Richard Dreyfuss

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Richard Dreyfuss

Dreyfuss at the Big Apple Convention in Manhattan, June 8, 2008.

Born

Richard Stephen Dreyfuss
October 29, 1947 (age 60)
Brooklyn, New York, U.S.

Spouse(s)

Jeramie Rain (1983-1995)
Janelle Lacey (1999-?)
Svetlana Erokhin (2006-)

Awards won
Academy Awards
Best Actor Won: 1977 The Goodbye Girl Nominated: 1995 Mr. Holland's Opus
BAFTA Awards
Best Actor 1978 The Goodbye Girl
Golden Globe Awards
Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical/Comedy 1978 The Goodbye Girl

Richard Stephen Dreyfuss (born October 29, 1947) is an Academy Award-winning American actor.

1 Biography
2 Filmography
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Dreyfuss was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Norman, an attorney and restaurateur, and Geraldine, a peace activist.^[1] Dreyfuss is Jewish^[2]^[3] and his surname is of Yiddish origin, believed to originate in the German city of Trier, which had a large Jewish population in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The Latin name for the city was "Treveris," of which Dreyfuss is a variant. He commented that he "grew up thinking that Alfred Dreyfus and I are of the same family."^[4] Dreyfuss spent his early childhood in Brooklyn and in Bayside, Queens, until he moved to Los Angeles with his family at the age of nine. In 1965, he graduated from Beverly Hills High School in Beverly Hills, California.

[edit] Career

Dreyfuss's acting career began while as a youth at the Beverly Hills Jewish Center. He debuted in the TV production In Mama's House when he was fifteen. He attended the San Fernando Valley State College (later re-named California State University, Northridge) for a year. He was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War and worked 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 like Peyton Place, Gidget, 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's first film part was a small, uncredited role in The Graduate and had one line, "Shall I call the cops? I'll call the cops." He was also briefly seen as a stage hand in Valley of the Dolls (he had a few lines). He made a strong impression 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.

He went on to star in the box office blockbusters Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, both directed by Steven Spielberg. Dreyfuss was originally supposed to reprise his role as Hooper in Jaws 2. It fell through when Peter Benchley was asked to include this in his screenplay.

At age 30, Dreyfuss became the youngest actor to win an Best Actor Award, for his portrayal of a struggling actor in The Goodbye Girl. This record has since been surpassed by Adrien Brody.

Around 1978, Dreyfuss began to use cocaine frequently; his addiction came to a head four years later, when he was arrested for possession of the drug at the scene of a collision between his car and a tree.^[5] He entered rehab and eventually made a Hollywood comeback with the film Down And Out In Beverly Hills.

He had a starring role opposite Bill Murray in the 1991 hit comedy What About Bob? as a psychiatrist who goes crazy while trying to cope with a particularly obsessive new patient.

In 1994, Dreyfuss participated in the historic "Papal Concert to Commemorate the Shoah (Holocaust)" at the Vatican in the presence of Pope John Paul II, Rav Elio Toaf, chief rabbi of Rome, and Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, President of Italy. He recited Kaddish as part of a performance of Leonard Bernstein's Third Symphony with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Sir 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 (1995). Since then he has continued working in the movies, television and on stage. In April 2004, he appeared in the revival of Sly Fox on Broadway (opposite Eric Stoltz, René Auberjonois, Bronson Pinchot and Elizabeth Berkley).

In November 2004, he was scheduled to appear in The Producers in London, but withdrew from the production a week before the 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. His assistant and himself for the production stated that Dreyfuss was accumulating injuries that required him to wear physical therapy supports during rehearsals.^[6] Nathan Lane was brought in to replace Dreyfuss in the London production.

Dreyfuss has dabbled with writing, notably teaming up with Harry Turtledove in 1995 to write The Two Georges, a conspiracy thriller set in an alternate reality in which the American colonies remained under British rule (published by Hodder and Stoughton, ISBN 0-340-62826-X). Dreyfuss recorded the voiceover to the famous Apple, Inc., then Apple Computer, Inc., Think Different ad campaign in 1999. The text of the ad begins, "Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels..."

