Emotional Hoffman honored
(China Daily/Agencies)
2009-03-02 09:51
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American actor Dustin Hoffman (pictured right) fought back tears as he was honored by France in Paris last week.
In an elaborate event in a gilded hall, Culture Minister Christine Albanel made the two-time Oscar winner an honorary commander in France's National Order of Arts and Letters and tied a green medallion around the 71-year-old actor's neck.
Hoffman, who was accompanied by his wife, Lisa Gottsegen, had to regain his composure as his eyes moistened and joked: "When you get to my age, you even cry at the weather reports."
On a more serious note, he said he was "as satisfied as you can be when you wake up in the morning and say 'that's the best dream I've ever had'."
Albanel called Hoffman "one of the greatest actors of our time", paying tribute to his Oscar-winning performances as a workaholic father in Kramer vs Kramer (1979) and as an autistic man in Rain Man (1988).
Hoffman said he had long been fond of French cinema, particularly movies by New Wave directors of the 1960s and post-WWII films. The LA-born actor, who gained instant stardom as a youngster seduced by an older woman in the 1967 film The Graduate, got another honor, a lifetime achievement award at the French equivalent of the Oscars.