Richard Dreyfuss

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety nine, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:31

My castaway this week is an actor, the son of a New York lawyer. He says he knew early on he was a good actor and thought he might be a great one. Success, if not quite greatness, followed fast, and before the age of thirty he'd starred in Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and won an Oscar for the Goodbye Girl.

Presenter0:50

Five years later, he was out of work, broke, and on a drugs charge. He made his comeback with the hit film Down and Out in Beverly Hills. Since then, films such as Stake Out, Tin Men and more recently Mr Holland's Opus have proved that real stars never die. They just sometimes fade a bit. Currently fulfilling a lifelong dream starring on the West End stage, he is Richard Dreyfus. Is the reality as enchanting as the dream, Richard, or has the gloss worn off with this long run?

Richard Dreyfuss1:20

Actually, it's still very present as a fantasy. I go to work every day in this extraordinary theater. I talk to some ghosts. We put on a show.

Richard Dreyfuss1:29

We look out into this

Richard Dreyfuss1:31

Truly magnificent hall.

Richard Dreyfuss1:34

and I have no desire to be anywhere else.

Presenter1:37

Do you look out? I've I noticed at the end of the curtain course somebody brings your glasses on, you shove them on and you make as if you're just seeing us for the first time.

Richard Dreyfuss1:43

Yeah. I don't do that every night, but either something that the audience does or my own sense of curiosity about their reaction.

Richard Dreyfuss1:52

I want to see them because I can't see anything without my glasses. And when I put the glasses on, it really is a it's like a Dutch treat because.

Richard Dreyfuss2:00

All of a sudden, instead of being blurred figures, I see all of these smiles I mean hundreds of them. And there are very few places in the world where you can go these days to find hundreds of people smiling at you.

Presenter2:14

It's not as if you've not had the experience before,'cause you've done theatre in the States before, notably Death and the Maiden with Glen Close and and Jean Hackman.

Presenter2:22

Why was it so special to be on the British stage now you're turned fifty?

Richard Dreyfuss2:28

Well

Richard Dreyfuss2:29

I grew up with a fantasy about doing the theatre in the West End.

Richard Dreyfuss2:35

having that experience. You know, come in, say hello to the stage door guy and go to your dressing room, which John Gilgood was in, and and do this thing, have this experience. And I must say, every time I come to the theater,

Richard Dreyfuss2:51

And I walk in to the backstage area and see my name on the dressing-room.

Richard Dreyfuss2:58

I want to go out and come back in again.

Presenter3:03

And you've done it not least because you turned fifty, which apparently.

Presenter3:08

Was a bit of a shocker. You didn't like being fifty or you had intimations of mortality, so you better rush around and fulfil these dreams. Was that

Richard Dreyfuss3:15

Well, I think I was a victim of the classic midlife crisis.

Richard Dreyfuss3:21

I had read about it, I had made fun of it, and then in my late forties it hit me right in the mouth.

Richard Dreyfuss3:28

I I ceased to take joy in my work.

Richard Dreyfuss3:32

which was particularly

Richard Dreyfuss3:35

um uh anxiety provoking because

Richard Dreyfuss3:40

Enjoying my work.

Richard Dreyfuss3:42

had been a constant companion in my life from the age of nine.

Richard Dreyfuss3:46

A true

Richard Dreyfuss3:48

tangible presence in my life. My relationship with my work

Richard Dreyfuss3:52

was probably more important than any relationship I might have had with any people.

Presenter3:57

Although you'd put it very much at risk in the eighties when, as I say, you you know, you hit the bottom, um, cocaine, bottle of cognac a day. You'd kinda look death in the eye then, hadn't you?

Richard Dreyfuss4:08

Well, I looked failure in the eye. Certainly, I think I was courting it.

Richard Dreyfuss4:11

As much as I wanted what I wanted, as much as I had aimed for what I wanted.

Richard Dreyfuss4:16

and got

Richard Dreyfuss4:17

I then hated what I got.

Richard Dreyfuss4:20

Didn't want what I had sought.

Richard Dreyfuss4:21

and ran screaming in the other way.

Presenter4:24

Tell me about the first record you'll take to this desert island,'cause we take you away, transport you from all of these terrible strains of life and middle age.

Richard Dreyfuss4:33

Well, I remember a woman I knew came over to my apartment one night and said, I want you to hear this.

Richard Dreyfuss4:40

Beethoven.

