He’s the Star of ‘Tootsie’ on Broadway. Wearing Heels Is the Easy Part.

Dorothy as played by Hoffman was an older woman. A not conventionally attractive, middle aged woman, who inspired other women around her to assert themselves. It looks as if the musical is going to try to make Dorothy fairly young and good looking. It ruins the whole point of the original for me. Especially since I am now more in the range of Hoffman's Dorothy myself. It may make a great musical, but it smells of ageism.

“She has to be,” he said, “assertive, but not bitchy, compassionate, but not emotional.” And unlike Michael, she still finds the energy to take care of everyone else in the room. How on Earth are we ever going to move forward with these expectations on our shoulders? I loved Dustin Hoffman's quote about being in Tootsie: "It was at that moment I had an epiphany, and I went home and started crying. Talking to my wife, I said I have to make this picture, and she said, 'Why?' And I said, 'Because I think I am an interesting woman when I look at myself on screen. And I know that if I met myself at a party, I would never talk to that character because she doesn't fulfill physically the demands that we're brought up to think women have to have in order to ask them out. She says, 'What are you saying?' And I said, 'There's too many interesting women I have…not had the experience to know in this life because I have been brainwashed. That (Tootsie) was never a comedy for me."

Needs to be a little shorter as a hat tip to Dustin.

Doubtless, the Dabney Coleman character would resonate in today's Me Too era.