Richard Dreyfuss thinks he deserves a Lifetime Achievement Award
RICHARD Dreyfuss isn’t happy he hasn’t been given a Lifetime Achievement Award. The 69-year- old actor doesn’t mind that fellow Hollywood stars such as Al Pacino, Robert D e Niro and Jack Nicholson have been handed the accolade by the American Film Institute, but thinks his career deserves the award. He moaned: “I am bothered that they’ve been given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the American Film Institute and I haven’t.” Dreyfuss won an Oscar for his performance in ‘ The Goodbye Girl’ in 1978, but would have preferred to win the award later in his career. He told The Daily Telegraph newspaper: “If I could rewind my life now, I’d delay winning the Oscar until I was in my fifties .” The ‘ Mr Holland’s Opus’ star was a prominent actor during the 70s when he starred in a number of successful movies including ‘American Graffiti’, ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ and the shark horror movie ‘Jaws’. Dreyfuss recalls a time when he was kicked out of 20th Century Fox for shouting at the director and casting director when he was just 16. He said: “The director and casting director showed up 45 minutes late. When I finally saw them approaching, I headed in the opposite direction to get a glass of water.
“I got back and one of the guys asked why I was keeping them waiting. I blew. ‘ How dare you’ I said. ‘ I’ve been waiting for 45 (expletive) minutes’.
“The casting director told me to calm down before asking me to go through my resume with the director. “‘No’, I said. ‘ You know what I’ve already done’. And that’s when they threw me out of 20th Century Fox.”
Throughout his career, Dreyfuss has had many turbulent relationships with co- stars including ‘Jaws’ star Robert Shaw and Bill Murray whom he starred with in ‘What About Bob?’.
Despite this, the screen star believes he is an “amiable” guy and knew he would make it in the movie business.
He said: “I was rather an amiable guy. And I knew as a 100 per cent certainty that I would make it as a movie star.” — BANG Showbiz