Richard Dreyfuss4:41

Violin concerto

Richard Dreyfuss4:43

And all of the things that I had heard about through various people all of my life, in my involvement with classical music, in my family's or in friendship

Richard Dreyfuss4:54

which had never penetrated me before.

Richard Dreyfuss4:57

All

Richard Dreyfuss4:58

All came clear that night.

Richard Dreyfuss5:02

My respect.

Richard Dreyfuss5:04

and affection.

Richard Dreyfuss5:06

and need for this music or this kind of music.

Richard Dreyfuss5:10

Went way up.

Presenter6:06

Itzak Pellmann playing part of Beethoven's violin concerto in D Major with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Daniel Barenboim.

Presenter6:13

The film Jaws Richard Dreyfus goes on being popular with successive generations. It's difficult to believe it's twenty five years old. Um you played the marine biologist, of course, who actually was lowered down

Presenter6:25

In the cage, into the water, to to to fight the great white shark. Uh did you actually do that or?

Richard Dreyfuss6:31

I did part of it. I was lowered down, certainly. Then they quickly replaced me with an idiot who r really wanted to be there with the shark, which I said no to.

Presenter6:40

But were you frightened? I mean, things can go as far.

Richard Dreyfuss6:42

Well, it's funny. Uh every guy on the crew was a certified diver.

Richard Dreyfuss6:46

And we were shooting the scene of me going down, and I was in the cage.

Richard Dreyfuss6:52

They close the top.

Richard Dreyfuss6:54

And the winch broke.

Richard Dreyfuss6:55

and I fell into the water, tore my mask off, and tore my everything.

Richard Dreyfuss7:01

And um what seemed like two hours later they got me up. In fact, it was about six seconds. But that was real. That that moment where I was trapped inside the cage and I couldn't get out and I didn't have the proper training to have taken care of this problem, you know, by myself, will i will be something that is etched in my memory.

Presenter7:25

After that, what, another Spielberg movie, Close Encounters, you were quoted as saying that you'd have your right arm cut off to be in that film. Why did you want it so much?

Richard Dreyfuss7:34

Because I thought of it as a truly noble endeavour.

Richard Dreyfuss7:39

And and at the time it was

Richard Dreyfuss7:41

Really the first.

Richard Dreyfuss7:43

Film ever to say looking up and at the stars and seeing something.

Richard Dreyfuss7:50

is not necessarily a frightening experience. It's not something to be feared. It's not something that can provoke terror. It could be friendly and loving and amiable, which is a lea huge leap in the culture to get to that point.

Presenter8:05

And you spent a lot of time in that film looking up at the stars and

Richard Dreyfuss8:08

Yeah, I used to say that the name of the book that I will never write is called Stephen Have They Figured Out Yet What I'm Looking Up in Awe At?

Presenter8:16

'Cause there was never anything there when you could do anything else.

Richard Dreyfuss8:17

Yeah

Presenter8:21

And then of course came your Oscar winning performance in in The Goodbye Girl, opposite Marsha Mason, whom you're playing opposite in the in the current play. You played people will remember that fast talking, abrasive young actor who ends up sharing a flat with the Marcia Mason character.

Presenter8:39

Neil Simon wrote it for you, with you in mind, didn't he? And in a way, of course, this character that you're playing at the moment in Prisoner on Second Avenue, he he's now he's middle-aged, fast-talking, neurotic.

Presenter8:52

Jewish middle manager who loses his job has a nervous breakdown. There's still a lot of Dreyfus in there, isn't there, in that guy, too.

Richard Dreyfuss8:58

Yeah, I think that uh there are two kinds of actors. One is

Richard Dreyfuss9:03

the one who is who's going to show himself in the role, and the other is the one who isn't. I am very comfortable with Neal. I I'm very, very comfortable with Neal as a writer.

Richard Dreyfuss9:16

And with Marcia as an actress, and so, yes, it becomes

Richard Dreyfuss9:20

My midlife crisis, my nervous breakdown.

Presenter9:24

And are you, as the guy, Mel Edison, in the in the play, are you demanding, selfish, childish even? Need a lot of attention? Is that you?

Richard Dreyfuss9:35

Yeah, I say. I would think so.

Richard Dreyfuss9:38

I've been a prince for a long time.

Richard Dreyfuss9:40

I was a prince even before I was famous, but then certainly after that, you know, I s I spent a long time being a prince.

Richard Dreyfuss9:48

And I am reflexively.

