“I became the worst person”: Richard Dreyfuss in 2023 Photo: Getty
Biggest Oscar-Winning Actors Around 70 years can expect a calm and fruitful autumn period in their lives and careers. Some famous acting works; perhaps an autobiography or two; and the warm recognition of their peers, as well as the joyful knowledge that they will be remembered as one of the best stars of their generation.
However, whatever Richard Dreyfuss is after, this is definitely not the attitude. Instead, the man seems drawn to controversy like a moth to a flame; Wherever he goes, some new outrage is happening, some incendiary incident that horrifies everyone with whom he comes into contact. This man calls himself “manic depressive” (he prefers this term to “bipolar disorder”), and the consequences can be unpredictable, to say the least.
The latest demonstration of Dreyfuss's extraordinary ability to upset people occurred on May 25, when he appeared as a special guest at the Cabot Theater in Beverly, Massachusetts. The $300-per-ticket evening was described as “An Evening with Richard Dreyfuss.” Jaws Screening, and many might reasonably expect some good-natured reminiscences and anecdotes about his work with Spielberg, the late Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw, not to mention the mechanical shark.
Instead, Dreyfuss, who took the stage in a dress to the accompaniment of Taylor Swift's “Love Story,” began ranting about everything and everyone from Barbra Streisand (“She's a genius, but I don't listen to her because she's a woman, and women should I have no such power”) and his views on diversity and the MeToo movement. For good measure, he called Spielberg “a genius but an idiot” and said that Close Encounters of the Third Kind only worked because he convinced the director to hire him rather than Gene Hackman in the lead role.
Unsurprisingly, none of this went well. Amid general public dissatisfaction, one wit came up with an alternative name for the evening – “An Evening of Misogyny and Homophobia with Richard Dreyfuss.” The Cabot was forced to issue a statement in which they sincerely apologized: “We regret that an event that was supposed to be a conversation in honor of an iconic film instead became a platform for political views.”
If this were a one-off, one would expect Dreyfuss, whose struggles with mental health and drug addiction are well documented, to come forward, make a groveling apology, and perhaps return to Cabot repentantly to give viewers what they've been waiting for. . This seems unlikely; It was subsequently revealed that Dreyfuss had behaved in the same “sexist and mean-spirited” manner the night before at a similar event at a movie theater in New Hampshire.
However, anyone inviting Dreyfus to any public appearance should be aware of the inevitable reputational risks he runs in dealing with such an unreliable cannon. A friend of mine who was in charge of organizing high-profile performances called Dreyfus the last person on earth he would invite, citing both his unpredictability and the likelihood of the actor being seriously offended. These are some of the many, many reasons why Dreyfus occupies such a curious place in public life—and perhaps not coincidentally why his presence in film has been muted in recent decades.
“I have become a lying, mean, dirty dog'
The early years of Dreyfus's career now seem almost like a Faustian bargain for the young actor. After a brief appearance in The Graduate, he starred in George Lucas's American Graffiti, had a great supporting role as oceanographer Hooper in Jaws, and two years later reunited with Spielberg to star in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. All three films were huge successes and led to his appearance in the $100 million box office romantic comedy The Goodbye Girl in 1977, for which he won the Oscar for Best Actor. He was 30 years old and was at that time the youngest person to do this.
Richard Dreyfuss in the book “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” Author: Alami
Feeling the whole world at his feet, Dreyfus enthusiastically threw himself into the ditch. As he later said: “[I was] more than stupid. I became the worst person… I was playing in a play in Los Angeles and it dawned on me: if I had no secrets, no one would be able to hurt me. I became a lying, mean, dirty dog.” Perhaps inspired by the scene in Close Encounters in which his character Roy Neary builds a mashed potato tower, Dreyfuss turned down the opportunity to play superior roles that might have been offered to him and instead took advantage of the accolades that the Oscars bestowed upon him. him for a couple of years, burying himself in mountains of cocaine.
This came to his creative mind in 1980, when he was nominated for the Golden Raspberry as worst actor for his role in the musical drama “Competition”: it was not successful. He now claims he has no record of filming the next film, 1981's Whose Life Is It Anyway?, given how high he was on drugs at the time.
“I have hurt every woman I have loved”
Dreyfus has been married three times (his current wife, Svetlana Erokhina, whom he has been dating since 2006), and has been open about his desire to right the wrongs of people he has wronged in the past. He suggested that after he achieved sobriety, “I realized that I had hurt every woman I loved” and wrote to them to apologize and ask for forgiveness, but no such forgiveness was forthcoming. As he said: “It was brutal. But I redefined my purpose in life, and that included becoming a good person.” Given many of his recent comments about Streisand, with whom he co-starred in the 1987 psychological drama Peanuts, this may seem like an exaggeration.
It also resonated poorly with writer Jessica Teich, who recounted many of her unpleasant and humiliating experiences working with the supposedly sober Dreyfus in the Eighties, including his showing her his erect penis during a 1987 incident and making her feel herself “sexualized, objectified.” and unsafe,” not to mention the fact that he sent her love notes and told her, “I want to fuck you.” When asked to comment on these incidents in 2017, Dreyfus responded: “I categorically deny that I ever ‘exposed’ myself to Jessica Teich, whom I considered a friend for 30 years. I flirted with her and remember trying to kiss Jessica in what I thought was a ritual of consensual seduction that went on and on for many years. I am horrified and bewildered to discover that this was not consensual.”
“I respect that he is trying to deal with this, and I regret that he is not being completely honest,” Teich responded. “Unfortunately, what I regret even more is that I will never forget the sight of his penis because I was so surprised to see it there.”
