Richard Dreyfuss plays Fagin in Disney's `Oliver Twist'

By Ellen Gray

Knight-Ridder Newspapers

Richard Dreyfuss never thought of leading without the nose.

The nose, which is the first thing anyone will notice about Dreyfuss' portrayal of Fagin in ABC's ``Wonderful World of Disney'' presentation of ``Oliver Twist'' on Sunday, is a marvel in gelatin, created by Matthew Mungle, who won an Oscar for his work on ``Bram Stoker's Dracula.''

It's also the nose of Dreyfuss' father, Norman.

``When they asked me to do it, my first response was, `I'll do it if I can use my father's nose,''' Dreyfuss said in a phone interview.

The tradition that Fagin, the hoary leader of a gang of boy thieves, should have a prominent nose is as rooted in the theater as Richard III's hump or Cyrano's even more in-your-face proboscis, but it's also been used over the years as an example of the anti-Semitism of 19th-century England.

In fact, David Lean's 1948 classic ``Oliver Twist'' wasn't shown in the United States for three years because Alec Guinness' characterization of Fagin was considered ``violently anti-Semitic,'' Dreyfuss said. (It finally won release here after seven minutes was cut from the original.)

But Dreyfuss doesn't buy Fagin as a stereotype of an evil Jew.

``I think Dickens was onto something more interesting. You can never get away from Fagin's decency,'' he said. ``He had almost involuntary spasms of goodness in him.''

It was that, and the chance to play ``a large character'' and one written by Charles Dickens (``that gives him a certain cachet''), that lured the Oscar winner to a television production, not just the chance to make something his three children might watch, Dreyfuss said.

``I don't know how to separate these things,'' he said.

Still, the movie, which was filmed in and near Dublin, did provide an opportunity for Dreyfuss' youngest, Harry, to make his acting debut as one of Fagin's boys.

``He had a ball,'' Dreyfuss said. ``He's now yearning for bigger parts, since he's almost 8. I'm not in any rush. It was a little nerve-racking for me at the beginning because I wanted everything to be right for him. After a while, I didn't think about it.''

And no, the take-after-take tedium of making movies hasn't discouraged Harry from wanting to follow in his father's footsteps.

``I think when you're 7 years old, nothing is tedious about making a movie,'' he said.

Even Dreyfuss himself hasn't tired of it completely, despite a recent published report that he was thinking of chucking show business to become a teacher.

``I've gotten a thousand calls about it. Apparently, I'm being kicked out,'' he said, laughing.

``I have always had the desire at some point in my life to teach history, but there's not anything imminent about it,'' he said.

In the meantime, he'll settle for teaching literature on ``The Wonderful World of Disney.''

``I think I was taught more things better by Walt Disney than anyone else in the world,'' he said. ``Do you remember those cartoons he used to do about science? Those were great,'' he said.

``The worst punishment my mother could possibly come up with was that I couldn't watch Disney. Crikes. I'd crawl, I'd grovel.''

(c) 1997, Philadelphia Daily News.