Richard Dreyfuss9:51

Selfish and insensitive and thoughtless. I have to really take myself in hand to remember that.

Richard Dreyfuss9:59

The person sitting over there is not the person who necessarily has to pick up my socks.

Presenter10:04

Tell me about your second record.

Richard Dreyfuss10:06

Ragtime is a music that I did not know about until I was in my early twenties.

Richard Dreyfuss10:12

And I remember uh having this secret unease about the sound of the piano. Whenever I heard a piano.

Richard Dreyfuss10:19

I kept thinking that it was.

Richard Dreyfuss10:21

Really trying to sound like something else until I heard ragtime. For me, I mean, I know this is crazy, this is just for me.

Richard Dreyfuss10:28

When I hear ragtime played slowly, I cry, when I hear ragtime played quickly, I smile.

Presenter10:59

Marvin Hamlish with Scott Joplin's The Entertainer. So, Richard, as a child you were a prince, and a prince who knew he wanted to be an actor. I mean, you knew from very, very early on, didn't you? How did you know? What did you know?

Richard Dreyfuss11:12

Well, I don't know. I I've never been able to answer the real beginnings of this. I just knew when I was nine that that's what I wanted to be and I started doing it.

Presenter11:21

But who did you see? What did you hear?

Richard Dreyfuss11:24

Um I saw a lot of movies, although I couldn't pinpoint one that caused this to happen.

Richard Dreyfuss11:30

And I did I did a little children's theatre.

Richard Dreyfuss11:33

I did a lot of children's theatre.

Richard Dreyfuss11:35

And that's really how I spent my youth. I was always doing a play. I was always rehearsing something, a scene, a thing.

Richard Dreyfuss11:43

I did professional shows, I did community shows, I did school shows, I did, and that's what I did. I mean, 24 hours a day.

Presenter11:51

And you were encouraged at school, were you? You were you were told you were good.

Richard Dreyfuss11:55

Yes, very much so. I had a teacher who gathered

Richard Dreyfuss11:59

together a a group of truly crazy, neurotic, misfit kids, all of whom were very talented, and we got together and put on some terrific theatre. And the reason she was so great her name was Rose Jane Landau, she's gone.

Richard Dreyfuss12:15

is that she believe

Richard Dreyfuss12:17

That we were as good as we thought we were.

Presenter12:20

But you never had any formal training, did you?

Richard Dreyfuss12:25

Not in not in the sense that I I would like, no.

Richard Dreyfuss12:29

I was accepted to Lambda.

Richard Dreyfuss12:32

The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Richard Dreyfuss12:35

And I didn't go. I was accepted to Yale, and I didn't go.

Richard Dreyfuss12:40

The real reason was that I was too impatient.

Presenter12:43

Young man in a hurry

Richard Dreyfuss12:44

Yeah. And the other reasons were that it it did present certain problems with the draft.

Richard Dreyfuss12:49

Which I wanted to.

Richard Dreyfuss12:51

Not have. I didn't want any problem.

Presenter12:53

Which I want to talk to you about. But just tell me, do you regret that now? You implied that you did, that that that somehow you're missing that formal training. Why? How do you feel the loss of it, the lack of it?

Richard Dreyfuss13:03

Minnesota Fats, the billiard player, says.

Richard Dreyfuss13:06

I'm the best, even if you beat me, I'm the best.

Richard Dreyfuss13:10

And I don't feel that way about Shakespeare. About Shakespeare if someone walked up to me and said, God, you do that better than anyone I've ever heard, I would say, Thank you. I I know that. And if someone walked up to me and said, You should never do Shakespeare, that's really a bad thing you're doing, I would say, You're right, I'm leaving. Goodbye.

Richard Dreyfuss13:28

I I don't have the same feeling of n knowledge and security.

Richard Dreyfuss13:33

in the classics and in like that. And I would have liked that.

Presenter13:35

It's left you with an inferiority complex, is really what you're saying.

Richard Dreyfuss13:39

Well, okay.

Richard Dreyfuss13:41

And how much do I owe you for this hour?

Presenter13:45

Record number three.

Richard Dreyfuss13:47

Record number three well.

Richard Dreyfuss13:49

If I was going on a desert island, I have to bring Paul Simon with me, a lot of him. But if I had to choose one, which I wouldn't want to do, I would choose um um bookends, and if I had to choose a song

Richard Dreyfuss14:01

In bookends it would be America, which is

Richard Dreyfuss14:05

I used to think I was the only person in the country who knew this song.

