Richard Stephen Dreyfuss is an American actor best known for starring in a number of film,
television, and theater roles since the late 1960s, including the films American Graffiti,
Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and The Goodbye Girl.
Dreyfuss won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1978 for The Goodbye Girl, and was nominated
in 1995 for Mr. Holland's Opus.
He has also won a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA Award, and was nominated in 2002 for Screen
Actors Guild Awards in the Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series and Outstanding
Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries categories.
Early life Dreyfuss was born Richard Stephen Dreyfus
in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Norman, an attorney and restaurateur, and Geraldine,
a peace activist, and was raised in Bayside, Queens.
Dreyfuss is Jewish.
He has commented that he "grew up thinking that Alfred Dreyfus and [he] are of the same
family."
His father disliked New York City, and moved the family first to Europe, and later to Los
Angeles, when Dreyfuss was nine.
Dreyfuss attended Beverly Hills High School.
Career Dreyfuss began acting during his youth, at
Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills Arts Center and Westside Jewish Community Center under
drama teacher Bill Miller.
He debuted in the TV production In Mama's House, when he was fifteen.
He attended San Fernando Valley State College, now California State University, Northridge,
for a year, and was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, working in alternate
service for two years, as a clerk in a Los Angeles hospital.
During this time, he acted in a few small TV roles on shows, Peyton Place, Gidget, That
Girl, Bewitched, and The Big Valley.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, he also performed on stage on Broadway, Off-Broadway,
repertory, and improvisational theater.
Dreyfuss appeared alongside Henry Fonda, Gloria Grahame, Ron Thompson, Strother Martin, Jane
Alexander, Lewis J. Stadlen, Richard X.
Slattery and Pepper Martin in the play The Time of Your Life, which was revived on March
17, 1972 at the Huntington Hartford Theater in Los Angeles, and directed by Edwin Sherin.
Dreyfuss's first film role was a small, uncredited role in The Graduate.
He had one line, "Shall I get the cops?
I'll get the cops".
He was also briefly seen as a stage hand in Valley of the Dolls, in which he had a few
lines.
He appeared in the subsequent Dillinger, and landed a role in the 1973 hit American Graffiti,
acting with other future stars such as Harrison Ford and Ron Howard.
Dreyfuss played his first lead role in the Canadian film The Apprenticeship of Duddy
Kravitz, receiving positive reviews, including praise from Pauline Kael.
Dreyfuss went on to star in the box office blockbusters Jaws and Close Encounters of
the Third Kind, both directed by Steven Spielberg.
He won the 1978 Academy Award for Best Actor at the 50th Academy Awards ceremony for his
portrayal of a struggling actor in The Goodbye Girl, becoming the youngest actor to do so,
besting Marlon Brando, who had won his first Oscar in 1955 at the age of 30 years 360 days
old.
This record stood for 25 years until it was broken in 2003 by Adrien Brody, who was three
weeks shy of age 30 at the time of the 75th Academy Awards ceremony.
Around 1978, Dreyfuss began using cocaine frequently; his addiction came to a head four
years later in 1982, when he was arrested for possession of the drug after he blacked
out while driving, and his car struck a tree.
He entered rehabilitation and eventually made a Hollywood comeback with the films Down And
Out In Beverly Hills in 1986 and Stakeout the following year.
Dreyfuss also starred in the Rob Reiner movie, Stand by Me, a 1986 American coming-of-age
drama/comedy film adapted from Stephen King's novella The Body.
Dreyfuss plays the elder Gordie Lachance, who narrates the film.
In 1988, he reunited with director Paul Mazursky to star in the political farce Moon Over Parador.
In 1989, Dreyfuss reunited with Spielberg on Always, a remake of A Guy Named Joe in
which he co-starred with Holly Hunter.
He had a starring role opposite Bill Murray in the 1991 comedy What About Bob?, as a psychiatrist
who goes crazy while trying to cope with a particularly obsessive new patient.
That same year, Dreyfuss produced and starred as Georges Picquart in Prisoner of Honor,
an HBO movie about the historical Dreyfus Affair.
In 1994, he participated in the historic Papal Concert to Commemorate the Shoah at the Vatican
in the presence of Pope John Paul II, Rav Elio Toaf, chief rabbi of Rome, and Oscar
Luigi Scalfaro, President of the Italian Republic.
He recited Kaddish as part of a performance of Leonard Bernstein's Third Symphony with
the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Gilbert Levine.
The event was broadcast worldwide.
Dreyfuss was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe for his performance as Glenn
Holland in Mr. Holland's Opus.
Since then, he has continued working in the movies, television and the stage.
In 2001/2002, he played Max Bickford in the television drama The Education of Max Bickford.
In April 2004, he appeared in the revival of Sly Fox on Broadway.
