At age 14, began playing the violin professionally in New York City, leading nightclub and society bands under the stage name Hal Hope.
[1] Hoffman became a podiatrist and relocated his practice to Los Angeles in 1941 and registered with American Federation of Musicians Local 47 to pick up occasional music jobs.
In 1944, composer Miklos Rozsa decided he wanted to use a theremin in the orchestral score of Alfred Hitchcock's 1945 film Spellbound, he contacted Hoffman, the only thereminist listed in the union register who could read music.
[4] The following year, Baxter, Revel, and Hoffman regrouped to record the Corday Perfume-sponsored and fragrance-themed album Perfume Set To Music, which reached number 1 on the Variety chart that December.
In 1950, Hoffman played on his first science fiction film soundtrack, Rocketship X-M. Soundtrack work for several other science fiction films followed, including The Thing from Another World (1951) and The Day The Earth Stood Still, whose music would be used as the title theme for the pilot episode of the TV Series Lost in Space, as well as in various episodes of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.