Best Director for Redford himself, and Best Picture. His follow-up directorial project, The Milagro Beanfield War (1987), failed to generate the same level of attention. Sydney Pollack's Out of Africa (1985), with Redford in the male lead role opposite Meryl Streep, became an enormous critical and box office success and won seven Oscars including Best Picture, proving to be Redford's biggest success of the decade and Redford and Pollack's most successful of their six movies together. His next film, Legal Eagles (1986), was only a minor success at the box office.

Redford continued as a major star throughout the 1990s and 2000s. He released his third film as a director, A River Runs Through It, in 1992, which was a return to mainstream success for Redford as a director and brought a young Brad Pitt to greater prominence. In 1993, Redford played what became one of his most popular and recognized roles, starring in Indecent Proposal as a millionaire businessman who tests a couple's morals; the film became one of the year's biggest hits. He co-starred with Michelle Pfeiffer in the newsroom romance Up Close & Personal (1996), and with Kristin Scott Thomas in The Horse Whisperer (1998), which he also directed. Redford also continued work in films with political context, such as Havana (1990), playing Jack Weil, a professional gambler in 1959 Cuba during the Revolution, as well as Sneakers (1992), in which he co starred with River Phoenix among others.

He appeared as a disgraced Army general sent to prison in the prison drama The Last Castle (2001), directed by Rod Lurie. In the same year, Redford reteamed with Brad Pitt for Spy Game, another success for the pair but with Redford switching this time from director to actor. Redford, a leading environmental activist, narrated the IMAX documentary Sacred Planet (2004), a sweeping journey across the globe to some of its most exotic and endangered places. In The Clearing (2004), a thriller co-starring Helen Mirren, Redford was a successful businessman whose kidnapping unearths the secrets and inadequacies that led to his achieving the American Dream.

Redford stepped back into producing with The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), a coming-of-age road film about a young medical student, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, and his friend Alberto Granado.  It also explored political and social issues of South America that influenced Guevara and shaped his future.  With five years spent on the film's making, Redford was credited by director Walter Salles for being instrumental in getting it made and released.

Back in front of the camera, Redford received good notices for his role in director Lasse Hallstrom's An Unfinished Life (2005) as a cantankerous rancher who is forced to take in his estranged daughter-in-law (Jennifer Lopez)—whom he blames for his son's death—and the granddaughter he never knew he had when they fled an abusive relationship.  The film, which sat on the shelf for many months while its distributor Miramax was restructured, was generally dismissed as clichéd and overly sentimental. Meanwhile, Redford returned to familiar territory when he reteamed with Meryl Streep 22 years after they starred in Out of Africa, for his personal project Lions for Lambs (2007), which also starred fellow superstar Tom Cruise. After a great deal of hype, the film opened to mixed reviews and disappointing box office. Redford more recently signed on to direct and star in an update of The Candidate.

Redford appeared in the 2011 documentary Buck, where he discussed his experiences with title subject Buck Brannaman during the production of The Horse Whisperer.  In 2012, Redford directed and starred in The Company You Keep, about a former Weather Underground activist who goes on the run from a journalist who has discovered his identity.  In 2013, he starred in All Is Lost, directed by J.C. Chandor, about a man lost at sea. He received very high acclaim for his performance in the film, in which he is its only cast member and there is almost no dialogue.  In April 2014, Redford appeared in the Marvel Studios super hero film Captain America: The Winter Soldier playing Alexander Pierce, the main antagonist who is the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. and leader of the HYDRA cell operating the Triskelion. 

Director 

Redford had long harbored ambitions to work on both sides of the camera.  As early as 1969, Redford had served as the executive producer for Downhill Racer. His first outing as director was 1980's Best Picture winner Ordinary People, a drama about the slow disintegration of an upper-middle class family, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Director. Redford was credited with obtaining a powerful dramatic performance from Mary Tyler Moore, as well as superb work from Donald Sutherland and Timothy Hutton, who also won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

Redford did not direct again until The Milagro Beanfield War (1988), a well-crafted, though not commercially successful, screen version of John Nichols' acclaimed novel of the Southwest. The Milagro Beanfield War is the story of the people of Milagro, New Mexico (based on the real town of Truchas in northern New Mexico), overcoming big developers who set about to ruin their community and force them out because of tax increases.  Other directorial projects have included the period drama A River Runs Through It (1992), based on Norman Maclean's novella, and the exposé Quiz Show (1994), about the quiz show scandal of the late 1950s. In the latter film, Redford worked from a screenplay by Paul Attanasio with noted cinematographer Michael Ballhaus and a strong cast that featured Paul Scofield, John Turturro, Rob Morrow, and Ralph Fiennes. Redford handpicked Morrow for his part in the film (Morrow's only high-profile feature film role to date), because he liked his work on Northern Exposure.  Redford also directed Matt Damon and Will Smith in The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000). In 2010, Redford released The Conspirator, a period drama revolving around the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Despite a subject matter of personal interest to Redford, the film received mixed reviews and proved to be a flop at the box office.

