Paul Benedict, 70 ("The Jeffersons", "Waiting for Guffman")
ozmaniac
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2008/12/04/paul_benedict_70_actor_at_home_in_tv_sitcoms_modern_and_classical_dramas/
http://broadwayworld.com/article/Paul_Benedict_Star_of_Stage_and_Screen_Dead_at_70_20081204
Thank goodness an audience member told him to get his endocrine system
checked, or we might have missed years of his wonderful performances.
"I'm just as God made me, sir!" (when called a "twisted old fruit" in
This is Spinal Tap.)
Kathi
wrote:
Geeez... my spouse flipped on a repeat of "The Jeffersons" yesterday
and asked, "Isn't the black lady married to the white guy on this show
dead?" I replied that she was indeed, as well as her "white guy"
husband and Weezy, but that Mr. Bentley was still alive. Whoops.
Kathi
.
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Hyfler/Rosner
"ozmaniac" <ozma...@att.net> wrote in message
news:c97cfd7c-8eed-4f22...@i24g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
>
> http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2008/12/04/paul_benedict_70_actor_at_home_in_tv_sitcoms_modern_and_classical_dramas/
>
> http://broadwayworld.com/article/Paul_Benedict_Star_of_Stage_and_Screen_Dead_at_70_20081204
>
> Thank goodness an audience member told him to get his
> endocrine system
> checked, or we might have missed years of his wonderful
> performances.
>
In case the link disappears...it's a wonderful obit
Paul Benedict, 70; actor at home in TV sitcoms, modern and
classical dramas
By Ed Siegel, Globe Correspondent | December 4, 2008
In an acting troupe that included Robert De Niro, Dustin
Hoffman, and Al Pacino, the person who stood out more than
any other in the Theatre Company of Boston during the 1960s
was Paul Benedict. The long-jawed actor who found a touch of
menace in the most comic parts and a touch of the absurd in
the most serious roles, was found dead Monday at 70 of
unknown causes on Martha's Vineyard.
Mr. Benedict, who also acted locally with the American
Repertory Theatre, would have his own share of success on
television and in the movies, playing the English neighbor
Harry Bentley on the CBS series "The Jeffersons" from 1975
to 1985. He also appeared in the Christopher Guest comedies
"This Is Spinal Tap," "Waiting for Guffman," and "A Mighty
Wind."
His long face was, in part, a result of acromegaly, a
pituitary disorder that was first diagnosed by an audience
member, an endocrinologist, at one of his Theatre Company
performances.
Theatre Company founder David Wheeler, who directed Mr.
Benedict there and at ART and remained a close friend,
recalled the joy he spread. "From the point he came into the
theater, it was one continuous round of laughter," Wheeler
said yesterday. "My wife, Bronia, would always ask him to
tell her a joke before he got off the phone, and then break
up in laughter."
As an actor, Mr. Benedict "could do so much with his voice
and body," Wheeler added. "He could do any kind of comedy
from the knockabout and outrageous to more subtle and verbal
roles. . . . He found the characters."
Mr. Benedict grew up in Boston and attended Suffolk
University. After that, he told The New York Times in a 1990
interview, he "walked into the center of Boston, to a local
theater, the Charles Playhouse. They said they needed a
janitor and they'd pay 15 bucks a week. I said I'd take it.
. . . Within a year I was building sets and running the box
office."
He became a regular at the Theatre Company of Boston from
1963 to 1968 before moving to New York. He loved Martha's
Vineyard, though, where he had a summer home. (He was
renting the place where his body was found.) ART founder
Robert Brustein recalled yesterday that unlike his
neighbors, Mr. Benedict did not try to get rid of the many
raccoons in the neighborhood.
"He had this wonderful devotion to the Vineyard, where he
collected raccoons and fed them," Brustein said.
Mr. Benedict and Brustein often appeared in readings
together at the Vineyard Playhouse. While he acknowledged
Mr. Benedict's "long run" on television, Brustein said that
didn't capture his gifts as an actor, which were best shown
in classical and modern plays.