Richard Dreyfuss14:10

I have since been proven wrong.

Speaker 414:14

For a man.

Speaker 414:16

Erica

Speaker 414:20

Landing on the bus

Speaker 414:22

Playing games with the faces She said the man in the Gabardine suit was a spy

Speaker 414:35

I said be careful, his bow tie is really a camera.

Presenter14:43

Paul Simon and America. Tell me about uh Vietnam and you, Richard Dreyfus. You didn't want to go. You want you listed as a conscientious objector.

Richard Dreyfuss14:53

Yeah, um speaking about this now in in uh while the Kosovo-NATO thing is going on has really been illuminating to me.

Richard Dreyfuss15:04

It was a bad war, it was a wrong war, and

Richard Dreyfuss15:08

There was no basis and reason for it, and

Richard Dreyfuss15:12

It certainly did um

Richard Dreyfuss15:15

make you realize that serious things happen in one's young life.

Richard Dreyfuss15:19

If your government can take you away and train you and have you kill people and be killed.

Presenter15:25

But how difficult was it?

Presenter15:27

To to refuse to go. I mean, you you must have had to go before a board and

Richard Dreyfuss15:31

Oh yeah.

Presenter15:31

A reason

Richard Dreyfuss15:31

Yeah, it was frightening in the extreme.

Richard Dreyfuss15:35

And I knew when I went before the board that I would not be given my classification. That was a given. The given was they don't give COs. And then you face a series of decisions.

Richard Dreyfuss15:46

Will you refuse the draft? Will you not step over that line? Will you go to Canada? Will you what will you do?

Richard Dreyfuss15:54

That's what I thought w was going to happen, and it was going to be my

Richard Dreyfuss15:59

Um

Richard Dreyfuss16:00

My symphony, you know, my little life story that I was going to see whether I had the guts and gumption to do what I had to do.

Richard Dreyfuss16:12

And then they handed me my classification without even asking me a question. And that.

Presenter16:17

In per in person, sitting there.

Richard Dreyfuss16:18

Oh yeah, they did it.

Richard Dreyfuss16:21

I I used to say that I believed in the theory of the laughing gods.

Richard Dreyfuss16:26

Because I believed since nothing bad had ever happened to me in my middle class life, I was white, I was Jewish, I was an American, I was being set up.

Richard Dreyfuss16:36

Two senile, psychotic gods sitting on a cloud, giggling their brains out, were setting me up.

Richard Dreyfuss16:44

Now, in fact, that became the story of the eighties, but in the sixties.

Richard Dreyfuss16:50

When they handed me my classification without a murmur, without even a question, they just handed it to me, I flipped out. I was I only realized at that moment how much how much I didn't want that to happen to me.

Richard Dreyfuss17:05

Not another gift.

Presenter17:07

How did you react in that moment?

Richard Dreyfuss17:09

I made odd sounds, according to my mother, who was sitting there, and she dug her nails into my hand. I just made this weird trilling like weird.

Richard Dreyfuss17:20

And uh I was in a funk.

Presenter17:22

Why? Because you felt you hadn't been properly tested, because you were worried that perhaps you didn't want to go for the wrong reasons, that you were actually scared to death.

Richard Dreyfuss17:25

Yeah.

Presenter17:31

Why?

Richard Dreyfuss17:33

Because I wanted to be tested. That was it.

Presenter17:36

And if you were twenty years old today and asked to go to the Balkans, would you still object?

Richard Dreyfuss17:41

It's a different it's a very different situation, and it is amazingly different. That's why this whole comparison has to be

Richard Dreyfuss17:49

Very carefully thought about.

Richard Dreyfuss17:52

In Vietnam we were fighting for a people who didn't want to be fought for, against an enemy who our f our allies were basically i i in agreement with.

Richard Dreyfuss18:02

In a war situation which was so inhibited by politics that it could only turn into a nightmare. And it was.

Richard Dreyfuss18:09

Those reasons plus we cannot lose our credibility, which sounds awfully familiar.

Richard Dreyfuss18:15

Were the reasons that fifty-seven thousand Americans and God knows how many Vietnamese?

Richard Dreyfuss18:21

died in a war that accomplished

Richard Dreyfuss18:24

Absolutely nothing.

Richard Dreyfuss18:26

Now you have a situation in which

Richard Dreyfuss18:31

Every moral lesson of the twentieth century is being reacted out in front of you. Reenacted.

