Richard Benjamin

Richard Samuel Benjamin (born May 22, 1938) is an American actor and director. He has starred in a number of well-known films, including Goodbye, Columbus, Catch-22 (1970), Portnoy's Complaint (1972), Westworld, The Last of Sheila (both 1973) and Saturday the 14th (1981). In 1968, Benjamin was nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Comedy Series for his performance on the CBS sitcom He & She (starring opposite his wife Paula Prentiss), which aired from 1967–1968. In 1976, Benjamin received a Golden Globe for his performance as aged vaudevillian Willy Clark's (Walter Matthau) comedically long-suffering nephew, confidante and talent agent, Ben Clark, in Herbert Ross' The Sunshine Boys (1975), based on Neil Simon's 1972 hit stage play of the same name.

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 Academy Award 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, 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. 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. 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 and 2000s, Benjamin returned to acting. In 1998, Benjamin and Prentiss performed Power Plays on stage. Benjamin also made appearances on TV 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). Benjamin returned to directing features with The Shrink Is In (2001) and Marci X (2003), a satirical comedy starring Lisa Kudrow and Damon Wayans which attempted to explore the intersection of white liberal identity and hip-hop culture. The film was a critical and commercial failure, receiving an 8% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and grossing only $1.7 million against a reported $20 million budget. Critics widely panned its tone and racial politics, with The Boston Globe calling it "clueless and sad," and The A.V. Club describing it as "the year's most misguided culture-clash comedy." While a few, including critic Armond White, defended its satirical intentions, the film remains a notable outlier in Benjamin's directorial career and is largely absent from retrospectives of his work.

TV directing 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.

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 and Paula Prentiss met 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, a son and a daughter, both graduates of Beverly Hills High School.

Filmography Actor Film Year Title Role Notes 1969 Goodbye, Columbus Neil Klugman 1970 Catch-22 Maj. Danby Diary of a Mad Housewife Jonathan Balser 1971 The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker William Alren The Steagle Harold Weiss, B.A., M.A., Ph.D. 1972 Portnoy's Complaint Alexander Portnoy 1973 The Last of Sheila Tom Parkman 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 Scavenger Hunt Stuart Selsome 1980 The Last Married Couple in America Marv Cooper How to Beat the High Co$t of Living Albert Witches' Brew Joshua Lightman 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 Ex-Husbands Simon Pearce

Television Year Title Role Notes 1962 The New BreedInternEpisode: "All the Dead Faces" 1962–1963 Dr. KildareDr. Adam Barstow / Intern2 episodes 1966 Vacation PlayhouseTed PennyEpisode: "My Lucky Penny" 1967–1968 He & She Dick Hollister26 episodes 1977 No Room to Run Nick Loomis TV movie 1977–1978 Quark Adam Quark8 episodes 1979–1980 Saturday Night Live Himself (host) 2 episodes 1981 InsightBradEpisode: "Goodbye" 1983 Packin' It In Gary Webber TV movie 1992 The Ray Bradbury Theater Mr. HowardEpisode: "Let's Play Poison" 1994 Love & WarCharles BerkusEpisode: "The Great Escape" 1997 InkDr. VishniacEpisode: "The English-Speaking Patients" 1998 The Pentagon Wars Caspar Weinberger TV movie 1999 Mad About YouMr. Frank DiChristophoroEpisode: "Valentine's Day" 2000 TitusBillEpisode: "The Reconciliation" 2004 The Goodbye GirlOliver FryTV movie 2009 Pushing DaisiesJerry HolmesEpisode: "Window Dressed to Kill" 2014 Ray Donovan Jerry WeissEpisode: "Sunny" 2015 Childrens Hospital Dan RichardsEpisode: "With Great Power..."

Director Film My Favorite Year (1982) Racing with the Moon (1984) City Heat (1984) The Money Pit (1986) Little Nikita (1988) My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988) Downtown (1990) Mermaids (1990) Made in America (1993) Milk Money (1994) Mrs. Winterbourne (1996) The Shrink Is In (2001) Marci X (2003)

TV movies Tourist Trap (1998) The Pentagon Wars (1998) Laughter on the 23rd Floor (2001) The Sports Pages (2001) The Goodbye Girl (2004) A Little Thing Called Murder (2006)

TV series The Wonderful World of Disney (1998) (Episode "Tourist Trap")