Richard Benjamin

Born: 22 May 1938
Where: New York

Richard went to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where he majored in drama. He had walk-on juvenile parts in some 1950s films and first earned adult recognition on Broadway, starring in Neil Simon's Star-Spangled Girl.

His adult screen acting debut came in 1969 with a starring role in Goodbye, Columbus, adapted from the novel by Philip Roth. He also played the lead role in a second Philip Roth film adaptation, Portnoy's Complaint.

1970 marked the first screen pairing with wife Paula Prentiss in Catch-22. The couple, who married in 1961, later starred together in The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker, and in the horror spoof Saturday the 14th.

Richard made his feature directorial debut with My Favorite Year in 1982, a comic look at the early days of TV featuring Peter O'Toole.

His second film, Racing With the Moon, was a war romance starring Sean Penn after which Richard followed up with comedies City Heat, starring Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood, and The Money Pit, featuring Tom Hanks and Shelly Long.

Richard directed My Stepmother Is an Alien with Dan Aykroyd and Kim Basinger, then moved on to action comedy with Downtown. He regained some degree of critical success with Mermaids starring Cher, Winona Ryder, and Bob Hoskins.

After a three year break, he directed Whoopi Goldberg and Ted Danson in the romantic comedy, Made in America, followed by Mrs. Winterbourne, which starred Ricki Lake and Shirley MacLaine.