Richard Benjamin

For those of a similar name, see Rick Benjamin (disambiguation) and Benjamin Richards (disambiguation).

Richard Benjamin
Benjamin in 1972
Born	Richard Samuel Benjamin (1938-05-22) May 22, 1938 New York City, U.S.
Alma mater	Northwestern University
Occupations	Actor director producer
Years active	1962–present
Spouse	Paula Prentiss ​ (m. 1961)​
Children	2

Richard Samuel Benjamin (born May 22, 1938) is an American actor and film director. He has starred in a number of well-known films, including Goodbye, Columbus (1969), Catch-22 (1970), Portnoy's Complaint (1972), Westworld, The Last of Sheila (both 1973) and Saturday the 14th (1981). Benjamin was nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Comedy Series for his performances in He & She (1968), opposite his wife Paula Prentiss.

After directing for television, his first film as a director was the 1982 comedy My Favorite Year, starring Peter O'Toole, who was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor. His other films as a director include City Heat (1984), The Money Pit (1986), My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988), Mermaids (1990), Made in America (1993), Milk Money (1994), Mrs. Winterbourne (1996), and Marci X (2003).

Early life

Benjamin was born in New York City, the son of Samuel Roger Benjamin (1910–1997), a garment industry worker. Benjamin's uncle was vaudeville comedian Joe Browning. His family was Jewish. He attended the High School of Performing Arts and graduated from Northwestern University, where he was involved in many plays and studied in the Northwestern theater school. While there, he met future wife Paula Prentiss.

Career

Theatre

Benjamin appeared on stage in The Taming of the Shrew and guest-starred on shows such as The New Breed and Dr. Kildare. Benjamin's early break came when cast in the touring company of Barefoot in the Park in 1964. He later toured in The Odd Couple with Dan Dailey. In 1966, he directed Barefoot in the Park on stage in London. Simon was pleased with Benjamin's work and cast him in his new play The Star-Spangled Girl (1966–67) directed by George Axelrod. Benjamin appeared alongside Anthony Perkins and Connie Stevens, and the show ran for 261 performances. The success of the show led to Benjamin appearing in a television series with his wife Paula, He & She (1967–68). It ran for 26 episodes.

Stardom

Ali MacGraw and Richard Benjamin in Goodbye, Columbus in 1969

Benjamin's first lead role in a film came with an adaptation of the Philip Roth novella, Goodbye, Columbus (1969) with Ali MacGraw. It was a critical and commercial hit. He followed it with a key support role in the film of Catch-22 (1970). He was top billed in Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970) from the team of Eleanor and Frank Perry, appearing alongside Carrie Snodgress and Frank Langella. He directed his wife off-Broadway in Arf/The Great Airplane Snatch (1969), which ran for five performances.

Benjamin played the lead in The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker (1971), directed by the producer and the original author of The Graduate, though it was not as successful. He acted in a comedy, The Steagle (1971), the directorial debut of designer Paul Sylbert, which was little seen. Another box-office flop was the film of Roth's Portnoy's Complaint (1972), the sole directorial effort of Ernest Lehman.

In 1972 Benjamin returned to Broadway with The Little Black Book, which only ran for nine performances. He then acted in two more successful films, as part of an all-star cast in The Last of Sheila (1973), from a script by Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim, and in Westworld (1973), directed by Michael Crichton and co-starring Yul Brynner. The Los Angeles Times stated that by this stage, his image was of "a whining, petulant bore by doing too good a job of acting in a series of sleazy roles." He decided to steer away from such roles by turning down a part in The Towering Inferno (which Richard Chamberlain ended up playing).

Supporting actor

Benjamin supported Walter Matthau and George Burns in the film adaptation of Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys (1975), for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture. He starred with Prentiss in The Norman Conquests (1975–76) on Broadway, which went for 76 performances. The couple went to Australia to make No Room to Run (1978). In Hollywood, Benjamin supported Matthau and Glenda Jackson in House Calls (1978).

