Dreyfuss, Richard (1947-…), is an American motion-picture actor who achieved his greatest successes playing aggressive hustlers or witty intellectuals. He won the 1977 Academy Award as best actor for his performance in the comedy The Goodbye Girl (1977).
Richard Stephen Dreyfuss was born in New York City on Oct. 29, 1947, and moved with his family to Los Angeles when he was 9 years old. He made his motion-picture debut in 1967 with a small role in The Graduate. Dreyfuss performed on the stage in both California and in New York City during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. He enhanced his film career in 1973 as gangster Baby Face Nelson in Dillinger and as a sensitive teenager in American Graffiti.
Dreyfuss became a star in the mid-1970’s, with his appearances in The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974) and especially in two hit films directed by Steven Spielberg, Jaws (1975) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). His other movies include The Competition (1980); Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1985); Stand By Me (1986); Tin Men (1987); Stakeout (1987); What About Bob? (1991); Lost in Yonkers (1993); The American President and Mr. Holland’s Opus (both 1995); Krippendorf’s Tribe (1998); W. (2008), in which he portrayed the American Vice President Richard B. Cheney; My Life in Ruins (2009); and Red (2010). Dreyfuss played a college professor in the television series “The Education of Max Bickford” (2001-2002). In the TV movie Madoff (2016), Dreyfuss portrayed American businessman Bernard L. Madoff, who in 2009 was found guilty of defrauding thousands of investors.
