[custom_adv] Dustin Hoffman Allegedly Groped Meryl Streep During an Audition in the ’70sThe future three-time Oscar-winning actress made the claim in Time magazine in 1979, when promoting their film "Kramer vs. Kramer." A representative for Meryl Streep says the claims in the resurfaced interview are not an “accurate rendering of that meeting.” According to the rep: “There was an offense and it is something for which Dustin apologized. And Meryl accepted that.” [custom_adv] Meryl Streep’s nearly-four-decade-old had claimed that her “Kramer vs. Kramer” co-star introduced himself by grabbing her breast. Slate tracked down a Time article from 1979 — the year the film came out — in which Streep recalls auditioning for a play Hoffman was directing. “He came up to me and said, ‘I’m Dustin — burp — Hoffman,’ and he put his hand on my breast,” the actress told Time. “What an obnoxious pig, I thought.” [custom_adv] Per Jeff Lenburg’s 2001 book “Dustin Hoffman: Hollywood’s Antihero,” the play was “All Over Town,” which debuted on Broadway in late 1974, when Streep was 25. Later that decade, the actors notoriously battled on Robert Benton’s “Kramer vs. Kramer” set, where they played divorcing parents. In Vanity Fair-excerpted “Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep,” author Michael Schulman wrote that Hoffman escalated their fight scenes by slapping Streep and taunting her about her recently-deceased boyfriend, John Cazale. [custom_adv] In the piece, film executive Richard Fischoff remembered that Streep went “absolutely white,” with author Schulman writing that “she had done her work and thought through the part. And if Dustin wanted to use Method techniques like emotional recall, he should use them on himself. Not her.”“Kramer vs. Kramer” eventually won Best Picture, plus Oscars for Hoffman, Streep, and Benson. [custom_adv] Currently starring in “The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)” on Netflix, Hoffman made his first public appearance following Gatsiounis and Graham Hunter’s charges on November 5, presenting a Hollywood Film Award to Adam Sandler, his onscreen son in that film and 2014’s “The Cobbler.” LA Times film writer Amy Kaufman tweeted that Hoffman did not take the opportunity to address the accusations. [custom_adv] Streep was the recipient of many honorary awards. She was awarded the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2004, Gala Tribute from the Film Society of Lincoln Center in 2008, and Kennedy Center Honor in 2011 for her contribution to American culture, through performing arts. [custom_adv] President Barack Obama awarded her the 2010 National Medal of Arts, and in 2014, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. [custom_adv] In 2003, the government of France made her a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters. She was awarded the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2017. [custom_adv] Streep's father Harry was of German and Swiss ancestry. Her father's lineage traces back to Loffenau, Germany, from where her second great-grandfather, Gottfried Streeb, immigrated to the United States, and where one of her ancestors served as mayor (the surname was later changed to "Streep"). [custom_adv] Another line of her father's family was from Giswil, Switzerland. Her mother had English, German, and Irish ancestry. Some of Streep's maternal ancestors lived in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, and were descended from 17th-century immigrants from England. [custom_adv] Her eighth great-grandfather, Lawrence Wilkinson, was one of the first Europeans to settle in Rhode Island. Streep is also the second cousin 7 times removed of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania; records show that her family is among the first purchasers of land in the state. [custom_adv] Streep's maternal great-great-grandparents, Manus McFadden and Grace Strain, the latter the namesake of Streep's second daughter, were natives of the Horn Head district of Dunfanaghy, Ireland.