In 1978, he starred in the ambitious but short-lived television series Quark. The same year he appeared in a TV film Fame, written by Arthur Miller. Benjamin played a frustrated fiancé of a woman who falls for the vampire Count Dracula in the surprise box-office smash Love at First Bite (1979) starring George Hamilton and Susan Saint James.

Benjamin has hosted Saturday Night Live twice, once by himself on April 7, 1979 and the other nearly a year later on April 5, 1980 with his wife Paula Prentiss. He was top billed in Scavenger Hunt (1979), an ensemble film.

Benjamin had directed in theatre and was keen to do it in film. In 1979, Benjamin directed for the first time, creating a pilot for a sitcom spin-off of the film Where's Poppa? by Carl Reiner. "The pilot turned out really well," said Benjamin. "But I don't think ABC ever quite 'got' it. They never did put the show on the air... At least I could prove that I wasn't nuts, that I really had actually directed something." He directed one episode of the 1980 TV series Semi-Tough.

Benjamin had supporting roles in The Last Married Couple in America (1980), How to Beat the High Co$t of Living (1980), Witches' Brew (1980), and First Family (1980). He and Prentiss played the leads in Saturday the 14th (1981). They also began hosting corporate videos.

Feature film director

Benjamin's work on the Where's Poppa? pilot saw him offered the job as director on My Favorite Year (1982) starring Peter O'Toole. The film was warmly received, earning O'Toole an Oscar nomination for Best Actor and launched Benjamin as a director.

Benjamin and Prentiss returned to acting with the TV movie Packin' It In (1983). He said, "If I get a wonderful script to act in and a mediocre script to direct, I'll act. And the same principle applies the other way around. It's the material that counts." He focused on directing, though, for the next decade. Benjamin's second feature as director was Racing with the Moon (1984) from a script by Steve Kloves starring Sean Penn and Nicolas Cage. He was then called in at short notice to replace Blake Edwards on City Heat (1984) with Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds, which was a critical and commercial disappointment.

Benjamin directed a comedy for Steven Spielberg's company, The Money Pit (1986) with Tom Hanks and Shelley Long. He then directed a thriller Little Nikita (1988) with Sidney Poitier and River Phoenix, and a comedy with Dan Aykroyd, My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988). Benjamin did another comedy, Downtown (1990), with Anthony Edwards and Forest Whitaker. He had a moderate hit with Mermaids (1990) starring Cher and Winona Ryder.

Made in America (1993) with Whoopi Goldberg and Ted Danson was also successful. Milk Money (1994) with Melanie Griffith and Ed Harris was less so. He also directed Mrs. Winterbourne (1996).

In the 1990s, Benjamin returned to acting with appearances on shows including The Ray Bradbury Theater, Love & War, Ink, Mad About You, and Titus, as well as the films Deconstructing Harry (1997), Keeping Up with the Steins (2006), and Henry Poole Is Here (2008).

TV directing

In 1998, Benjamin and Prentiss performed Power Plays on stage. Benjamin did some directing for TV – The Pentagon Wars (1998), Tourist Trap (1999), The Sports Pages (2001), and Laughter on the 23rd Floor (2001) from the play by Neil Simon. Benjamin returned to features with The Shrink Is In (2001) and Marci X (2003), in which he also had a small role.

He produced and directed a TV adaptation of Simon's The Goodbye Girl (2004) with Jeff Daniels and Patricia Heaton. In 2006, Benjamin directed the award-winning cable television drama A Little Thing Called Murder, starring Australian Judy Davis. It was based on the true story of Sante and Kenny Kimes, mother and son grifters and killers. His later acting appearances on television include Ray Donovan and Childrens Hospital. He most recently played Dr. Green in the Netflix comedy film You People (2023) opposite Jonah Hill and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

Personal life

Benjamin met Paula Prentiss at Northwestern University. She had transferred from Randolph-Macon Woman's College and was a year ahead of Benjamin at the university. They married on October 26, 1961 and have two children, son Ross (b. 1974) and daughter Prentiss (b. 1978), both graduates of Beverly Hills High School.