Richard Dreyfuss18:38

I knew how I felt in Vietnam.

Richard Dreyfuss18:40

But I am firmly ambiguous about this one.

Presenter18:45

Tell me about your next record, number four.

Richard Dreyfuss18:48

I know very little.

Richard Dreyfuss18:49

About Jon Stewart. I heard this song when I was nineteen or eighteen.

Richard Dreyfuss18:55

And I wept.

Richard Dreyfuss18:56

And I s and I it speaks to everything in me. I love history.

Richard Dreyfuss19:01

And I love America.

Richard Dreyfuss19:02

And

Richard Dreyfuss19:04

And this is a mythology about those two things.

Speaker 419:07

And then the lady said

Speaker 419:10

That they did it pretty up and walking good.

Speaker 419:16

Whatever happened to those faces in the old photograph?

Speaker 419:21

I mean the little boy.

Speaker 419:25

Boys, hell they were men who stood knee-deep in the Johnstown mud in the time of that terrible flood.

Speaker 419:36

And they listen to the wand.

Presenter19:38

John Stewart and Mother Country, that touched you in the right spot.

Richard Dreyfuss19:41

Yeah, it's a it packs a wallop for me.

Presenter19:45

So, as I said, success came quickly. American graffiti, I think it was first in 73, the big one, Jaw, 75, and so on.

Presenter19:52

You said you loved it, you wanted to spend your life in front of an audience. It really kind of went well. What about on the personal front? I I don't read of any great romance in in the life of the early Dreyfus.

Richard Dreyfuss20:06

Oh, I had one. I I had I had a

Richard Dreyfuss20:10

A love, you know, a an unrequited love. I was in love with the girl from the time I was twelve until I was twenty-seven.

Presenter20:17

Same one.

Richard Dreyfuss20:18

Saimonia.

Richard Dreyfuss20:20

I was very shy.

Richard Dreyfuss20:21

I was very shy and my being famous didn't help at all.

Presenter20:26

But you were very successful, very rich, and ultimately very wild. If you didn't go wild with women, you went wild in other ways, didn't you?

Richard Dreyfuss20:34

Um

Richard Dreyfuss20:36

You take drugs for pleasure.

Richard Dreyfuss20:39

To get away from yourself.

Richard Dreyfuss20:43

And what I didn't realize was, and I am I'm only beginning to piece this together now.

Richard Dreyfuss20:49

was that the thing which I had sought for so long, and attained,

Richard Dreyfuss20:53

I didn't

Richard Dreyfuss20:54

I wasn't happy.

Richard Dreyfuss20:56

I couldn't admit that. I as a matter of fact, I'm only saying this now for the first time. I couldn't admit to myself that the goal that I had set for myself when I was twelve or nine

Richard Dreyfuss21:07

and which I had attained, wasn't making me happy.

Richard Dreyfuss21:13

I was a film star. I was famous. I was rich.

Richard Dreyfuss21:19

And what else do you got?

Richard Dreyfuss21:21

And I still was shy, I still felt like an outsider.

Richard Dreyfuss21:25

You know, I'd go to all these Hollywood parties and I'd think that I'm a fan.

Richard Dreyfuss21:29

So I think a lot of my drug taking was

Richard Dreyfuss21:32

As you've heard a thousand times, not just.

Richard Dreyfuss21:35

Um

Richard Dreyfuss21:36

You know, cocaine, you're successful. It was because it allowed me to stay in a room with Jack Nicholson. It allowed me to stay in a room with Tom Hanks. Because I.

Richard Dreyfuss21:47

I couldn't.

Presenter21:48

And it came to a literally a crashing end, I think, in eighty two when you wrapped yourself round a palm tree in Beverley Hills in your Mercedes convertible.

Presenter21:59

Why did that end it then?

Richard Dreyfuss22:03

Um

Richard Dreyfuss22:05

I woke up underneath the car.

Richard Dreyfuss22:08

I I had blacked out. I don't remember the

Richard Dreyfuss22:10

The actual impact.

Richard Dreyfuss22:12

And I knew you know, there's a moment in everyone's life, many of them,

Richard Dreyfuss22:18

That moment when you sprain your ankle.

Richard Dreyfuss22:20

You know, or you walk outside and the door closes and you realize you've left the keys inside.

Richard Dreyfuss22:25

And you just for a second think, oh, if I could just go back one second, and I'll be okay.

