In his earlier films he was a whirl of aggressive energy and mannerisms but in his later work he has matured into a calmer, more subtle actor. He has also worked a Hollywood miracle - as he has aged he has gotten better looking!
His career has gone back and forth from great highs to almost fatal lows. He started off with a string of hits but quickly fell into the cliché of too much too soon. He ended up with addictions to cocaine, pain killers and alcohol. He almost killed himself in a car accident in 1982, but it ended up saving his life by forcing him to deal with his substance abuse. He came out of his crash and burn period by rebuilding his life and his career in a new and healthier way.
He was born in Brooklyn, NY, October 29, 1947. His spent his early childhood in Brooklyn and Bayside Queens. When he was nine his father, a lawyer, and his mother moved the family to Los Angeles. It was in L.A. that he got his first taste of acting at the Beverly Hills Jewish Center. He debuted in the LA. TV production, In Mama's House, when he was fifteen. After graduating from Beverly Hills High School he spent a year at San Fernando Valley State College, CA. Then he served two years as a conscientious objector in alternate service as a clerk at a LA hospital.
He began his acting career in the late 60's and early 70's doing theater in New York while snatching up whatever bit parts in TV and film he could get back on the west coast. He assumed he would struggle in his twenties then make it big in his early thirties, but success hit early and hard for him with one blockbuster after another: American Graffiti, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Jaws and The Good-bye Girl for which he won an oscar for Best Actor.