Honors 

Redford attended the University of Colorado in the 1950s and received an honorary degree in 1988.

In 1989, the National Audubon Society awarded Redford its highest honor, the Audubon Medal. 

In 1995, he received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Bard College. He was a 2002 Lifetime Achievement Award/Honorary Oscar recipient at the 74th Academy Awards. 

In 1996, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. 

In December 2005, he received the Kennedy Center Honors for his contributions to American culture. The honors recipients are recognized for their lifetime contributions to American culture through the performing arts: whether in dance, music, theater, opera, motion pictures or television. 

In 2008, he was awarded The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, one of the richest prizes in the arts, given annually to "a man or woman who has made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind's enjoyment and understanding of life." 

The University of Southern California (USC) School of Dramatic Arts announced the first annual Robert Redford Award for Engaged Artists in 2009.  According to the school's web site, the award was created "to honor those who have distinguished themselves not only in the exemplary quality, skill and innovation of their work, but also in their public commitment to social responsibility, to increasing awareness of global issues and events, and to inspiring and empowering young people." 

Redford received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from Brown University at the 240th Commencement exercises on May 25, 2008.   He also spoke during the ceremonies.

On October 14, 2010, he was appointed chevalier of the Légion d'honneur. 

He was a 2010 recipient of the New Mexico Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts 

On May 24, 2015, Redford delivered the [http://www.colby.edu/commencement/commencement-2015/ commencement address] and received an honorary degree from Colby College in Waterville, Maine. 

Sundance 

With the financial proceeds of his acting success, starting with his salaries from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Downhill Racer, Redford bought an entire ski area on the east side of Mount Timpanogos northeast of Provo, Utah, called "Timp Haven", which was renamed "Sundance". Redford's wife Lola was from Utah and they had built a home in the area in 1963. Portions of the movie Jeremiah Johnson (1972), a film which is both one of Redford's favorites and one that has heavily influenced him, were shot near the ski area. He founded the Sundance Institute, Sundance Cinemas, Sundance Catalog, and the Sundance Channel, all in and around Park City, Utah, 30 miles (48 km) north of the Sundance ski area.  The Sundance Film Festival caters to independent filmmakers in the United States and has received recognition from the industry as a place to open films. In 2008, Sundance exhibited 125 feature-length films from 34 countries, with more than 50,000 attendees.  The name Sundance comes from his Sundance Kid character.  Redford also owns a restaurant called Zoom, located on Main Street in the former mining town of Park City.

Independent films 

Since founding the nonprofit Sundance Institute in Park City, in 1981, Redford has been deeply involved with independent film. Through its various workshop programs and popular film festival, Sundance has provided much-needed support for independent filmmakers. In 1995, Redford signed a deal with Showtime to start a 24-hour cable television channel devoted to airing independent films. The Sundance Channel premiered on February 29, 1996.

Personal life 

On September 12, 1958, in Las Vegas, Nevada, Redford married Lola Van Wagenen, who dropped out of college to marry him. They had four children: Scott Anthony (September 1, 1959 - November 17, 1959), Shauna Jean  (born November 15, 1960), David James ("Jamie") (born May 5, 1962), and Amy Hart Redford (born October 22, 1970). Lola and Redford divorced in 1985.

Scott Redford was born on September 1, 1959, and died of sudden infant death syndrome on November 17, 1959, at the age of 2½ months. His remains were buried at Provo City Cemetery in Provo, Utah. Shauna Redford is a painter and married to journalist Eric Schlosser. Jamie Redford is a writer and producer, while Amy Redford is an actress, director, and producer. In 1994 Jamie, suffering from liver disease, had a liver transplant.    
Redford has seven grandchildren. 

In July 2009, Redford married his longtime partner, Sibylle Szaggars, at the Louis C. Jacob Hotel in Hamburg, Germany. She had moved in with Redford in the 1990s and shares his home in Sundance, Utah. 

In May 2011, Alfred A. Knopf published Robert Redford: The Biography by Michael Feeney Callan, written over fifteen years with Redford's input and drawn from his personal papers and diaries.

Political activity 

Redford supports environmentalism, Native American rights, LGBT rights,  and the arts.  He has also supported advocacy groups, such as the Political Action Committee of the Directors Guild of America.[http://www.newsmeat.com/celebrity_political_donations/Robert_Redford.php Robert Redford's Federal campaign contributions]. Newsmeat.com Redford has on occasion also supported Republicans, including Brent Cornell Morris in his unsuccessful campaign for the Republican nomination for Utah's 3rd congressional district in 1990.  Redford also supported Gary Herbert, another Republican and a friend, in Herbert's successful 2004 campaign to be elected Utah's Lieutenant Governor. Herbert later became Governor of Utah.  Redford is an avid environmentalist and is a trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council. He endorsed Democratic President Barack Obama for re-election in 2012.  Redford is the first quote on the back cover of Donald Trump's book "Crippled America" saying of Trump “I’m glad he’s in there because him being the way he is, and saying what he says the way he says it, I think shakes things up and I think that’s very needed."  

