Paul Benedict

Paul Benedict (September 17, 1938 – December 1, 2008) was an American actor born in Silver City, New Mexico, to Alma Marie Benedict, a journalist, and Mitchell M. Benedict, a doctor. He grew up in Massachusetts, attended Boston College High School, and earned a degree from Suffolk University. Following his graduation, Benedict served a tour of duty in the U.S. Marine Corps before beginning his acting career. A medical condition, acromegaly, contributed to his distinctive physical appearance; he was first diagnosed by an endocrinologist who observed him during a theatrical performance.

Benedict launched his professional acting career in 1965 and built an extensive body of work across theater, film, and television. He began his stage career at the Theatre Company of Boston, where he performed alongside Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, and Al Pacino. His Broadway career spanned from 1974 to 2000 and included appearances in The Play's the Thing, Hughie, Dunelawn, and The Music Master. His 1996 appearance in Eugene O'Neill's two-character play Hughie at the Circle in the Square Theater reunited him with Al Pacino. He also appeared on Broadway in The Music Man during the 2000–2001 season, and directed Frank D. Gilroy's Any Given Day on Broadway. Off-Broadway, Benedict appeared in Terrence McNally's It's Only a Play in 1986, having previously directed the same work Off-off-Broadway. He also directed the original Off-Broadway production of McNally's Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune, as well as Kathy Najimy's and Mo Gaffney's The Kathy and Mo Show, which received an Obie Award. In 2007, he performed the role of Hirst in Harold Pinter's No Man's Land at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

On television, Benedict became widely recognized for two recurring roles. From 1975 to 1985, he portrayed Harry Bentley on the CBS sitcom The Jeffersons, a well-mannered English bachelor and United Nations translator who lived next door to George and Louise Jefferson. Though George Jefferson found Bentley irritating, the two gradually developed a friendship over the course of the series. A recurring element of the character involved Bentley recounting tedious anecdotes about his childhood and relatives in England. Benedict also played The Number Painter on the PBS children's program Sesame Street. His television work extended to a 1998 appearance on Seinfeld as a New Yorker magazine editor, a guest role on A Different World, and a final television appearance on The Drew Carey Show in 2002.

His film career began with Norman Lear's Cold Turkey, completed in late 1969 and released in February 1971, in which he played a Zen Buddhist. That same year he appeared in Miloš Forman's first American film, Taking Off, as the father of a fugitive teenage runaway, and had a small role as a food vendor in They Might Be Giants. In 1972, he played Reverend Lindquist in Sydney Pollack's Jeremiah Johnson, starring Robert Redford. Benedict appeared as Plunkett in The Front Page in 1974, and the following year played a slave trader opposite James Mason and Perry King in Dino De Laurentiis's Mandingo. In The Goodbye Girl (1977), he portrayed a stage director mounting a production of Richard III. He played the eccentric butler in The Man With Two Brains (1983) and appeared briefly in the mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap (1984) as hotel desk clerk Tucker Smitty Brown. He portrayed Dudley Moore's butler Fairchild in Arthur 2: On the Rocks (1988) and a condescending business college professor in Cocktail that same year. In The Freshman (1990), he played an NYU film school professor, and in The Addams Family (1991) he appeared as Judge George Womack. He made an appearance in the 1996 mockumentary Waiting for Guffman, which shared several writers and cast members with This Is Spinal Tap.

Benedict died on December 1, 2008, of a brain hemorrhage at his home in Aquinnah, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, at the age of 70. The Boston Theater Critics Association posthumously honored him with an Elliot Norton Award in 2009.