"He excelled in mystery, the mystery of the character,"
Brustein said. "He was very good about withholding the
obvious, who this man [character] was. He was a very good
Pinter actor and a very good Beckett actor for that reason.
The unspoken, the pauses between the words, are more
important than the words themselves. He had that face, those
deep-set eyes and enigmatic smile. I would have cast him in
anything."
His last ART performance was in May 2007, in Pinter's "No
Man's Land." He played Hirst, a character facing his
mortality. "It didn't matter that it was a part made famous
by Ralph Richardson," said Wheeler, who directed the show.
"He was undaunted."
He was also good. "Benedict infuses Hirst with complexity
and pleasingly baffling ambiguity," Globe critic Louise
Kennedy wrote. "If we never know quite who this man is, we
still can't stop thinking about him."
In the Times interview, Mr. Benedict expressed no bitterness
over being typecast as an oddball. What he said of playing
the pompous Professor Fleeber in the film, "The Freshman,"
could describe his approach to all his roles: "I try to make
each of the characters different. I think the trick is to
cement in the reality, to make it logical and real to
yourself. Once there's a reality, I think you can make it as
crazy as you want it to be."
Mr. Benedict leaves a brother, Charles of Newton.
AndrewJ
painter with the bowler hat who said "I'm going to paint a 1" (or any
single-digit number)...
R H Draney
>
>Mr. Benedict grew up in Boston and attended Suffolk
>University. After that, he told The New York Times in a 1990
>interview, he "walked into the center of Boston, to a local
>theater, the Charles Playhouse. They said they needed a
>janitor and they'd pay 15 bucks a week. I said I'd take it.
But he was born in the town where I spent the seventies....r
--
"You got Schadenfreude on my Weltanschauung!"
"You got Weltanschauung in my Schadenfreude!"
Michael O'Connor
I remember when he was walking around painting number fours all over
things and pained a piece of bread.
islan...@aol.com
.
>
> But he was born in the town where I spent the seventies....r
I am sure there is a plaque.
La N
"Hyfler/Rosner" <rel...@rcn.com> wrote in message
news:gh9p8h$13f$1...@reader1.panix.com...
Awwww ... geeze ... I had forgotten about him. I really enjoyed seeing
*and* listening to him in his various performances years ago.
- nilita
Laurie Mann
I particularly loved his performance as the Richard III director in
The Goodbye Girl. One of the best send-ups of a little theater
director ever.
Bill Schenley
idea who Paul Benedict was. Until I read ...
> The long-jawed actor who found a touch of menace in the most comic parts
> and a touch of the absurd in the most serious roles, was found dead ...
... that description. And then I knew exactly who
he was.
Chef Juke
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrgpSP0aPfM
-Chef Juke
"EVERYbody Eats when they come to MY house!"
http://www.chefjuke.com
leno...@yahoo.com
1970s, "Taking Off." (No, he didn't play one.)
Lenona.
AndrewJ
Yes -- he and Audra Lindley played the sympathetic parents of a teen
runaway. Great film with a very funny cameo by (the late) Vincent
Schiavelli instructing a group of parents of teens on how to smoke a
joint.
KingDaevid
From the Crypt" piece in which Jon Lovitz tries to get cast in a stage
production of HAMLET...
kdm
http://kingdaevid.blog.de/
http://kingdaevid.podbean.com/
http://amp.az/home/User/KingDaevid
peace 'n oranges...
John M.
>On Thu, 4 Dec 2008 16:37:08 -0800 (PST), "Michael O'Connor"
><mpoco...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>>On Dec 4, 6:46 pm, AndrewJ <ajmil...@cavtel.net> wrote:
>>> He was also the guy in the "Sesame Street" recurring clips as the
>>> painter with the bowler hat who said "I'm going to paint a 1" (or any
>>> single-digit number)...
>>
>>I remember when he was walking around painting number fours all over
>>things and pained a piece of bread.
>
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrgpSP0aPfM
Looks like Michael O'Connor's been one upped.
--
John M.