CBS Finds a Big Man on Campus -- Richard Dreyfuss

Variety - February 6, 2001

By Josef Adalian and Michael Schneider

HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Oscar-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss is set to return to series television next fall as the lead in the greenlit CBS drama pilot "The Education of Max Bickford."

Dreyfuss, 53, will star as a history professor at a women's college where his ex-wife is president and his daughter a student.

While Dreyfuss has played teachers before, most notably in "Mr. Holland's Opus," the CBS project will not feature a similar tone.

"We were not interested in doing 'Mr. Holland's Opus'; it's been done," said Dawn Prestwich, who created the project with Nicole Yorkin. "We and Richard wanted something edgier, more complicated."

Dreyfuss' character will be undergoing a sort of mid-life crisis as the show begins.

"He's a wiseass, sometimes son-of-a-bitch who has just enough self-awareness to be struggling with that fact with the people who matter," Yorkin said.

Dreyfuss has been seriously mulling at least three different projects over the past several months. He's been working with Prestwich and Yorkin to develop "Max Bickford" since last fall, but only committed to star in the project Sunday night.

"Everybody and their brother was developing something for Richard Dreyfuss this year," Prestwich said. "We met with him when he was out here last October just to talk about concepts. He liked an idea of a character we had. He encouraged us to call him about some ideas (and) it began to snowball into a story about a history professor."

An upbeat Yorkin added, "We won the lottery."

Prestwich and Yorkin are currently executive producers of "Judging Amy." Before that, they spent three seasons on "Chicago Hope."

Dreyfuss won the best actor Oscar for his role in 1977's "The Goodbye Girl"; other landmark credits include "Jaws," "American Graffiti" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." As for TV, he had a recurring role on a 1964 NBC comedy and did guest spots in the late '60s and early '70s on shows including "Room 222" and "The Mod Squad."


Copyright © 2001 Variety. All rights reserved.