Richard Benjamin

Richard Benjamin is an American actor and director born on May 22, 1938, in New York City, the son of Samuel Roger Benjamin, a garment industry worker. His uncle was vaudeville comedian Joe Browning. Benjamin grew up in a Jewish family and attended the High School of Performing Arts before enrolling at Northwestern University, where he studied in the theater program and met his future wife, Paula Prentiss.

Benjamin's stage career began to take shape in the early 1960s, and he appeared on Broadway between 1963 and 1975. A touring production of Barefoot in the Park in 1964 provided an early professional foothold, and he subsequently toured in The Odd Couple with Dan Dailey. In 1966, he directed Barefoot in the Park on the London stage, work that impressed playwright Neil Simon enough to cast Benjamin in his new play, The Star-Spangled Girl, directed by George Axelrod. The production ran for 261 performances and featured Anthony Perkins and Connie Stevens. Benjamin received a Theatre World Award in 1967. He returned to Broadway in 1972 with The Little Black Book, which ran for nine performances. Later Broadway credits included The Norman Conquests: Table Manners and The Norman Conquests: Round and Round the Garden, the latter production running for 76 performances, in which he starred alongside Prentiss.

The success of The Star-Spangled Girl led directly to Benjamin's casting opposite Prentiss in the CBS sitcom He & She, which aired from 1967 to 1968 and ran for 26 episodes. His performance earned him an Emmy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Comedy Series. His film career launched in earnest with Goodbye, Columbus (1969), an adaptation of Philip Roth's novella co-starring Ali MacGraw that proved both a critical and commercial success. He followed that with a supporting role in Catch-22 (1970) and top billing in Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970), alongside Carrie Snodgress and Frank Langella. He also appeared in The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker (1971), Portnoy's Complaint (1972), The Last of Sheila (1973), and Westworld (1973), the latter directed by Michael Crichton and co-starring Yul Brynner.

In 1975, Benjamin appeared in the film adaptation of Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys, supporting Walter Matthau and George Burns as Ben Clark, the long-suffering nephew, confidante, and talent agent of Matthau's character Willy Clark. The performance earned Benjamin a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture. He and Prentiss subsequently traveled to Australia to film No Room to Run (1978), and Benjamin supported Matthau and Glenda Jackson in House Calls (1978). He and Prentiss also starred together in Saturday the 14th (1981).

Benjamin had long pursued directing alongside his acting work, having helmed theater productions and television episodes before transitioning to feature films. His first theatrical feature as director was the 1982 comedy My Favorite Year, starring Peter O'Toole, whose performance earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Subsequent directorial credits included Racing with the Moon (1984), City Heat (1984), The Money Pit (1986), Little Nikita (1988), My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988), Mermaids (1990), Made in America (1993), Milk Money (1994), Mrs. Winterbourne (1996), and Marci X (2003). Throughout the 1990s, Benjamin also returned to acting with television appearances on programs including Mad About You and Titus, as well as film roles including Deconstructing Harry (1997).