In April 2014, Redford, a Pitzer College Trustee, and Pitzer College President Laura Skandera Trombley announced that the college will divest fossil fuel stocks from its endowment; at the time, it was the higher education institution with the largest endowment in the US to make this commitment. The press conference was held at the LA Press Club.   In November 2012, Pitzer launched the Robert Redford Conservancy for Southern California Sustainability at Pitzer College. The Redford Conservancy educates the next generation of students to create solutions for the most challenging and urgent sustainability problems.

Filmography 

Actor 

Director 

Narrator Dustin Lee Hoffman (born August 8, 1937) is an American actor and a director, with a career in film, television, and theatre since 1960. 

Hoffman has been known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and vulnerable characters.  He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1980 for Kramer vs. Kramer, and in 1989 for Rain Man.

Widely considered one of the finest actors in history, Hoffman first drew critical praise for starring in the play, Eh?, for which he won a Theatre World Award and a Drama Desk Award. This achievement was soon followed by his breakthrough 1967 film role as Benjamin Braddock, the title character in The Graduate. Since that time, Hoffman's career has largely been focused on the cinema, with sporadic returns to television and to the stage. 

Hoffman's notable films include: Midnight Cowboy, Little Big Man, Straw Dogs, Papillon, Lenny, Marathon Man, All the President's Men, Kramer vs. Kramer, Tootsie, Rain Man, Hook, and Wag the Dog.  He made his directorial debut in 2012, with Quartet.

Along with 2 Academy Award wins, Hoffman has been nominated for 5 additional Academy Awards, and he was nominated for 13 Golden Globes, winning 6 (including an honorary award). He has won 4 BAFTAs, 3 Drama Desk Awards, a Genie Award, and an Emmy Award. 

Hoffman received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1999, and the Kennedy Center Honors Award in 2012. 

Early life

Hoffman was born on August 8, 1937 in Los Angeles, California, the second son of Lillian (née Gold; 1909-1982) and Harry Hoffman (1908-1988). His father worked as a prop supervisor (set decorator) at Columbia Pictures before becoming a furniture salesman.  

Hoffman was named after stage and silent screen actor, Dustin Farnum. His older brother, Ronald, is a lawyer and economist. Hoffman is Jewish, from an Ashkenazi family of immigrants from the Russian Empire, Poland, and Romania (the family's surname was spelled "Goikhman" in the Russian Empire).    His upbringing was non-religious, and he has said, "I don’t have any memory of celebrating holidays growing up that were Jewish", and that he had "realized" he was Jewish at around age 10.   

Hoffman graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1955 and enrolled at Santa Monica College with the intention of studying medicine. He left after a year to join the Pasadena Playhouse,  although when he told his family about his career goal, his Aunt Pearl warned him "You can't be an actor. You are not good-looking enough."  He also took classes at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City.

Career

Early work

Hoffman initially hoped to become a classical pianist, having studied piano during much of his youth and in college. While at Santa Monica College, he also took an acting class, which he assumed would be easy, and "caught the acting bug." He recalls: "I just was not gifted in music. I did not have an ear." Now an aspiring actor, he spent the next ten years doing odd jobs, being unemployed, and struggling to get any available acting roles.

His first acting role was at the Pasadena Playhouse, alongside future Academy Award-winner, Gene Hackman.  After two years there, Hackman headed for New York City, with Hoffman soon following. Hoffman, Hackman and Robert Duvall lived together in the 1960s, all three of them focused on finding acting jobs.    Hackman remembers, "The idea that any of us would do well in films simply didn't occur to us. We just wanted to work." During this period, Hoffman got occasional television bit parts, including commercials but, needing income, he briefly left acting to teach.

In 1960, Hoffman was cast in a role in an Off-Broadway production and followed with a walk-on role in a Broadway production in 1961. Hoffman then studied at Actors Studio and became a dedicated method actor. Sidney W. Pink, a producer and 3D-movie pioneer, discovered him in one of his off-Broadway roles and cast him in Madigan's Millions. Through the early and mid-1960s, Hoffman made appearances in television shows and movies, including Naked City, The Defenders and Hallmark Hall of Fame. His first critical success was in the play Eh?, by Henry Livings, which had its US premiere at the Circle in the Square Downtown on October 16, 1966.