Richard Dreyfuss22:30

When I

Richard Dreyfuss22:31

When I woke up underneath that car.

Richard Dreyfuss22:34

I knew there was no going back.

Richard Dreyfuss22:38

I knew my life was irreparably changed.

Richard Dreyfuss22:41

I was either going to be a quadriplegic

Richard Dreyfuss22:43

A paraplegic.

Richard Dreyfuss22:45

or at the very least arrested.

Richard Dreyfuss22:48

And

Richard Dreyfuss22:50

I who had said as a child that I wanted to live in front of five hundred people, now that chicken was coming home to roost.

Richard Dreyfuss22:59

I woke up in the hospital after I was under arrest and they put me in this room and

Richard Dreyfuss23:04

A lot of paparazzi and all.

Richard Dreyfuss23:07

I was unmarried, had no family.

Richard Dreyfuss23:09

No children.

Richard Dreyfuss23:11

And I immediately called my dealer and, you know, we started getting loaded in the hospital.

Richard Dreyfuss23:16

And while I was talking to him.

Richard Dreyfuss23:19

On the first day after the accident,

Richard Dreyfuss23:22

I saw in my mind, I couldn't

Richard Dreyfuss23:24

Figure it out. A little girl.

Richard Dreyfuss23:27

There was a little girl in my in my mind. I couldn't get her out of my mind. And she was a girl of about eight years old.

Richard Dreyfuss23:33

and she was wearing a pink and white dress. This picture stayed in my mind all the time, every minute.

Richard Dreyfuss23:41

And finally I realized that that little girl

Richard Dreyfuss23:46

was either

Richard Dreyfuss23:49

The little girl I didn't kill that night.

Richard Dreyfuss23:52

Or she was the daughter that I did not have yet.

Richard Dreyfuss23:57

And the moment I answered the question, who was this girl? even with the two answers.

Richard Dreyfuss24:05

I sobered up.

Presenter24:08

Next record.

Richard Dreyfuss24:10

Well, um

Richard Dreyfuss24:12

The reality is, if I went to a desert island, I would take oodles of Beatles. But if I wanted to choose one as a kind of signal, I would say the White Album, because

Richard Dreyfuss24:24

It's like in the Roman Empire, you know, there's B C and C E well, there's before the white album and after the white album.

Richard Dreyfuss24:33

It's for a person who doesn't listen to a lot of rock music, this I listen to.

Speaker 424:38

Why don't we d do it in the row?

Speaker 424:43

Why don't we do hell in the road?

Speaker 424:48

Why don't you end in the wrong road?

Speaker 424:53

Why don't we do head in the road?

Speaker 425:01

No wonder we'll be watching us. Why don't we do it in the road?

Presenter25:09

The Beatles and Why Don't We Do It in the Road from the White album. Your fall from Grace, Richard, was was very public, as you've described. You must have thought your acting career was therefore over. What made you try to rekindle it?

Richard Dreyfuss25:23

Well, I I I

Richard Dreyfuss25:26

I said to myself that I had no intention of overstaying my welcome.

Richard Dreyfuss25:33

and that if I was going to not be whatever it was that I was, I wanted to get out on my own two feet.

Richard Dreyfuss25:41

And I was planning on

Richard Dreyfuss25:44

on becoming a history professor.

Presenter25:46

So how did Down and Out in Beverley Hills come about, then?

Richard Dreyfuss25:49

There is a producer named Danny Melnick.

Richard Dreyfuss25:52

who invited me and my wife, my new wife, over for dinner one night.

Richard Dreyfuss25:56

And at that dinner was another film executive, very powerful. And we were both, you know, we're all having a nice time. And all of a sudden it occurred to me

Richard Dreyfuss26:05

That Danny

Richard Dreyfuss26:07

had brought

Richard Dreyfuss26:08

Us together to prove to the other guy that I was okay.

Presenter26:12

He was Mr. Disney, wasn't he? Wasn't he? Yes.

Richard Dreyfuss26:14

Yes, Jeffrey Katzenberg, yeah. I've never forgotten that that gesture. It was one of the most gallant and generous things'cause Danny had no gain. There's no gain here. He just did it to do it.

Richard Dreyfuss26:26

And it worked, because Jeffrey looked at me, saw that I was okay and hired me.

Presenter26:30

You mentioned just now that you found a wife during this period of rehabilitation. I mean, that in a sense and you mentioned the little girl earlier on, marriage and fatherhood, because you began to have children, presumably turned the personal tide for you as well.

