Dustin Hoffman in Double Denim as Lenny Bruce
Dustin Hoffman as Lenny Bruce in Lenny (1974)
Vitals
Dustin Hoffman as Lenny Bruce, controversial comedian
New York, Spring 1964
Film: Lenny
Release Date: November 10, 1974
Director: Bob Fosse
Costume Designer: Albert Wolsky
Background
Did you know that Eleanor Roosevelt gave Lou Gehrig the clap?
Groundbreaking stand-up comedian Lenny Bruce was born 100 years ago, on October 13, 1925, in Long Island. His first steps into comedy were fittingly unconventional; while serving in the Navy during World War II, he dressed in drag to entertain his shipmates, eventually leading to his discharge. After struggling through the New York comedy circuit in the 1950s, Bruce began to find his footing toward the end of the decade, releasing his first solo record The Sick Humor of Lenny Bruce in 1959 and delivering his now-legendary Carnegie Hall set during a snowstorm in February 1961.
Legal battles soon became inseparable from the outspoken Bruce’s act and reputation. His October 1961 arrest for obscenity put him squarely in the crosshairs of law enforcement, and over the next five years his performances were increasingly shadowed by surveillance, arrests, and prosecutions for obscenity and drug possession, while he became a living symbol of the struggle for free speech.
On August 3, 1966, the 40-year-old Bruce was found dead of an apparent morphine overdose at his home in the Hollywood Hills. Reflecting on the irony of a man persecuted for words, journalist Dick Schaap concluded his Playboy eulogy with a bitter epitaph: “One last four-letter word for Lenny: Dead. At forty. That’s obscene.”
Decades before he was reintroduced to modern audiences through Luke Kirby’s Emmy-winning performance in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Lenny Bruce was the focus of Bob Fosse’s 1974 biographical film Lenny starring Dustin Hoffman as the titular comedian. The movie received six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Hoffman, though it won zero.
What’d He Wear?
Lenny is framed by the comedian performing a set later in his short life, using the stage to vent frustrations from his personal life to society as a whole. Consistent with his stripped-down commentary, he dresses simply for the set, clad only in a trucker jacket, jeans, and boots.
He wears the trucker jacket like a shirt, with all but the top two of its stainless tack buttons fastened over his bare torso. The jacket follows the style queues of the Levi’s “Type III” trucker jacket with its V-shaped seams and twin flapped chest pockets, though it’s likely a contemporary clone with a cropped cut that raises the waist hem (and thus reduces the buttons from six to five). He also unbuttons each button on the squared cuffs, rolling the end of each sleeve back over his forearms.
Thanks to contemporary photography—including the December 5, 1974 Rolling Stone cover with Hoffman in character as Bruce—we know the jacket was a light-blue denim.
The December 5, 1974 cover of Rolling Stone featured Dustin Hoffman in character as Lenny Bruce.
Lenny’s jeans are a light-blue denim to match the jacket, styled with the standard five-pocket configuration and belt loops that he wears without a belt.
He wears dark leather boots with raised heels and high enough shafts to be fully covered by the hems of his jeans, possibly the Cuban-heeled “Beatle boots” which extended well above the wearers’ ankles were fashionable amongst counterculture icons through the mid-1960s.
Hoffman’s wardrobe for this scene reflects the real Lenny Bruce’s enthusiasm for blue denim sportswear, which included jeans and jackets of varying styles from traditional trucker jackets to handmade Nehru jackets, like those posthumously auctioned by Bonhams.
The real Lenny Bruce in double denim, zipped up to the neck while at sea (left) and buttoned-up during his controversial visit to Sydney in September 1962 (right).
Dustin Hoffman as Lenny Bruce in Lenny (1974)
How to Get the Look
How appropriate for Lenny Bruce and his provocative and pioneering commentary Dustin Hoffman’s characterization maintains the spirit of his style, not only rejecting the era’s conventional suit and tie but also a shirt altogether to perform this raw suit in a short trucker jacket (worn as a shirt) with matching jeans and Beatle boots, signaling his countercultural status without being showy about it.
- Light-blue denim cropped trucker jacket with five tack buttons, two chest pockets with single-button pointed flaps, V-shaped seams, and single-button squared cuffs
- Light-blue denim jeans with belt loops and five-pocket configuration
- Black leather Cuban-heeled “Beatle boots”
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
The Quote
We’re all the same schmuck.
Discover more from BAMF Style
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
In Albert Goldman’s biography of Lenny, there is a good passage describing how he would buy his Levis pants and jackets for cheap from the army navy store in what we would now call “Rigid” or unwashed dark blue. He would then bleach them to lighten the color and soften the fabric, and have both garments disassembled completely by a local tailor and altered to fit tightly. The book also referred to Bruce’s preference for inexpensive lightweight formal wear, saying Bruce called them “Kleenex” suits.