Hoffman made his film debut in The Tiger Makes Out in 1967, alongside Eli Wallach. In 1967, immediately after wrapping up principal filming on The Tiger Makes Out, Hoffman flew from New York City to Fargo, North Dakota, where he directed productions of William Gibson's Two for the Seesaw and William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life for the Fargo-Moorhead Community Theatre. The $1,000 he received for the eight-week contract was all he had to hold him over until the funds from the movie materialized. 

1960s: The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, John and Mary 

In 1967, director Mike Nichols cast Hoffman in The Graduate (1967), his first major role, for which he received an Academy Award nomination. Hoffman played the character of Benjamin Braddock, who returns to his wealthy parents' home in California after graduating from college. Confused about what to do with his life, he is seduced into having an affair with Mrs. Robinson, an alcoholic and a neurotic, and the wife of his father's business partner.

Although Life magazine joked that "if Dustin Hoffman's face were his fortune, he'd be committed to a life of poverty",  The Graduate was a gigantic box-office hit for Embassy Pictures, making Hoffman a major new star at the same time. The film received near-unanimous good reviews. Time magazine called Hoffman "a symbol of youth" who represented "a new breed of actors." The film's screenwriter, Buck Henry, notes that Hoffman's character made conventional good looks no longer necessary on screen:

Hoffman biographer Jeff Lenburg adds that "newspapers across the country were deluged with thousands of letters from fans," with one example published in the New York Times: "I identified with Ben...I thought of him as a spiritual brother. He was confused about his future and about his place in the world, as I am. It's a film one digs, rather than understands intellectually."Lenburg, Jeff. Dustin Hoffman: Hollywood's Antihero, St. Martin's Press (1983)

Turner Classic Movies critic Rob Nixon notes that Hoffman represented "a new generation of actors." He credits Hoffman with breaking "the mold of the traditional movie star and brought to their roles a new candor, ethnicity, and eagerness to dive deep into complex, even unlikable characters."[http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/18530/The-Graduate/articles.html The Graduate], Turner Classic Movies Nixon expands on the significance of the film to Hoffman's career: "In The Graduate, he created a lasting resonance as Ben Braddock that made him an overnight sensation and set him on the road to becoming one of our biggest stars and most respected actors."

Hoffman, however, mostly credits director Mike Nichols for taking a great risk in giving him, a relative unknown, the starring role: "I don't know of another instance of a director at the height of his powers who would take a chance and cast someone like me in that part. It took tremendous courage."Kasher, Sam. Vanity Fair, March 2008

Critic Sam Kashner observed strong similarities between Hoffman's character and that of Nichols when he previously acted with Elaine May in the comedy team of Nichols and May. "Just close your eyes and you'll hear a Mike Nichols—Elaine May routine in any number of scenes."  Buck Henry also noticed that "Dustin picked up all these Nichols habits, which he used in the character. Those little noises he makes are straight from Mike," he says.

After completing The Graduate, Hoffman turned down most of the film roles offered to him, preferring to go back to New York and continue performing in live theater. He returned to Broadway to appear in the title role of the musical, Jimmy Shine. Hoffman won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance.

He was then offered the lead in Midnight Cowboy (1969), which he accepted partly to prove many critics were wrong about his acting range and the variety of characters he could portray. As author and critic Peter Biskind explains, "it was the very contrast between his preppy character in The Graduate, and Ratso Rizzo" that appealed to Hoffman. "I had become troubled," recalls Hoffman, "by the reviews that I read of The Graduate, that I was not a character actor, which I like to think of myself as. It hurt me. Some of the stuff in the press was brutal." Critics assumed that director Mike Nichols got lucky by finding a typical actor with average acting ability to play the part of Benjamin Braddock.

John Schlesinger, who would direct Midnight Cowboy and was seeking lead actors, held that same impression. Hoffman's performance  as a button-down college graduate and track star was so convincing to Schlesinger, "he seemed unable to comprehend the fact that he was acting," notes Biskind. To help the director, whom he had never met, overcome that false impression, Hoffman met him in Times Square dressed as a homeless person, wearing a dirty raincoat, his hair slicked back and with an unshaven face. Schlesinger was sold, admitting, "I've only seen you in the context of The Graduate, but you'll do quite well."

Midnight Cowboy premiered in theaters across the United States in May 1969. For his acting, Hoffman received his second Oscar nomination and the film won Best Picture. In 1994, the film was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.    Biskind considers Hoffman's acting a major accomplishment:

Also in 1969, Hoffman co-starred with Mia Farrow in John and Mary. He received a 1970 BAFTA Award as Best Actor, although the film received mixed reviews.  He was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award as Best Actor.

1970s: Lenny, All the President's Men, Marathon Man, Kramer vs. Kramer

This was followed by his role in Little Big Man (1970), where Jack Crabb, his character, ages from teenager to a 121-year-old man. The film was widely praised by critics, but was overlooked for an award except for a supporting nomination for Chief Dan George. Hoffman continued to appear in major films over the next few years. Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971), Straw Dogs (also 1971), and Papillon (1973).

