Richard Dreyfuss

Richard Stephen Dreyfuss, born October 29, 1947, in Brooklyn, New York, is an American actor whose career spans film, television, and Broadway. The son of Norman Dreyfuss, an attorney, restaurateur, and plastics company owner, and Geraldine Dreyfuss, a peace activist, he grew up in the Bayside area of Queens before his family relocated to Los Angeles when he was nine. He attended Beverly Hills High School and later San Fernando Valley State College, now California State University, Northridge, for one year. His family is Jewish, with roots tracing to immigrants from Russia and Poland. He has an older brother, Lorin, who worked as an actor, film producer, and screenwriter, and a younger sister, Cathy.

Dreyfuss began acting in his youth through the Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills Arts Center and the Westside Jewish Community Center, studying under drama teacher Bill Miller. His first television appearance came at age fifteen in the production In Mama's House. During the Vietnam War era, he served as a conscientious objector, working for two years as a clerk in a Los Angeles hospital. Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, he performed on stage across Broadway, Off-Broadway, repertory, and improvisational theater. His Broadway career extended from 1969 to 2004, during which he appeared in But, Seriously... and starred in Total Abandon, Death and the Maiden, and Sly Fox.

His film career began with an uncredited appearance in The Graduate in 1967, followed by a small role in Valley of the Dolls that same year. A more prominent part came in Hello Down There in 1969. He landed a key supporting role in George Lucas's American Graffiti in 1973, sharing the screen with Harrison Ford and other future stars, and took his first lead role in the Canadian production The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz in 1974, earning strong critical notices. His first uncredited film appearance was in The Graduate, where he delivered a brief line after a disturbance in a boarding house.

Dreyfuss rose to widespread prominence through two Steven Spielberg blockbusters, Jaws in 1975 and Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1977. That same year, his portrayal of struggling actor Elliot Garfield in the romantic comedy The Goodbye Girl earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 50th Academy Awards ceremony, making him, at 30 years and 125 days old, the youngest actor to win that award at the time, a record that stood for 25 years until Adrien Brody broke it in 2003. Between 1973 and 1978, the films in which Dreyfuss appeared grossed upward of 900 million dollars. He also made his producing debut with The Big Fix in 1978, in which he starred as well.

Around 1978, Dreyfuss began using cocaine frequently, a period he has described as one he largely cannot recall. In 1982, he was arrested for drug possession after losing consciousness while driving and striking a tree. He entered court-appointed rehabilitation and subsequently rebuilt his career, starring in Down and Out in Beverly Hills and Stand by Me, both in 1986, and Stakeout in 1987. He received a Golden Globe nomination for his role as a defense lawyer in Nuts, also from 1987. In 1989, he reunited with Spielberg on Always, co-starring with Holly Hunter. He starred opposite Bill Murray in the 1991 comedy What About Bob? as a psychiatrist undone by an obsessive patient. In 1994, he participated in the Papal Concert to Commemorate the Shoah at the Vatican, reciting Kaddish as part of a performance of Leonard Bernstein's Third Symphony with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under conductor Gilbert Levine, in the presence of Pope John Paul II and other dignitaries. The event was broadcast worldwide.

His second Academy Award nomination came for his performance as Glenn Holland in Mr. Holland's Opus in 1995. On television, he portrayed Fagin in the 1997 Disney adaptation of Oliver Twist, Meyer Lansky in HBO's Lansky in 1999, and Alexander Haig in Showtime's The Day Reagan Was Shot in 2001. From 2001 to 2002, he starred as the title character in the CBS drama series The Education of Max Bickford, earning a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor. He later portrayed Bernie Madoff in the ABC miniseries Madoff in 2016. Additional film credits include The Competition, Postcards from the Edge, The American President, and W., in which he played Dick Cheney. Dreyfuss has received an Academy Award, a BAFTA, and a Golden Globe over the course of his career.