Actor Paul Benedict Dead At 70

With an elongated underslung jaw, angular features and a large nose, Paul Benedict was a very distinctive actor. His looks were caused by genetics and a form of acromegalia, a pituitary disorder. Supposedly, Benedict had an arrested case of the disease. After his performance in a theatre production, an audience member came up to him backstage and introduced himself as a doctor who was an endrocrinologist. He diagnosed the actor's condition and was able to treat him before the disease reached its later stages. However, Paul Benedict's beauty was in his art.

Generally speaking with an English accent, his art stretched comfortably between theatre, films and television. Benedict usually played edgy, often a bit looney, off-beat characters. His career began in 1961 in theatre in Boston and evolved into films and television including the seminal 60's and early 70's coming of age film, "Taking Off" (1970), "The Goodbye Girl" (1977), "The Man with Two Brains" (1983), "The Freshman" (1990) and "The Addams Family" (1991). He appeared in three Christopher Guest comedies including cult hit "This is Spinal Tap" (1984). He was memorable in his role on PBS' Sesame Street as the Mad Painter who painted numbers everywhere that he could.

He was known to the most people as Harry Bentley, Sherman Helmsley's eccentric English neighbor on the longtime hit "The Jeffersons" (1975 to 1985). Benedict left the show in 1981 to pursue other acting projects, but returned in 1983. The actor agreed to do the show for Norman Lear because he felt that the show would only last for one season. Benedict also appeared in a continuing role on the soap opera "The Guiding Light." He performed on a great number of television sitcoms, miniseries and movies of the week and had work on many commercials and voice-overs.

He was born in Silver City, New Mexico, the youngest of six children to a doctor father and journalist mother. After growing up in Boston, Benedict attended Suffolk University and began his acting career with The Theatre Company of Boston often directed by David Wheeler. Notably, he performed there with future super stars Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino. In 1996, he performed on Broadway opposite Pacino in Eugene O'Neill's two person play "Hughie." Early on in his career, he worked as a janitor at the Charles Playhouse in Boston.

Over the years, Paul Benedict got very involved in directing. He became known for working with a playwright during a play's development stages and helping to craft it with intelligence, human emotion and warmth. He was literally a play's thematic and empathetic personal trainer. In 1987, his direction of "Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune" was a professional off-Broadway breakthrough for him. In 1989, his direction of "The Kathy & Mo Show: Parallel Lives" resulted in Obie Awards.

Mr. Benedict often appeared at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge. His last role there was in 2007 in the highly praised performance as Hirst in Harold Pinter's "No Man's Land." Hirst is a character facing his own mortality. Benedict played the part with complexity, mysteriousness and ambiguity mirroring in depth the qualities of Pinter's writing. Review of No Man's Land

Paul Benedict died in his beloved home on Martha's Vineyard in early December 2008. He often portrayed oddball, unconventional characters that always personified a strong often originally invoked humanity. He was our great and talented oddball who brought joy and artistic strength to whatever he tried. Paul Benedict will be fondly remembered and greatly missed.