Richard Dreyfuss26:46

Yeah.

Richard Dreyfuss26:48

Once I got married and and had our first ki we had our first kid.

Richard Dreyfuss26:53

Uh I was in the process of changing my entire personality.

Richard Dreyfuss26:57

It took a long time, though, because I had been a prince. I had been irresponsible and no one had called me on it. I had been selfish, and no one had called me on it. I had been all kinds of

Richard Dreyfuss27:07

bad things and

Richard Dreyfuss27:10

And I still do. I mean, my life consists of basically apologizing to my friends for thoughtlessness.

Presenter27:17

Tell me about your children. You have three children. Emily is fifteen, Ben is twelve, and Harry is nine.

Presenter27:23

How have they changed your life?

Richard Dreyfuss27:26

Well, whatever growing up I've ever done, if one could find it, happened because of them.

Presenter27:32

Do you see enough of them?

Richard Dreyfuss27:33

Yeah.

Presenter27:35

Does it hurt?

Richard Dreyfuss27:37

Yeah, oh yeah, it's it's absurd.

Presenter27:40

And your divorce, you said, was a tragedy.

Richard Dreyfuss27:44

Yeah.

Richard Dreyfuss27:47

Again, this is where the gods come in. You know, the gods said, All right, we're storing some stuff up for you, pal, and then it happened.

Richard Dreyfuss27:54

It's not a question of the divorce is was bad, it was

Richard Dreyfuss27:58

This was a

Richard Dreyfuss28:00

Bad thing.

Richard Dreyfuss28:02

For me, for her, for the children?

Richard Dreyfuss28:07

And

Richard Dreyfuss28:09

It is the it's the one thing that makes me shriek in self-loathing.

Richard Dreyfuss28:15

You know, I c I can't imagine how that happened to us.

Presenter28:19

Record number six.

Richard Dreyfuss28:22

Bernard Herrmann

Richard Dreyfuss28:24

did some of the most dramatic scores in history. I've always thought that the Ghost in Mrs. Muir's music was the most romantic, the most mysterious and romantic score I'd ever heard. It's there's something

Richard Dreyfuss28:41

otherworldly and powerful and big. It's not a small, funny, smirky story. It's not just witty. And there's something about love that comes from the place where death lives that is huge. And I think Herman really got it.

Presenter29:30

Part of the prelude from the soundtrack of the nineteen forty seven film The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, composed by Bernard Herrmann.

Presenter29:37

I do get the impression, Richard, that that your life or or how you lead it anyway has been a kind of series of dramatic events and startling revelations, you know, that somehow you've transformed

Richard Dreyfuss29:48

I was once in a an in an analyst's office, a th a therapist's office, and I'd had this satori, this revelation, this illumination, and I was just agog at this thought that was resounding in my brain and m the doctor reminded me that three weeks earlier I had had the exact same revelation.

Presenter30:03

Down

Richard Dreyfuss30:11

Which I had forgotten.

Presenter30:12

Have you spent a lot of time in analysts' offices?

Presenter30:15

Uh

Richard Dreyfuss30:15

Uh yeah.

Presenter30:16

Yeah, I guess I have. Uh

Presenter30:18

So now you're nearly nearly fifty two, dare I remind you. What else what else do you want to achieve before it's too late?

Richard Dreyfuss30:25

Um, what else would I like to achieve?

Richard Dreyfuss30:28

Ever since I was a little boy, I've every time there was a shooting star or

Richard Dreyfuss30:33

Or a candle to be blown out, or something. I've and someone says make a wish.

Richard Dreyfuss30:39

I've always wished for the same thing.

Richard Dreyfuss30:42

Even when I was a little boy, eight, seven.

Richard Dreyfuss30:46

Inner SERENITY

Richard Dreyfuss30:49

I don't ha I I don't believe it will ever happen, but that's what I always wish for.

Presenter30:55

Next record.

Richard Dreyfuss30:58

Joe and Eddie sang together for I guess.

Richard Dreyfuss31:03

I knew them for about five or six years.

Richard Dreyfuss31:05

And then for different reasons they died.

Richard Dreyfuss31:08

No one really remembers them any more.

Richard Dreyfuss31:11

But I go to the place where they want me to get to when I hear them.

Richard Dreyfuss31:17

And I have I taught these songs to my children.

Richard Dreyfuss31:21

And to listen to my family singing is a price it's completely priceless.

