RICHARD DREYFUSS (Bobby Bartellemeo) is one of the leading actors of American cinema. He won the Academy Award at age 29 for his role in "The Goodbye Girl." More recently, he earned Academy Award~ and Golden Globe Award nominations as Best Actor in the title role of "Mr. Holland's Opus." The American Film Institute includes three of his films in their list of the 100 greatest films of the century.
Born in Brooklyn, Dreyfuss and his parents moved to Los Angeles when he was 8 years old. He realized while still a child that he wanted to spend his life as an actor and began his career at age 9 at the Westside Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he commuted between coasts performing on Broadway, off-Broadway, in repertory and improvisational comedy, as well as guest appearances on television.
Dreyfuss made his motionpicture debut in 1967 with a bit part in "Valley of the Dolls," followed by one line in "The Graduate." Several films later, in 1973, his sensitive portrayal of an ambivalent college-bound teen in the cult classic "American Graffiti" garnered him critical acclaim and brought him to the attention of the moviegoing public. This was the beginning of a series of stellar performances in such films as "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz," "Jaws," "C lose Encounters of the Third Kind" and "The Goodbye Girl."
He then starred in "Down and Out in Beverly Hills," "Tin Men" and "Stakeout," followed by at least a dozen others, before he starred in "Mr. Holland's Opus," Sidney Lumet's "Night Falls on Manhattan" with Andy Garcia and the comedy hit "What About Bob?" with Bill Murray. He played a cameo role in "The American President" for director Rob Reiner. He also directed "Our Love Is Here to Stay," a thirty-minute film starring Anne Archer, Carrie Fisher and William Peterson for Showtime's "Directed By" series.
He returned to his roots on the stage with starring roles in "The Hands of Its Enemy," "The Normal Heart," the Broadway production of "Death and the Maiden" with Glenn Close and Gene Hackman, and "Three Hotels" with Christine Lahti at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum. He directed "Hamlet" for the Birmingham Theatre Company at the Old Rep in England, making his bow as a theatre director. He recently starred as Mark Antony in the BBC Radio/KCRW production of "Julius Caesar," as Benedict Arnold in "An American General" and in George Bernard Shaw's "Devil's Disciple" in Washington, D.C. He is a charter member of the Los Angeles Theatre Works, a radio ensemble company.
In 1998. he starred in the title role of HBO's "Lansky," the biography of underworld boss Meyer Lansky written by David Mamet and directed by John McNaughton. Last year he completed a successful run opposite Marsha Mason in the Neil Simon play "Prisoner of Second Avenue" performed at London's Haymarket Theatre. Immediately upon completion of filming "The Crew," he began shooting "The Old Man Who Loves Stories" in French Guyana.
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