Filmography

As actor

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1969	Goodbye, Columbus	Neil Klugman
1970	Catch-22	Maj. Danby
1970	Diary of a Mad Housewife	Jonathan Balser
1971	The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker	William Alren
1971	The Steagle	Harold Weiss, B.A., M.A., Ph.D.
1972	Portnoy's Complaint	Alexander Portnoy
1973	The Last of Sheila	Tom Parkman
1973	Westworld	Peter Martin
1975	The Sunshine Boys	Ben Clark
1978	House Calls	Dr. Norman Solomon
1979	Love at First Bite	Dr. Jeffery Rosenberg / Van Helsing
1979	Scavenger Hunt	Stuart Selsome
1980	The Last Married Couple in America	Marv Cooper
1980	How to Beat the High Co$t of Living	Albert
1980	Witches' Brew	Joshua Lightman
1980	First Family	Press Secretary Bunthorne
1981	Saturday the 14th	John Hyatt
1992	Lift	Rabbi Brill	Short
1997	Deconstructing Harry	Ken
2001	The Shrink Is In	Samantha's Editor	Uncredited
2003	Marci X	Ben Feld
2006	Keeping Up with the Steins	Rabbi Schulberg
2008	Henry Poole Is Here	Dr. Fancher
2012	Pablo	Himself
2023	You People	Dr. Green
2023	Ex-Husbands	Simon Pearce

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1962	The New Breed	Intern	Episode: "All the Dead Faces"
1962–1963	Dr. Kildare	Dr. Adam Barstow / Intern	2 episodes
1966	Vacation Playhouse	Ted Penny	Episode: "My Lucky Penny"
1967–1968	He & She	Dick Hollister	26 episodes
1977	No Room to Run	Nick Loomis	TV movie
1977–1978	Quark	Adam Quark	8 episodes
1979–1980	Saturday Night Live	Himself (host)	2 episodes
1981	Insight	Brad	Episode: "Goodbye"
1983	Packin' It In	Gary Webber	TV movie
1992	The Ray Bradbury Theater	Mr. Howard	Episode: "Let's Play Poison"
1994	Love & War	Charles Berkus	Episode: "The Great Escape"
1997	Ink	Dr. Vishniac	Episode: "The English-Speaking Patients"
1998	The Pentagon Wars	Caspar Weinberger	TV movie
1999	Mad About You	Mr. Frank DiChristophoro	Episode: "Valentine's Day"
2000	Titus	Bill	Episode: "The Reconciliation"
2004	The Goodbye Girl	Oliver Fry	TV movie
2009	Pushing Daisies	Jerry Holmes	Episode: "Window Dressed to Kill"
2014	Ray Donovan	Jerry Weiss	Episode: "Sunny"
2015	Childrens Hospital	Dan Richards	Episode: "With Great Power..."

As director

Year	Title	Notes
1982	My Favorite Year
1984	Racing with the Moon
1984	City Heat
1986	The Money Pit
1988	Little Nikita
1988	My Stepmother Is an Alien
1990	Downtown
1990	Mermaids
1993	Made in America
1994	Milk Money
1996	Mrs. Winterbourne
1998	The Pentagon Wars	TV movie
1998	The Wonderful World of Disney (1991–present)	Episode: "Tourist Trap"
2001	Laughter on the 23rd Floor	TV movie
2001	The Shrink Is In
2001	The Sports Pages	TV movie
2003	Marci X
2004	The Goodbye Girl	TV movie
2006	A Little Thing Called Murder	TV movie

Further reading

• Dye, David. Child and Youth Actors: Filmography of Their Entire Careers, 1914–1985. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 1988, p. 17.

External links

• Richard Benjamin at IMDb
• Richard Benjamin at the Internet Broadway Database
• Richard Benjamin at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Richard Benjamin at AllMovie
• Richard Benjamin at the TCM Movie Database