Benjamin S. Mears

Benjamin Stannard Mears, also known as Ben Mears, Ben S. Mears, and Stannard Mears, (August 1871 – 27 January 1952) was an American stage actor, vaudeville performer, and playwright. He is best known for the 1918 play Seventeen; an adaptation of Booth Tarkington's 1916 novel of the same name which he co-wrote with Hugh Stanislaus Stange.

Life and career Born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, Benjamin Stannard Mears was the son of Thomas Yeoman Mears and Sarah "Sadie" Isabelle Stannard. He began his career as an actor in 1890. He first achieved wide recognition as an actor when he joined the 1902 national tour of William W. Young's Ben-Hur in the role of Sanballat; a work produced by Klaw & Erlanger. The play began its tour in Syracuse, and Mears was still playing the central character of Tom Wilson when the tour reached Broadway's American Theatre in October 1906.

Mears returned to Broadway in 1913 in Carina Jordan's play Rachel at the Knickerbocker Theatre. You Know Me Al!, musical (1918), book by Mears and Hugh Stanislaus Stange, premiere Broadway's Lexington Theatre, April 11, 1918