In 2006, he appeared as one of the survivors in the 2006 film Poseidon. Dreyfuss is currently a Senior Associate Member of St. Antony's College, University of Oxford. Dreyfuss is set to portray U.S Vice President Dick Cheney in Oliver Stone's 2008 George W. Bush bio-pic W.^[7]

Dreyfuss has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Blvd.^[8]

[edit] Personal life

While growing up in Beverly Hills, he lived within six blocks of Michael Burns, who became a preeminent expert on the Dreyfus affair and the author of Dreyfus: A Family Affair, 1789-1945. Dreyfuss would later work with Burns as producer and take on the role of Georges Picquart in Prisoner of Honor, a HBO movie about the historical incident released in 1991. Not only is he a distant relation to Alfred Dreyfus, the subject of the Dreyfus Affair, he is also a distant relation to the actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

From 1983 until 1995, Dreyfuss was married to Jeramie Rain, with whom he had three children: Emily Robin (born 1983), Benjamin Darrow (born 1986) and Harry Spencer (born 1991). In 1999, he married Janelle Lacey. After divorcing Lacey, he married Russian-born Svetlana Erokhin on March 16, 2006, in Harrisonburg, Virginia, while there to speak at James Madison University. Dreyfuss and Erokhin now live in San Diego.

Dreyfuss's mother passed away on October 19, 2000 due to complications from a stroke. His father is still alive.^[9]

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 (who also has the disorder) interviewed him about his life with manic-depression.^[10]

[edit] Political activity

He has been outspoken on the issue of media informing policy, legislation, and public opinion in recent years, both speaking and writing to express his sentiments in favor of privacy, freedom of speech, democracy, and individual accountability.^[11]

Dreyfuss has organized and promoted campaigns to inform and instruct audiences in potential erosion of individual rights, a personal initiative he began in 2006 in light of political events in the U.S.^[12] On February 16, 2006, Dreyfuss spoke at The National Press Club in Washington, D.C. in hopes of prompting a national discussion on impeachment charges against U.S. President George W. Bush.^[13] On November 17, 2006, Dreyfuss appeared on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher as a panel member to discuss teaching civics in schools.^[14] Dreyfuss currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.^[15]. In 2007, Dreyfuss appeared in the youth voting documentary film 18 in '08.^[16]

[edit] Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Other notes
1967	Valley of the Dolls	Assistant stage manager	uncredited
1967	The Graduate	Boarding House Resident	uncredited
1968	The Young Runaways	Terry
1969	Hello Down There	Harold Webster
1973	American Graffiti	Curt Henderson
1973	Dillinger	Baby Face Nelson
1974	The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz	Duddy
	The Second Coming of Suzanne	Clavius
	Inserts	Boy Wonder
1975	Jaws	Matt Hooper
1976	Victory At Entebbe	Colonel Yonatan 'Yonni' Netanyahu
1977	Close Encounters of the Third Kind	Roy Neary
1977	The Goodbye Girl	Elliott Garfield	Academy Award for Best Actor
1978	The Big Fix	Moses Wine
1980	The Competition	Paul Dietrich
1981	Whose Life Is It Anyway?	Ken Harrison
1984	The Buddy System	Joe
1986	Down and Out in Beverly Hills	David 'Dave' Whiteman
1986	Stand By Me	The Writer
1987	Tin Men	Bill 'BB' Babowsky
	Stakeout	Det. Chris Lecce
	Nuts	Aaron Levinsky
1988	Moon Over Parador	Jack Noah/President Alphonse Simms
1989	Let It Ride	Jay Trotter
1989	Always	Pete Sandich
1990	Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead	The Player
1990	Postcards from the Edge	Doctor Frankenthal
1991	Once Around	Sam Sharpe
	Prisoner of Honor	Col. Picquart
	What About Bob?	Dr. Leo Marvin
1993	Lost in Yonkers	Louie Kurnitz
1993	Another Stakeout	Detective Chris Lecce
1994	Silent Fall	Dr. Jake Rainer
1995	The Last Word	Larry
	The American President	Senator Bob Rumson
	Mr. Holland's Opus	Glenn Holland	nominated Academy Award for Best Actor
1996	James and the Giant Peach	Centipede	voice
1996	Mad Dog Time	Vic
1997	Night Falls on Manhattan	Sam Vigoda
1997	Oliver Twist	Fagin
1998	Krippendorf's Tribe	Prof. James Krippendorf
2000	The Crew	Bobby Bartellemeo/Narrator
2001	The Old Man Who Read Love Stories	Antonio Bolivar
2001	Who is Cletis Tout?	Micah Donnelly
2003	Coast to Coast	Barnaby Pierce
2004	Silver City	Chuck Raven
2006	Poseidon	Richard Nelson
2007	Suburban Girl		uncredited
2007	Tin Man	Mystic Man	TV miniseries
2008	My Life in Ruins	Irv	post-production
2008	W	Dick Cheney	filming