Paul Benedict

Paul Benedict
Occupation(s)	Film, television actor
Years active	1960s - Present

Paul Benedict (born September 17, 1938) is an American character actor who has made several appearances in television and movies from the 1960s on. He is probably best recognized for his roles as The Number Painter on the PBS children's show Sesame Street, and as the quirky English neighbor "Harry Bentley" on the CBS sitcom The Jeffersons.

Biography

Benedict was born in Silver City, New Mexico, the son of Alma Marie (née Loring), a journalist, and Mitchell M. Benedict, a doctor. As a young man, he suffered from acromegaly, a pituitary disorder that affects the extremities and face, which accounts for his slightly oversized jaw and nose.

As one can hear in his other film and TV roles, he has a slight English accent even when not in character as Bentley. Benedict played the director of the Richard III production in the movie The Goodbye Girl starring Richard Dreyfuss, in which play Richard was to be portrayed as a stereotypical gay man. He was in a short scene in the mockumentary film This is Spinal Tap, playing the awkward desk clerk who checks in the band. He also made a memorable appearance as the incorrectly assumed title character in the 1996 film Waiting for Guffman, another mockumentary involving many of the same writers and actors.

Benedict also played the role of a slave trader in Dino De Laurentiis' Mandingo opposite James Mason and Perry King. Perhaps his best known movie role was of the reverend Lundquist in the Sidney Pollack film Jeremiah Johnson. He also appeared as Professor Fleeber in the 1990 film The Freshman with Matthew Broderick and Marlon Brando.[1]

Theater

In addition to his varied film and television roles, Benedict is an accomplished theater actor as well, having appeared on Broadway multiple times, notably in Eugene O'Neill's 2-character play Hughie in 1996 (performing with Al Pacino) at Circle in the Square, and more recently in The Music Man in 2000 - 2001.

In 2007, Benedict performed as "Hirst" in Harold Pinter's No Man's Land at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, MA. [2]

As a director, Benedict directed Frank Conroy's Any Given Day on Broadway. Off-Broadway, he directed the original production of Terrence McNally's Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune, and Kathy Najimy and Mo Gaffney's The Cathy and Mo Show, which won an Obie award.[3]

External links

• Paul Benedict at IMDb
• Paul Benedict at the Internet Broadway Database
• Paul Benedict at AllMovie
• Paul Benedict article at Somerville, MA "Wicked Local" Off-Broadway weblink

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