Speaker 431:28

Children go, children, go, children, go, children, go, my children, go, children, go, children, go, my children, go, my children, go where I send thee, how shall I send thee? I'm gonna send thee six, five, six, six for the six that never got fixed, five for the gospel, preacher, four for the fool that's at the door, three for the Hebrew, a children, a two for Paul and Silas, and one for a little baby, a baby with a bow,

Presenter31:58

Joe and Eddie and Children Go, that's gonna keep going on your desert island I can tell.

Richard Dreyfuss32:02

Yeah.

Presenter32:03

Tell me about Dreyfus on a desert island. Is he a survivor? Is he going to find shelter? Is he going to find food?

Richard Dreyfuss32:10

Well, uh is there a club med there?

Presenter32:13

No.

Richard Dreyfuss32:15

Well, are there cans of food there?

Presenter32:17

Yeah.

Richard Dreyfuss32:17

Are there fruits hanging from the trees?

Presenter32:20

Possibly.

Richard Dreyfuss32:21

I could eat a lot of fruit.

Presenter32:23

Can you build? You know, can you do for yourself?

Richard Dreyfuss32:28

No.

Richard Dreyfuss32:29

I would probably

Richard Dreyfuss32:31

Tell myself that I could and

Richard Dreyfuss32:33

and uh weave dreams about it.

Richard Dreyfuss32:35

But I'd really just be waiting for a ship to come by.

Presenter32:38

You're an escaper, you're not a curler-up and dyer.

Richard Dreyfuss32:42

I'm a curly upper dyer scaper.

Richard Dreyfuss32:45

Thing.

Presenter32:46

Do you want to go there?

Richard Dreyfuss32:48

To a desert island? No.

Richard Dreyfuss32:50

No, I don't like the sun very much.

Richard Dreyfuss32:53

I mean, unless it could be somewhere in the Bering Strait, that might be okay.

Presenter32:57

Tell me about your last record.

Richard Dreyfuss32:59

Well, I could no more take one Beethoven than I could shake a stick in the face.

Richard Dreyfuss33:06

So this is a stand-in for all of the symphonies of Beethoven, which do me very nicely, thank you.

Richard Dreyfuss33:13

I can be moved.

Richard Dreyfuss33:15

Almost to any place.

Richard Dreyfuss33:17

I have ever been.

Richard Dreyfuss33:19

Depending upon which symphony of Beethoven's I'm listening to.

Richard Dreyfuss33:23

So, just as a, you know, close your eyes and stick a dart in the wall.

Richard Dreyfuss33:29

This is the uh opening of

Richard Dreyfuss33:31

The fourth movement, the thunderstorm.

Richard Dreyfuss33:34

From the Pastoral

Presenter34:33

The opening of The Thunderstorm, the fourth movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. Six, The Pastoral, played by the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

Presenter34:41

Now, a great and difficult choice, this, if you could only take one of those eight records, which single one would you choose?

Richard Dreyfuss34:49

One of these?

Presenter34:50

Mm-hmm.

Richard Dreyfuss34:52

I guess I'd take the symphony.

Richard Dreyfuss34:53

Bay tune.

Presenter34:53

Beautiful.

Presenter34:55

Then there's a book. You've got the Bible and you've got the complete works of Shakespeare on the beach waiting for you, whether it's in the Bering Straits or, you know, the Pacific.

Presenter35:05

Um

Presenter35:06

What other book would you like?

Richard Dreyfuss35:08

Uh building made easy?

Presenter35:11

No, no, no, no, it's too practical.

Richard Dreyfuss35:11

Yeah.

Richard Dreyfuss35:14

Um

Richard Dreyfuss35:17

Alright, let's pick um

Richard Dreyfuss35:18

A Tale of Two Cities

Presenter35:20

and, even more difficult, a luxury.

Richard Dreyfuss35:23

I want

Richard Dreyfuss35:24

Books delivered on a regular basis.

Richard Dreyfuss35:27

That's it. I want books delivered to the to the island on a regular basis.

Presenter35:32

We're just dropping out of the sky. Carrier pigeon, huh?

Richard Dreyfuss35:34

Yeah, or a little plane or helicopter, I don't care.

Presenter35:37

And they're just books of any kind. Mathematics, huh?

Richard Dreyfuss35:40

They can be any books as long as they're in English, and I would like preponderance of history. Thank you so much.

Presenter35:45

Richard Dreyfus, thank you so much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Speaker 135:57

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.