Richard Dreyfuss is a well known actor, an Academy Award winner of amazing talent.

There is a point to me telling you that if you'll bare with me for a moment.

When I was in college, I was pre-med.  I had been working and performing in Theatre since I was twelve, acting and production was a love and a hobby, but for a real career... yes, I was pursuing a medical degree.  However, it was difficult to go into medicine with a "C" in chemistry.  I was pondering my options when someone asked me if I had seen the movie "The Goodbye Girl."  I hadn't and this person encouraged me to see it, saying "He's playing you!"

So I went and saw it.  Great film.  Whether or not Richard Dreyfuss, as Elliot Garfield, was playing "me" or not, I have no idea.  But I loved the performance.

A performance that netted Dreyfuss an Academy Award for Best Actor.  And well deserved.

So, as I was walking to the student union the next day, I was thinking about that and said to myself "Well, only special people win those, I'd never have a chance".  At that moment, I stopped and realized that if Richard Dreyfuss had ever thought like that, he would never have gotten close to that award. 

It was a turning point in my life.  As a result, I changed my major from Medicine to Theatre, to something I loved, and I've managed to make a successful career of it for the last twenty something years.

If you've heard that story before it's because I've told it many times.  At conventions, in classes, to friends.  But, finally, I had a chance to tell it to the person who most deserved to hear it.

Yes, that's Richard Dreyfuss.

He was signing at one of the booths and I finally had a chance to tell him that story; how his performance inspired me and changed the course of my life.  And when I told him I had thought that I'd never have a chance, he smiled at me and said "And it never occurred to me that I wouldn't."

And that's exactly the point.  For me and for everyone.