TV & VIDEO - May 27, 1987

A nervous Richard Dreyfuss chose the Constitution as the topic for his first commencement address at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, telling the 331 graduates to cherish and protect the historic document. “The Constitution has become the political agenda of the West,” he said. “When we break faith with its ideals, we know it and the whole world knows it.” Dreyfuss--who has previously related in interviews his discomfort with public speaking--declined an invitation to speak last year, and his wife, Jeremy, said he was still nervous this year. “In films, you’re speaking someone else’s words but these were his own,” she said.