Richard Stephen Dreyfuss (born October 29, 1947) is an Academy Award-winning American actor. Dreyfuss was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Norman, an attorney and restaurateur, and Geraldine, a peace activist. Dreyfuss is Jewish and his surname is of Yiddish origin, a variant spelling meaning tripod. His surname is pronounced "DRAY-fuss". For years, though, the public mispronounced it as "DRY-fuss" until he corrected them. He has said that according to family tradition, he is either a direct descendant or at least a relative of Alfred Dreyfus. This is disputed by others. Dreyfuss spent his early childhood in Brooklyn and in Bayside, Queens, until he moved to Los Angeles with his family at the age of nine. In 1965, he graduated from Beverly Hills High School in Beverly Hills, California.From 1983 until 1995, Dreyfuss was married to Jeramie Rain, with whom he had three children. In 1999, he married Janelle Lacey. After divorcing Lacey, he married Russian-born Svetlana Erokhin on March 16, 2006, in Harrisonburg, Virginia, while there to speak at James Madison University. Dreyfuss and Erokhin now live in San Diego.
He suffers from bipolar disorder. In 2006, he appeared in Stephen Fry's documentary, Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, in which Fry (who also has the disorder) interviewed him about his life with manic-depression.
