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13 Facts About Rain Man

Larrylambert
3 min readFeb 10, 2025

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Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman were both great.

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To some extent, I feel a sense of gratitude to the movie, Rain Man. Our oldest son is high-functioning autistic. He turns 47 in April. Early on, people we talked to, included some medical professionals had no idea what autism was. I once told a fellow worker that my son was autistic. She expressed enthusiasm because she thought I was saying he was artistic. By that time at least I could say, “No, autistic like in Rain Man.”

The movie Rain Man did more for autism awareness than anything else I can think of. As for the performances, both Cruise and Hoffman were fantastic. Hoffman’s brilliance was immediately recognized. As for Cruise, I feel like I somewhat identified with him as he dealt with an autistic family member. More on that in another piece. As for now, here are some facts about the movie, Rain Man.

1: Hoffman prepared for the role of Raymond by studying people with autism. Particularly those with savant abilities.

Hoffman had also done some work at the New York Psychiatric Institute. He had also worked as a page in Congress. Wait, being told that is not true.

2: The script was originally written with the Quaid brothers in mind.

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Larrylambert
Larrylambert

Written by Larrylambert

You probably don't know my name, but have likely seen my work. I've written for numerous syndicated cartoon strips and my gags have appeared in national pubs.

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