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Unlike most folks who played a recurring role on a popular TV series, actor Paul Benedict liked to play down any notion of his small-screen fame.
Preferring to talk about stage roles and films he ducked questions about his role as Harry Bentley on the 1975-1981 and 1983-1985 series “The Jeffersons.”
It was something that brought him into homes all over North America, but it wasn’t something he thought of as his best work.
“I wouldn’t like to think that’s what I’d be remembered for,” he said sitting in his backstage dressing-room at Mississauga’s Stage West Dinner Theatre.
It was 1995 and Benedict was playing Dr. David Mortimore in the British farce, “It Runs in the Family.” The play wasn’t high art, settling instead for coaxing wails of laughter from satisfied dinner theatre patrons. Those patrons however did, in fact, remember Benedict from what some called The Boob Tube.
“I’ve done so much more than ‘The Jeffersons,’” Benedict shrugged. “But you know, you don’t have a choice in choosing what audiences will remember you for. That’s just a given.”
On Broadway, in New York City, Benedict starred in Frederick Molnar’s sophisticated comedy, “The Play’s the Thing” the year before his Stage West appearance. And he played star roles in a wildly eclectic series of plays from “Little Murders” to “Richard III.”
“I can’t help it if people always think of me as Mr. Bentley on ‘The Jeffersons’ Benedict shrugged. “I suppose there’s something ironic in that. It certainly proves the power of television and the force of appearing in a series that continues on the air for weeks and weeks. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think I ever thought of it as my finest hour.” Benedict smiles and stares at his reflection in the mirror.
“What most people don’t realize about being an actor is the relentless need to find work. And it may not always be the work you actually want, or the kind of work that you necessarily admire.”
For all that, Benedict is respectful of the fact “The Jeffersons” helped finance work in plays that did not pay as much money.
“It built up the bank account,” he said. “And to be fair it gave me a profile with a wider audience than those who come to see plays on Broadway, or on a theatre tour.”
Benedict, who sounded British and was often thought to be from England was actually born in Silver City, New Mexico. He lived much of his life in Massachusetts and agreed that people seemed to think he was British.
“I guess I just sounded like I had a very precise way of speaking,” he said.
On-stage, Benedict was an actor capable of holding his own with starry casts of well-known actors. He appeared with Nathan Lane and Kate Nelligan in a popular revival of Terrence McNally’s play “Bad Habits” at The Manhattan Theater Club in New York.
Also a fine director, Benedict directed Kathy Bates and Kenneth Welsh in McNally’s popular play “Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune.”
“I always felt best working on a good play with actors I admired and trusted,” he said.
“Not that working on ‘The Jeffersons’ wasn’t about working hard alongside a group of performers who became a family. We all did our very best to make the show a success. Norman Lear who created the show as a spin-off from an episode or two of his ‘All in the Family’ was someone who inspired loyalty and trust. He kept asking me to do the show and I kept turning him down. Finally I just said yes.”
Still, for Benedict live stage performances were his best choice.
“You have such wonderful connection with an audience. They are right there in front of you. They are part of all that you do. You know when they are with you. There is no laugh-track, just honest live reaction to whatever is happening on stage. Even if you have an audience in a studio situation as you film a TV show, the same response that you feel in a theatre cannot be truly replicated.”
Benedict, who suffered from a disease known as acromegaly, a pituitary disorder partly responsible for his angular features and large jaw. It was diagnosed finally by an endocrinologist who was in the audience at a play Benedict was doing.
“I have been lucky to have done some very good plays. And I’ve had fun with many of the roles. Playing Dr. Mortimore in ‘It Runs in the Family’ is a perfect example,” he said. “I hear the laughs and I know people are having a good time. It’s a two-way thing really. The more people respond the more I try to give them a good night out.”
Paul Benedict died from a cerebral hemorrhage in 2008. He was 70.
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