Hoffman next starred in Lenny (1974), for which he was again nominated for Best Actor. Lenny was based on the life of stand-up comedian, Lenny Bruce, who died at age 40, and was notable for his open, free-style and critical form of comedy which integrated politics, religion, sex, and vulgarity. Expectations were high that Hoffman would win an Oscar for his portrayal, especially after his similar role in Midnight Cowboy. Film critic Katharine Lowry speculates that director Bob Fosse "never gave him a chance" to go far enough into developing the character. "We never understand what, besides the drugs he injected, made him tick like a time bomb," she says. 

However, notes author Paul Gardner, "directing Lenny, his most ambitious project, exhausted Fosse emotionally and physically. It turned his life inside out," with shooting days often lasting 10 to 12 hours:"Gardner, Paul. "Bob Fosse Off His Toes", New York magazine, Dec. 16, 1974

Hoffman initially turned the part down: "I didn't think the script was strong enough and I wasn't sure I was the one to play the role." While considering the part, he read Lenny Bruce's autobiography and looked at films with Bruce performing stand-up to live audiences. "I began to feel an affinity with him, a realization that there was a lot of Lenny Bruce in me. My wife felt it too."Meryman, Richard. "Interview with Dustin Hoffman," Playboy, April 1975 "I realized that I'd have to make use of my own spontaneity, because he was so spontaneous. And I admired his guts. . . . That intimacy is what an actor tries to get. . . . It occurred to me that if I had known him, I would have wanted us to be friends. . . . and he was a provocateur, and I love to provoke." Movie critic Judith Crist gave Hoffman credit for the ultimate success of the film:

Lenny was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Cinematography. 

All the President's Men (1976) was made less than two years after the Watergate scandal, and starred Hoffman and Robert Redford as the real life journalists, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, respectively. Based on actual events, Hoffman and Redford play Washington Post reporters who uncover a break-in at the Watergate Hotel and end up investigating a political scandal that reaches all the way to the presidency. The film, as earlier ones, had Hoffman take on a dramatically different character than his previous one (as Lenny Bruce). Author James Morrison compares the two roles: "As Lenny Bruce in Lenny (1974), Hoffman plays a martyr to the cause of establishment oppression, while in All the President's Men, he plays a reporter exposing presidential malfeasance." 

Vincent Canby of the New York Times described the film as "a spellbinding detective story." "The strength of the movie", he added, was "the virtually day-to-day record of the way Bernstein and Woodward conducted their investigations."Noble, William. Presidential Power on Trial: From Watergate to All the President's Men, Enslow Publishers (2009) p. 99 The characters portrayed by Hoffman and Redford shared the rank of No. 27 Hero on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains list, while Entertainment Weekly ranked All the President's Men as one of the 25 "Powerful Political Thrillers".

Hoffman next starred in Marathon Man (1976), a film based on William Goldman's novel of the same name, opposite Laurence Olivier and Roy Scheider.  Its director, John Schlesinger also directed Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy in 1969. Described as "Schlesinger's thriller," by author Gene D. Phillips, Hoffman plays the hero, Babe Levy, a part-time long-distance runner and graduate student, who suddenly finds himself being pursued by a fugitive Nazi.  To put himself in the mindset of someone under severe emotional distress, rather than simply acting, Hoffman did not sleep for days at a time and let his body become disheveled and unhealthy. 

Goldman describes his inspiration for the novel: "What if someone close to you was something totally different from what you thought? In the story, Hoffman thinks his brother (Roy Scheider) is a businessman where the reality is that the man is a spy, who has been involved with the Nazi, Szell."  However, Hoffman remembers a serious disagreement he had with Goldman, who also wrote the screenplay, about how the story ends:

Hoffman's next roles were less successful. He opted out of directing Straight Time (1978), but starred as a thief. His next film, Michael Apted's Agatha (1979), was with Vanessa Redgrave as Agatha Christie.

Hoffman next starred in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) co-starring Meryl Streep and directed by Robert Benton. The film tells the story of a married couple's divorce and its impact on everyone involved, including the couple's young son. Hoffman won his first Academy Award, and the film also received the Best Picture honor, plus the awards for Best Supporting Actress (Streep) and Best Director.

