Paul Benedict

His parents were doctors in New England. He just has this WASPy persona that worked well for him.

He WAS Paul Benedict!

He spoke at Zara Cully's funeral and was also a pallbearer along with Sherman and Damon Evans (second Lionel). He was said to have looked after Cully very gently during the series.

Couldn't stand him as an actor. Or his face. Bu kudos if he was a nice guy.

I thought he seemed rather amateurish as an actor.

He was great as Bentley.

[quote] His parents were doctors in New England

According to Wikipedia his mother was a journalist.

The numbers painter! He was great on Sesame Street.

I liked him as the infamous "Guffman" in Waiting for Guffman.

Was he gay? He never married.

His face could stop a clock.

[quote] His oversized jaw and large nose were partially attributed to acromegaly; he was first diagnosed with it by an endocrinologist who saw Benedict in a theatrical production.

He had acromegaly, which was not diagnosed until it was too late. It distorted his features.

R12 beat me to it…

Certified BDF

He looked much better with facial hair. It offset the harsher features rather nicely.

He and his loved ones never noticed his distorted features until an audience member did?

I remember him as the judge neighbor in The Addams Family

This is why I love DL, so many interesting topics and people discussed that one would never come up with on their own.

Well worth $1.99/Mo.

r19 Ha - agreed!

I randomly watched Cocktail (1988) this weekend and he had an amusing part as a city college professor that Tom Cruise's character spars with in class.

I always remember Bentley begging George Jefferson to walk on his back with his magic little feet. lol

btw, I think some people--like myself--assume that he just died because OP created this thread. Wikipedia set me straight.

I’d bet a lot of money that he was gay—and that he probably got some dick in the Marine Corps.

[Quote] His oversized jaw and large nose were partially attributed to acromegaly

And partially attributed to being an ugly MF

I'll always remember him as the kooky director who made Elliot (Richard Dreyfuss) play Richard the III as a lisping queen in "The Goodbye Girl."

He had a hunchback too.

Oh, yes, R25! Let's not forget the hunchback.

Versatile

Paul had a hunchback.

R28 ≠ R25.

R24 I don't remember him as lisping. I just remember his direction being Don't give me Bette Midler. Which is exactly what Dreyfuss does.

R23 - LOLL!! 🤣🤣🤣

His official cause of death was 'a brain hemorrhage' when he was found dead in Martha's Vineyard at his home. That's what was made public by the local police. The 'Vineyard Gazzette' did a short write up, which was picked up by other papers. They claimed there was nothing suspicious about his death - case closed.

However, my friend who has lived on the island for years said he was found beaten to death, which is what likely caused the brain hemorrhage, and they never caught the murderer.

It was 'the worst kept secret' on the island that off-season, he would take the ferry to New Bedford, MA to meet escorts / hustlers and bring them back to his house for the weekend in Gay Head, MA the most eastern tip of the island (where Carly Simon had her 'Greatest Hits Live' concert in 1987). Neighbors would see him drive back from the ferry to his house and spend the weekend with these hot guys, and introduce them as 'an acting student from New Bedford' and he was 'mentoring him for the weekend' type of BS. Everyone on the island knew what was going on, and watched out for him when these young studs showed up.

Last my friend heard many years ago, a few people on the island gave a very good description of the guy he was with the weekend of his death (one couple was sitting across from them on the ferry Friday night heading back to the island). On Monday morning, his car was still parked near the dock at Vineyard Haven with the keys in the ignition (very unusual behavior for him). Witnesses said a young man had gotten out of the driver's seat that Sunday night and boarded the ferry back to NB. The actor was found the next morning in bed, bloodied and beaten to death (which they never made public, per the request of his relatives). To this day, the guy has never been caught. My friend had also heard his family had asked the police to call off the investigation shortly after it began, not to bring any more attention to his private life. They signed off on a death certificate which simply said 'brain hemorrhage'.

Verificatia of size meat?

R32 - OMG!!

That is awful.

Well, when in Gay Head...

Loved that old queen

By the hour, R36?

R32 I understand the loneliness and the reason to hire someone "special." This makes me resonate with him even more.

"She loved it! My mother loved it!"

He started a lending company with Tom Arnold, but they found that no one wanted to borrow money from Benedict-Arnold.

I single handedly got him to admit the cartoons in the New Yorker were bogus.

He gets to stick his face up a slave guy’s naked ass to check out his usefulness in the beginning of “Mandingo”.

Gayhead was reverted back to its original name of Aquinnah.

Simply a great character actor

Attached is the Vineyard Gazette's very kind obituary to the raconteur.

I forgot that he appeared on sesame street!

I really couldn’t stand The Jeffersons.

Benedict was on an episode of “A Different World” around maybe the 4th season where Whitley interviews for a job at a funeral home. Benedict looks as though he had surgery on his jaw by the as it wasn’t as prominent.

Fuck, R32, that was sad to read. Especially since I'm in a hotel room right now waiting for an escort to show. :-/

Being a single but sophisticated man is a sad ordeal. No one wants to date you because you aren't "exciting" enough. You really don't want to date others because they do not have their lives together, so you end up alone.

[quote] Being a single but sophisticated man is a sad ordeal. No one wants to date you because you aren't "exciting" enough. You really don't want to date others because they do not have their lives together, so you end up alone.

Is that what happens even after a date goes super well?

R51 That OP said things ended. What do you think?

Also portrayed Fairchild the butler for Dudley Moore and Liza Minneli’s characters in Arthur 2 On The Rocks - the lesser known late 80s sequel to the original Arthur from 1980/1981.

Mr. Not Guffman

I loved those Number Painter spots on Sesame Street as a kid. And I had no idea that Stockard Channing was also in them!

Classy guy

OP of this thread, OP of the thread at R51, R50 and R52 are all the same poster.

Classy gay!

R49 Not to go off-topic, but stories of 'paid escorts' or 'paid porn stars' beating famous wealthy men to death at their home or hotel room is not at all uncommon. Their deaths are never described in detail until the murderer is brought to trial, and then the sordid details of the death and 'secret life' of the deceased are spilled out.

I worked with him on a couple of different theater projects in the 90s, one in which he acted and another that he directed...well, actually didn't direct because he (or more likely, the producers) couldn't get the project off the ground.

He was a sweet man, exceptionally sharp and intelligent. I don't doubt he was gay but he never seemed particularly so in working situations that I observed.

Some people just prefer to keep their private life just that, private.

Especially that older generation

He had a brother, Eggs.

R63 ....

R64 ...

R26 Richard III had a hunchback, so he's usually played as having one.

Ugly as sin, but serious BDF.

How was he as Mayor Shinn in the Craig Bierko Music Man revival?