Dreyfuss recorded the voiceover to the Apple, Inc., then Apple Computer, Inc., "Think Different"
ad campaign in 1997.
In November 2004, he was scheduled to appear in The Producers in London, but withdrew from
the production a week before opening night.
The media noted that Dreyfuss was still suffering from problems relating to an operation for
a herniated disc in January, and that the part of Max Bialystock in the play is a physically
demanding one.
Both he and his assistant for the production stated that Dreyfuss was accumulating injuries
that required him to wear physical therapy supports during rehearsals.
Dreyfuss was eventually fired from the production, though he would return in 2008.
In 2006, he appeared as one of the survivors in the 2006 film Poseidon.
Dreyfuss portrayed U.S Vice President Dick Cheney in Oliver Stone's 2008 George W. Bush
bio-pic W.
In early 2009, he appeared in the play Complicit in London's Old Vic theatre.
His participation in the play was subject to much controversy, owing to his use of an
earpiece on stage, reportedly because of his inability to learn his lines in time.
He guest-voiced as himself in the "Three Kings" episode of Family Guy in 2009, and later appeared
again in the episode "Peter-assment".
Dreyfuss has guest starred in the sixth season of Weeds as Warren Schiff, Nancy's high school
teacher to whom she had lost her virginity.
Also in 2009, he portrayed the Biblical figure Moses in the Thomas Nelson audiobook production
Word of Promise: Complete Audio Bible.
Dreyfuss has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Blvd.
Dreyfuss was among 99 other stars at the 2012 Academy Awards - Night of 100 Stars.
He did an interview for the Bill Zucker Show with actor/singer Bill Zucker.
Other work Politics
Dreyfuss has been outspoken on the issue of how the media influences the shaping of public
opinion, policy, and legislation.
In the 2000s, he expressed his sentiments in favor of right to privacy, freedom of speech,
democracy, and individual accountability.
Dreyfuss has organized and promoted campaigns to inform and instruct audiences in what he
considers potential erosion of individual rights, a personal initiative he began in
2006, responding to what he believes were violations of individual rights under the
presidential administration of George W. Bush.
On February 16, 2006, Dreyfuss spoke at The National Press Club in Washington, D.C. in
hopes of prompting national discussion on impeachment charges against U.S. President
George W. Bush.
On November 17, 2006, Dreyfuss appeared on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher as a panel
member to discuss teaching civics in schools.
Dreyfuss formerly served on the Board of Trustees of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
In 2007, Dreyfuss appeared in the youth voting documentary film 18 in '08.
Dreyfuss publicly endorsed Jonathan Tasini's campaign for Charles Rangel's congressional
seat in the 15th District of New York in 2010.
Academic Dreyfuss is involved in a nationwide enterprise
to encourage the teaching of American history in American primary schools.
He is a Senior Associate Member of St. Antony's College, University of Oxford.
Books In 1995, Dreyfuss co-authored with science-fiction
writer Harry Turtledove the novel The Two Georges, an alternate history/mystery piece
set in the year 1996 of an alternate timeline where the American Revolution was peacefully
avoided.
The Gainsborough painting of George Washington and King George III, which symbolizes English-speaking
North Americans' loyalty to the British Empire, is stolen by anti-Imperial terrorists, and
officers of the Royal North American Mounted Police must find it before it is destroyed.
Personal life Dreyfuss married writer-producer Jeramie Rain
in the early 1980s.
With her, he had three children: Emily, Benjamin and Harry.
His elder son, Benjamin, was born with Peters Anomaly, a rare genetic eye disorder which,
after many operations, left him blind in his left eye.
Dreyfuss and Rain have continued to raise money for ophthalmology centers throughout
the United States.
After his 1995 divorce from Rain, Dreyfuss then married Janelle Lacey in 1999 but they
divorced in 2005.
Dreyfuss' mother died on October 19, 2000, due to complications from a stroke.
Dreyfuss suffers from bipolar disorder.
In 2006, he appeared in Stephen Fry's documentary, Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic
Depressive, in which Fry interviewed him about his life and use of lithium since the 1970s.
Dreyfuss and Russian-born Svetlana Erokhin married in 2006 and have lived in San Diego
since then, although they frequently visit New York City and London, where Dreyfuss once
lived.
They lived in Carlsbad, California.
In February 2008, they bought a $1.5 million house in the rural community of Olivenhain
in eastern Encinitas, California, and plan to renovate the 1970s structure with state-of-the-art
green technologies.
Filmography Awards and nominations
References
External links Richard Dreyfuss at the Internet Movie Database
Richard Dreyfuss at the Internet Broadway Database
Richard Dreyfuss at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
THR: Richard Dreyfuss finds 'Happiness'