The film required Hoffman to change his attitude, from being a "desensitized advertising art director" into becoming a "responsive and concerned daddy" after his wife (Streep) walks out on him and their six-year-old son, Billy. Hoffman, during the making of the movie, was also going through his own divorce after a ten-year first marriage. Hoffman has said, "Giving myself permission not only to be present but to be a father was a kind of epiphany for me at that time, that I could get to through my work. . . . I got closer to being a father by playing a father. That's very painful to say." The role also reminded him of his own love of children in general:

Benton's directing has been praised by Hoffman, who credits him for inspiring the emotional level supporting many scenes: "Perfect directors make you emotional. On Kramer vs. Kramer, Robert Benton made me emotional. He was pulling so hard for me. When I didn't think I could do a scene again I'd say, "I can't give it to you, I haven't got it." Then he'd just get this look on his face and roll the camera and I'd say, "Okay, this is yours." That's what he made you want to do for him—to give him one."Orth, Maureen. "Benton vs. Benton", New York magazine, Dec. 24, 1979

1980s: Tootsie, Death of a Salesman, Rain Man, Family Business

In Tootsie (1982), Hoffman portrays Michael Dorsey, a struggling actor who finds himself dressing up as a woman to land a role on a soap opera. His co-star was Jessica Lange. Tootsie earned ten Academy Award nominations, including Hoffman's fifth nomination.

Under direction by Sydney Pollack, Hoffman's role demanded "a steady bombardment of opposites—edgy then funny, romantic then realistic, soft then quivering."  To film critic David Denby, Hoffman's character "embodies vulnerability and drive in perfect proportion. He has the knack of making everything he does seem perilous, and so audiences feel protective of him and root for him."  Hoffman's acting was made more difficult than necessary, however, as he was not given the rehearsal time Pollock promised:

In 1984, Hoffman starred as Willy Loman in the Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's play, Death of a Salesman  He reprised his role in a TV movie of the same name, for which he won the 1985 Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor along with a Golden Globe.

Hoffman first read the play at age 16, but today considers the story much like his own: "It was a blueprint of my family. I was the loser, the flunky, and my brother, a high-school varsity football player, was Biff."[http://www.aarp.org/entertainment/movies-for-grownups/info-03-2009/dustin_hoffman.html "Just Dustin"], AARP Magazine, March/April 2009 Author Marie Brenner notes that Hoffman "has been obsessed with the play" throughout his career: "For years he has wanted to be Willy Loman; when he discovered that Arthur Miller was his neighbor in Connecticut, they began to talk about it in earnest."Brenner, Marie. "Rebirth of a Salesman", New York magazine, March 26, 1984. pp. 32-36 For Hoffman, the story also left a deep emotional impact from the time he first read it:

Hoffman rehearsed for three weeks with the play's original star, Lee J. Cobb, and remembers seeing his stage performance: "I'll never forget that period in my life. It was so vivid, so intense, watching Lee J. Cobb and his sixteen-inch guns as Willy. God, how I think about what I saw on that stage!" Brenner adds that Hoffman "has been training like a boxer for the role that so exhausted Cobb he had to be replaced after four months." The original play was directed by Elia Kazan, who Hoffman considers "the perfect director, the best there ever was. . . . God, I would have done anything to have worked with Kazan."

Hoffman's worst film failure was Elaine May's Ishtar (1987), co-starring Warren Beatty, who also produced it. Hoffman and Beatty play two down-and-out singer-songwriters who travel to Morocco for a nightclub gig and get caught up in foreign intrigue. Much of the movie was filmed in Africa. The film faced severe production problems, mostly related to its $55 million cost, and received overwhelmingly negative reviews. However, Hoffman and Beatty liked the film's final cut and tried to defend it.   Hoffman and Beatty were unaffected by the flop, and Ishtar became a cult film. Quentin Tarantino, for one, has called it one of his favorite movies, partly due to the humorous lyrics of the songs written by Paul Williams. Hoffman describes why he loves the film:

Next came director Barry Levinson's Rain Man (1988), where Hoffman starred as an autistic savant, opposite Tom Cruise. Levinson, Hoffman and Cruise worked for two years on the film, and Hoffman's performance gained him his second Academy Award. Behind Hoffman's motivation for doing the film, he has said, "Deep inside, Rain Man is about how autistic we all are." In preparation for the part, Hoffman spent two years befriending autistic people, which included taking them bowling and to fast food restaurants. "It fed my obsession," he has stated. 

Hoffman had worked at the New York Psychiatric Institute, affiliated with Columbia University, when he was 21. "It was a great experience for me," he has said. "All my life I had wanted to get inside a prison or a mental hospital. . . . I wanted to get inside where behavior, human behavior, was so exposed. All the things the rest of us were feeling and stopping up were coming out of these people." He used that experience to help him develop the character of Raymond Babbitt, a high-functioning autistic savant, yet a person who critic David Denby described as "a strangely shuttered genius."Denby, David. New York magazine, Jan. 2, 1989 pp. 45-46 Hoffman created certain character traits for Raymond. Denby noted: "Hoffman, looking suddenly older and smaller, has developed a small shuffling walk for Raymond, with shoulder bent. His eyes don't make contact with anyone else's, and he flattens his voice to a dry nasal bark."

