Philip Seymour Hoffmanwould have turned 51 on Monday, July 23. In honor of the late actor’s birthday, below is PEOPLE’s cover story from 2014 about his shocking death at 46.
He was also troubled. Locals in his West Village neighborhood observed the actor during both happy and seemingly darker private moments. “He’d go over to Oliver’s restaurant with his son Cooper. They’d have lunch, and you’d see them talking and laughing for hours at a time,” says the neighborhood source. “Then, come nightfall, you’d see Phil back at Oliver’s, hunched over the bar, alone, looking like an entirely different man. He looked very dark and depressed.” A second source says he witnessed Hoffman stumble into his apartment after late nights out, “needing to be helped into the building.”
Philip Seymour Hoffman.Steve Granitz/WireImage
But in the days leading up to his death, friends and locals saw little signs of distress. Attending Sundance last month to promote his filmA Most Wanted Man, he was reluctant to do interviews, and some industry insiders said he appeared disheveled. But others saw only a consummate pro. “He seemed great. He was just a regular guy, which is what I’ve always loved about him,” says photographer Victoria Will, who shot what would become one of his last portraits. “I saw him last week, and he was clean and sober, his old self,” David Katz, the friend who found Hoffman’s body, toldThe New York Times. Just the night before his body was found, he was spotted at a neighborhood restaurant, Automatic Slim’s, where he and two friends dined on guacamole and burgers. His friend had a beer; Hoffman drank only a cranberry soda. According to the bartender, “He seemed fine.”
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Deeply committed to his children – who inherited his famous red hair – Hoffman was a fixture at the Chelsea Piers athletic complex in N.Y.C., where he turned up every Saturday for his son Cooper’s basketball practices. “He was not a drop-off parent,” says Ryan Berger, a fellow dad who had seen him just 24 hours before his death. “He was committed to what his son was doing.”
source: people.com
