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Richard Dreyfuss Academy Award-winning actor widely recognized from "Jaws," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," and "Mr. Holland's Opus" Earned the 1977 Best Actor Oscar for "The Goodbye Girl" when he was 29 Sober for over two decades, he shares his own story of addiction and recovery Keynote Fee : Call For Quote Travels From: CA ADD SPEAKER TO LIST  |   PRINT BIO

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Seeking the Divine: A Conversation About Drug Addiction and the Search for the Ultimate Epiphany

Richard Dreyfuss made his mark early in American cinema playing colorful and overconfident young men in such films as "Jaws" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." That early success was crowned by an Oscar win at the tender age of 29. Publicly, he had arrived; privately, he couldn't accept his own accomplishments. Feeling isolated by his success, Dreyfuss turned to drugs to help him feel more secure in his achievements. But that security soon led to an eruption of destructive behaviors that eventually culminated in a car accident and arrest for possession. Now sober for over two decades, Dreyfuss speaks on addiction and recovery, sharing the greatest lesson he's learned along the way: the beauty of forgiveness.

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Speaker Information

Richard Dreyfuss has relied on intelligence, energy, and incredible talent to gain and keep his place among the leading actors of the American cinema. Three of his films, in fact, were recently included in the American Film Institute's list of the "Greatest 100 Films."

Born in Brooklyn, Dreyfuss spent his early childhood in Brooklyn and in Bayside, Queens, until he moved to Los Angeles with his family at age nine, where he began acting at the Westside Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles. After his first year at college, he spent two years as a conscientious objector and worked in alternate service as a clerk at Los Angeles County General Hospital. Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, he appeared on television in small roles and performed on stage on Broadway, off-Broadway, repertory, and improvisational theater.

Dreyfuss made his motion picture debut in 1967 with a bit part in "Valley of the Dolls," followed by a one-line performance in "The Graduate." Then, in 1973, his portrayal of an ambivalent college-bound teen in the cult classic "American Graffiti" garnered him national praise and attention. It was the beginning of a string of stellar performances in such films as "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz," "Jaws," and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." But it was his performance in 1977's "The Goodbye Girl" that earned him the Oscar for Best Actor, as well as the distinction of becoming the youngest actor at that time to ever win a Best Actor Award. The performance also garnered the Best Actor in a Leading Role Award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, the British equivalent of the Oscar.

Since that time, Dreyfuss has appeared in numerous films, including "What About Bob?," "Stake Out," "Tin Men," "Down and Out in Beverly Hills," and "Mr. Holland's Opus," for which he earned nominations for both an Oscar and a Golden Globe. In the theater, he has performed everything from Shakespeare to Neil Simon, including a reading of the Second Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln. His television appearances include the CBS series, "The Education of Max Bickford," as well as numerous movies for HBO and Showtime. He was executive producer of the award-winning ABC special, "Funny, You Don't Look 200: A Constitutional Vaudeville;" the special honored the bicentennial of the constitution and is a project of which Dreyfuss is enormously proud. In 2000, he was presented with the Hollywood Film Festival's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Dreyfuss is currently a board member of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and is a Senior Advisory Fellow at St. Antony's College at Oxford. He has formed "Illumine," a company for the production of documentaries for television, education, and feature releases. He has also created and sponsored two international conferences around the issues of the media and the Middle East: one at Columbia University, and the other at the Salzburg Seminar in Austria. This fall he will co-sponsor, along with The Martha's Vineyard School System in Massachusetts, a National Conversation about Teaching Civics in the Public School.