Rain Man won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Hoffman, and Best Director for Barry Levinson. Having worked closely with Hoffman for two years on filming, Levinson offered some opinions about his skill as an actor:

After Rain Man, Hoffman appeared with Sean Connery and Matthew Broderick in Family Business (1989), directed by Sidney Lumet. The story centers on the estrangement between Vito (Hoffman), a middle-age man trying to succeed in a legitimate business, and his "hopelessly corrupt but charming father," Jesse (Connery). Critics were mostly not impressed with the story, although the individual performances were praised, especially Connery's.

Because of their different acting styles and nationalities, some industry writers thought Connery and Hoffman might not work well together as close family members. "To the surprise of many," note Connery biographers Lee Pfeiffer and Lisa Philip, "the two superstars developed an immediate rapport and chemistry that translates onto the screen." And Lumet remembered: "Sean is extremely disciplined and Dustin is very improvisational, all over the place with his lines. I didn't know where it would end up, but Sean met Dustin improvisation for improvisation, and a great deal of richness and humor came out of it."Pfeiffer, Lee, and Philip, Lisa. The Films of Sean Connery, Citadel Press (2001) p. 231

1990s: Dick Tracy, Hook, Outbreak, Mad City, Wag the Dog

In 1991, Hoffman voiced substitute teacher Mr. Bergstrom in The Simpsons episode "Lisa's Substitute", under the pseudonym Sam Etic. As a reference to this episode, during the episode featuring the Itchy & Scratchy movie, Lisa claims that Dustin Hoffman had a cameo in that movie but didn't use his real name.

Throughout the 1990s, Hoffman appeared in many large, studio films, such as Dick Tracy (1990) (where his Ishtar co-star Beatty plays the titular character), Hero (1992) and Billy Bathgate (1991) co-starring with Nicole Kidman who was nominated for a Golden Globe). Hoffman also played the title role of Captain Hook in Steven Spielberg's Hook (also 1991), earning a Golden Globe nomination, and the narrator in Dr. Seuss Video Classics: Horton Hears a Who! (also 1992); in Hook, Hoffman's costume was so heavy that he had to wear an air-conditioned suit under it.

Hoffman played the lead role in Outbreak (1995), alongside Rene Russo, Kevin Spacey, Morgan Freeman, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Donald Sutherland. In the film, Hoffman is a medical doctor who uncovers a newly discovered Ebola-like virus which came to the U.S. from Africa in an infected monkey. Hoffman races to stop the virus's spread and find a vaccine before it becomes a worldwide pandemic with no cure.

The movie is described by critic Roger Ebert as "one of the great scare stories of our time, the notion that deep in the uncharted rain forests, deadly diseases are lurking, and if they ever escape their jungle homes and enter the human bloodstream, there will be a new plague the likes of which we have never seen."  Critic David Denby credits Hoffman with giving the movie much of its thriller-like quality:

Following that, he appeared in the 1996 revenge-drama/legal-thriller Sleepers (1996) with Robert De Niro, Brad Pitt, Jason Patric, and Kevin Bacon.

In the mid-1990s, Hoffman starred in—and was deeply involved in the production of—David Mamet's American Buffalo (also 1996), and an early effort of film editor Kate Sanford. In 1997, Hoffman starred opposite John Travolta in the Costa Gavras film Mad City.

Hoffman gained his seventh Academy Award nomination for his performance in Wag The Dog (1997), in a role that allowed Hoffman the chance to work with both Robert De Niro and Denis Leary. The movie is a black comedy film  produced and directed by Barry Levinson, who also directed Hoffman in Rain Man in 1988.

The story takes place a few days before a presidential election, where a Washington, D.C. spin doctor (De Niro) distracts the electorate from a sex scandal by hiring a Hollywood film producer (Hoffman) to construct a fake war with Albania. Hoffman, as a caricature of real life producer Robert Evans, according to some, "gives the kind of wonderfully funny performance that is liable to win prizes, especially since its mixture of affection and murderous parody is so precise. Stanley (Hoffman) conducts business meetings in tennis clothes or in robe and slippers," notes critic Janet Maslin. 

He next appeared in another Barry Levinson film, the science fiction psychological thriller, Sphere (1998), opposite Sharon Stone.

In 1999, Hoffman received the AFI Life Achievement Award and recalls the emotional impact that receiving the award had on him:

2000s: Finding Neverland, Meet the Fockers, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

Hoffman next appeared in Moonlight Mile (2002), followed by Confidence (2003) opposite Edward Burns, Andy García and Rachel Weisz. Hoffman finally had a chance to work with Gene Hackman in Gary Fleder's Runaway Jury (also 2003), an adaptation of John Grisham's bestselling novel.