’Bill Murray? Irish drunken hooligan”
Dreyfus once said: “I am a wonderful actor and I know it.” The Oscar – and subsequent nomination for his acclaimed performance in the 1995 musical drama Mr Holland's Opus – may be proof of this, but he has found it much more difficult to get along with his fellow actors. He described Bill Murray, with whom he appeared in the 1991 comedy What About Bob?, as an “Irish drunken hoodlum” and had a particularly contentious relationship with his Jaws co-star Robert Shaw, who believed that Dreyfuss was “a young punk with no stage experience” and needed a “real slap in the face”, which he expressed by advising the young actor to “mind your manners”.
Dreyfuss, irritated by Shaw's drinking on set, once knocked a glass of bourbon out of his hand before filming, to which Shaw later responded by pointing a fire extinguisher at Dreyfuss' face while off-screen and then pouring it on him. when the scene is over.
Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss in What About Bob? Photo: Alamy
While Dreyfuss apparently came to respect the late actor, calling him “the kindest, gentlest, funniest guy you'll ever meet” in 2010, that may not have been entirely true. Shaw's son Ian, who co-wrote the acclaimed play about the making of Jaws and its underlying contradictions, Shark Broke, told how when he met Dreyfus to ask for his blessing before the show's Edinburgh premiere in 2019, the meeting went poorly. . “He looked like he'd seen a ghost, like a bad ghost,” Shaw said. In 2023, Dreyfuss finally had his say, telling Vanity Fair that watching the play was “pretty terrible… they just decided to make my character a big jerk.” Although he happily posed for photographs with the cast at the Broadway premiere, he argued that it was inaccurate, claiming that his arguments with Shaw were merely “playful ridicule” rather than the existential disagreements depicted on stage.
“Very late, I wondered, too, if my body couldn’t do it.”
The musical adaptation of Mel Brooks’ The Producers was a huge success on Broadway, and when it came time for a London transfer, Dreyfuss was cast opposite Lee Evans in the title role of the scheming impresario Max Bialystock. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until Dreyfuss appeared on Frank Skinner's talk show in October 2004 and announced to the audience that The Producers was opening on November 9th. Come back from Christmas. Don’t come before then, okay?”
Unfortunately, Dreyfus soon discovered that the physically demanding role of Bialystok required one to be “half actor, half athlete” to succeed, and it soon became clear that, as he put it, “a very late date, I also wondered if I could does my body do this. In fact, my body separated from me back in July.” He left the role “by mutual consent” shortly after the interview with Skinner, and original star Nathan Lane replaced him a few days later, subsequently winning an Olivier Award for his performance. Dreyfus ironically complained that if he had stayed the course, “You know, I would have won every award in Britain.” Poster for Richard Dreyfuss' ill-fated performance in The Producers with Lee Evans. Photo: Alamy
He later made his British stage debut at the Old Vic under the artistic direction of Kevin Spacey in the 2009 play Collateral. Unfortunately, the now-forgotten political drama attracted much more interest, firstly because Dreyfus, unable or unwilling to remember his lines, wore a prominent earpiece through which his dialogue was broadcast on stage, and secondly, over his teenage son Harry, who later claimed he was groped by Spacey while his forgetful father practiced his lines in front of him. (Spacey's lawyer said at the time that the actor “completely denies the allegations.”) Given the embarrassment he felt over his inability to remember those lines, it might have been best to leave the whole matter alone.
“You can be a fascist even if you are on the left”
Although Dreyfuss worked with Spielberg three times—most recently on the largely forgotten 1989 supernatural fire drama Always—he had less luck with other collaborators. When he worked with Oliver Stone on the 2008 political drama V., in which he played Dick Cheney, Dreyfuss helpfully criticized the film and the director in a promotional campaign, saying, “You can be a fascist even if you're on the left.” . and when asked why he took on the role of Chaney, he replied, “Money.” Meanwhile, Stone – a man who was known to put his casts through rigorous filming – described working with Dreyfuss as “probably the worst experience I've ever had with an actor in my life.” and after Dreyfuss couldn't remember his lines, said, “You're going to read these [expletive] cue cards, and if you don't read them, this scene will end.”
Richard Dreyfuss and Josh Brolin in Oliver Stone's W Photo: Alamy
Years later, Dreyfuss seemed to find the troubles amusing, saying: “Oliver and I were at loggerheads about it and we're still at loggerheads about it. He screamed that I was the worst actor he had ever worked with. I delayed production and so on.” However, Dreyfus, in his opinion, had the last laugh. “I told him that he had made one strategic mistake: the press conference was still ahead. I told the press exactly what I told [him].”
“Diversity rules? They make me sick”
To date, Dreyfus has written two books; 1996 thriller “The Two Georges” and 2022’s “One Thought Scares Me”: “We teach our children what we want them to know”; We don't teach our children anything we don't want them to know. In the latter, he made a compelling argument that civics should be taught more widely in American schools, and that failure to do so could jeopardize the education of an entire generation.
Steven Spielberg and Richard Dreyfuss at the 1987 Academy Awards. Photo: Getty
This may appeal to many as an argument, but since the book's publication, Dreyfuss, who no longer seems to care about pursuing a career as an actor, has been outspoken about everything from the Academy's new diversity and inclusion issues (“They make me sick”) sickening… no one has to tell me as an artist, I have to succumb to the newest, most current ideas of what morality is”), and the backlash of blackface (“so patronizing… so thoughtless… it's treating people like children”).< /p>
Continuing the theme of culture wars, on Saturday he said that parents of transitional children are irresponsible and that someday these children may change their minds. One can only guess what this has to do with Jaws.
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