Hoffman played theater owner Charles Frohman in the J. M. Barrie historical fantasia Finding Neverland (2004), costarring Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet. In director David O. Russell's I Heart Huckabees (also 2004), Hoffman appeared opposite Lily Tomlin as an existential detective team member.

Seven years after his nomination for Wag the Dog, Hoffman got another opportunity to perform again with Robert De Niro, co-starring with Barbra Streisand and Ben Stiller in the 2004 comedy Meet the Fockers, a sequel to Meet the Parents (2000). Hoffman won the 2005 MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic Performance. In 2005, he voiced a horse in Racing Stripes, and appeared in cameo roles in Andy García's The Lost City and on the final episode of HBO sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasms fifth season. Hoffman appeared in Stranger than Fiction (2006), played the perfumer Giuseppe Baldini in Tom Tykwer's film Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (also 2006), and had a cameo in the same year's The Holiday.

In 2007, he was featured in an advertising campaign for Australian telecommunications company Telstra's Next G network,  appeared in the 50 Cent video "Follow My Lead" as a psychiatrist, and played the title character in the family film Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. In 2008, although he was reluctant to perform in an animated feature film (Although he had previously performed voices in a version of The Point! and in an episode of The Simpsons), Hoffman had a prominent role as Shifu in the acclaimed film Kung Fu Panda, which was praised in part for his comedic chemistry with Jack Black (whom he tutored in acting for an important scene) and his character's poignantly complex relationship with the story's villain. He later won the Annie Award for Voice Acting in an Animated Feature for Kung Fu Panda and has continued into the role in the franchise's subsequent filmed productions outside of the franchise's television series. He next voiced Roscuro in The Tale of Despereaux.

As the title character in Last Chance Harvey, Hoffman acted with co-star Emma Thompson in the story of two lonely people who tentatively forge a relationship over the course of three days. Director Joel Hopkins notes that Hoffman was a perfectionist and self-critical: "He often wanted to try things stripped down, because less is sometimes more. He worries about every little detail."

2010s: Barney's Version, Kung Fu Panda, Little Fockers, Quartet

He appears in Little Fockers, the critically panned yet financially successful 2010 sequel to Meet the Fockers.  However, his character plays a significantly smaller role than in the previous installment. In 2011, Hoffman reprised his role as Shifu in the commercially and critically successful animated film Kung Fu Panda 2.

Hoffman starred in the HBO horse-racing drama Luck, as a man involved in bookmaking and casino operations. Luck was cancelled in March 2012 after three horses died on set.  Hoffman also directed Quartet, a BBC Films comedy starring Maggie Smith and Tom Courtenay. 

In 2012, Hoffman's audiobook recording of Jerzy Kosinski's Being There was released at Audible.com. His performance was nominated for a 2013 Audie Award for Best Solo Narration – Male.

Personal life

Hoffman married Anne Byrne in May 1969.[http://www.tribute.ca/people/Dustin+Hoffman/3813 Dustin Hoffman] at Tribute.ca. Retrieved January 23, 2008. Hoffman adopted Karina (b. 1966), Byrne's child from a previous marriage, and with Byrne had daughter Jenna (born October 15, 1970). In 1970, Hoffman and Byrne were living in Greenwich Village in a building next door to a townhouse occupied by members of the Weathermen, when a bomb was accidentally detonated in the townhouse's basement, killing three people. In the 2002 documentary The Weather Underground, Hoffman can be seen standing in the street during the aftermath of the explosion.    The couple divorced in 1980.

He married businesswoman Lisa Gottsegen Hoffman in October 1980; they have four children – Jacob Edward (born March 20, 1981), Rebecca Lillian (b. March 17, 1983), Maxwell Geoffrey (born August 30, 1984), and Alexandra Lydia (born October 27, 1987). Hoffman has two grandchildren. In an interview, he said that all of his children from his second marriage had bar or bat mitzvahs and that he is a more observant Jew now than when he was younger; he has also lamented that he is not fluent in Hebrew. 

A political liberal, Hoffman has long supported the Democratic Party and Ralph Nader. In 1997, he was one of a number of Hollywood stars and executives to sign an open letter to then-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl protesting the treatment of Scientologists in Germany, which was published as a newspaper advertisement in the International Herald Tribune.Bonfante, Jordan; van Voorst, Bruce (February 10, 1997. "[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,985883-1,00.html Does Germany Have Something Against These Guys?]", Time

In 2009, he received the freedom of the Italian city Ascoli Piceno for being there during 1972 to shoot the movie Alfredo, Alfredo by Pietro Germi, where he played the role of Alfredo Sbisà.

Dustin Hoffman received Kennedy Center Honors in 2012, with the following commendation: "Dustin Hoffman's unyielding commitment to the wide variety of roles he plays has made him one of the most versatile and iconoclastic actors of this or any other generation". 

Hoffman was successfully treated for cancer in 2013. 

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