Paul Benedict
Birthday: Born in 1938-09-17 in Silver City, New Mexico, United States
Deathday: 2008-12-01
Paul Benedict (September 17, 1938 – December 1, 2008) was an American actor who made numerous appearances in television and movies beginning in the 1960s. He was known for his roles as The Number Painter on the popular PBS children's show Sesame Street, and as the quirky English neighbor "Harry Bentley" on the CBS sitcom The Jeffersons. Often mistakenly credited as Charlie Bucket's school teacher (the uncredited role of Mr. Turkentine), in the cult classic Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, who was actually played by David Battley. Description above from the Wikipedia article Paul Benedict, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
TV Credits
Murder, She Wrote
Character: Friedrich Hoffman
An unassuming mystery writer turned sleuth uses her professional insight to help solve real-life homicide cases....
Seinfeld
Character: Mr. Elinoff
A stand-up comedian and his three offbeat friends weather the pitfalls and payoffs of life in New York City in the '90s. It's a show about nothing....
The Twilight Zone
Character: Hoakie
This 1980s revival of the classic sci-fi series features a similar style to the original anthology series. Each episode tells a tale (sometimes two or three) rooted in horror or suspense, often with a surprising twist at the end. Episodes usually feature elements of drama and comedy....
All in the Family
Character: Harry Bentley
Archie Bunker, a working class bigot, constantly squabbles with his family over the important issues of the day....
The Jeffersons
Character: Harry Bentley
Sitcom following a successful African-American couple, George and Louise “Weezyö Jefferson as they “move on up” from working-class Queens to a ritzy Manhattan apartment. A spin-off of All in the Family....
Kojak
Character: Kauldor
A bald, lollipop sucking police detective with a fiery righteous attitude battles crime in New York City....
Mama Malone
Character:
Mama Malone is an American sitcom that aired on CBS from March 7, 1984 to July 21, 1984 starring British character actress Lila Kaye as the title character, an Italian homemaker who hosts a cooking show from her Brooklyn apartment. She never gets to properly instruct viewers on her recipes because friends and family members keep interrupting her show....
Tales from the Crypt
Character: Beaks
Cadaverous scream legend the Crypt Keeper is your macabre host for these forays of fright and fun based on the classic E.C. Comics tales from back in the day. So shamble up to the bar and pick your poison. Will it be an insane Santa on a personal slay ride? Honeymooners out to fulfill the "til death do we part" vow ASAP?...
Sesame Street
Character: The Mad Painter
On a special inner city street, the inhabitants—human and muppet—teach preschoolers basic educational and social concepts using comedy, cartoons, games, and songs....
A Different World
Character: Mr. Ludlow
A Different World is a spin-off series from The Cosby Show and originally centered on Denise Huxtable and the life of students at Hillman College, a fictional mixed but historically black college in the state of Virginia. After Bonet's departure in the first season, the remainder of the series primarily focused more on Southern belle Whitley Gilbert and mathematics whiz Dwayne Wayne. The series frequently depicted members of the major historically black fraternities and sororities....
The Blue and the Gray
Character: Arbuthnot
The Blue and the Gray is a television miniseries that first aired on CBS in three installments on November 14, November 16, and November 17, 1982. Set during the American Civil War, the series starred John Hammond, Stacy Keach, Lloyd Bridges, and Gregory Peck as President Abraham Lincoln. It was executive produced by Larry White and Lou Reda, in association with Columbia Pictures Television, then owned by The Coca-Cola Company....
The Drew Carey Show
Character: Jeremy
Drew is an assistant director of personnel in a Cleveland department store and he has been stuck there for ten years. Other than fighting with co-worker Mimi, his hobbies include drinking beer and not being able to get dates. To make a few extra bucks he has a micro-brewery going in his garage with his buddies....
Movie Credits
The Addams Family
Character: Judge Womack
When a man claiming to be long-lost Uncle Fester reappears after 25 years lost, the family plans a celebration to wake the dead. But the kids barely have time to warm up the electric chair before Morticia begins to suspect Fester is fraud when he can't recall any of the details of Fester's life....
The Man with Two Brains
Character: Butler
A brain surgeon marries a femme fatale, causing his life to turn upside down. Things go more awry when he falls in love with a talking brain....
Jeremiah Johnson
Character: Reverend Lindquist
A mountain man who wishes to live the life of a hermit becomes the unwilling object of a long vendetta by Indians when he proves to be the match of their warriors in one-to-one combat on the early frontier....
Arthur 2: On the Rocks
Character: Fairchild
Arthur loses his fortune for staying with Linda, right as the two were preparing to adopt a child. As their marriage suffers, Arthur plans for a way to get his money back, but first he must sober up and get a real job....
Up the Sandbox
Character: Dr. Beineke
Bored with day-to-day life in New York City and neglected by her husband, a young wife and mother slips into increasingly outrageous fantasies: her mother breaking into the apartment, an explorer's demonstration of tribal fertility music at a party causing strange transformations, and joining terrorists to plant explosives in the Statue of Liberty....
The Goodbye Girl
Character: Mark
After being dumped by her live-in boyfriend, an unemployed dancer and her 10-year-old daughter are reluctantly forced to live with a struggling off-Broadway actor....
Mandingo
Character: Brownlee
Warren Maxwell, the owner of a run-down plantation, pressures his son, Hammond, to marry and produce an heir to inherit the plantation. Hammond settles on his own cousin, Blanche, but purchases a sex slave when he returns from the honeymoon. He also buys his father a new Mandingo slave named Mede to breed and train as a prize-fighter....
Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman
Character: Dr. Victor Loeb
When an abused heiress grows to giant size because of her encounter with aliens, she decides to get revenge on her cheating husband and those who looked down on her....
The Electric Grandmother
Character: Guido Fantoccini
To a family whose children are traumatized by the death of their mother, help comes in a most bizarre way. They receive three pieces, that when joined together, give a recording for an offer for an electric grandmother. They go to a bizarre factory, where they customize their new grandmother, and within a short time, she arrives. The android is equipped with everything needed as a parent and the boys are charmed. The daughter, however, still misses her mother and she bears no welcome for this in...
The Double-Barrelled Detective Story
Character: Wells Fargo Ferguson
Interesting and sometimes funny adaptation of a Mark Twain short story. Hatfield is a carpetbagger who marries the daughter of a prominent plantation owner in order to humiliate him. He mistreats his wife, but she stoically refuses to complain to her father....
Billy in the Lowlands
Character:
Billy is a rebellious teenager who lives with his mother and brother, and works in a foundry. His parents are separated and he has not seen his father, who lives in another state now, for years. After being arrested for joyriding in a car that was stolen by a friend, Billy is sent to a juvenile correction center. But when his grandfather dies, and Billy hears that his father will be coming into town for the funeral, he walks out of the facility, hoping to re-establish a relationship with him....
The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight
Character: Shots O'Toole
A Brooklyn mobster and his gang try to rub out their rivals....
The Chair
Character: Warden Edward Dwyer
A psychologist, a psychiatrist and a prison warden open up a long-closed prison, unaware that the ghost of an electrocuted convict haunts it....
They Might Be Giants
Character: Chestnut Man
After the death of his wife, wealthy retiree Justin Playfair creates a fantasy world for himself in which he is the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes, even dressing like the character. Out of concern for Justin's money more than his health, his brother Blevins puts him under the care of psychiatrist Dr. Mildred Watson. As Dr. Watson grows fond of Justin, she begins to play along with his theories, eventually becoming an assistant in his investigations....
Deadhead Miles
Character: Hitchhiker
A long-distance trucker, dressed like a sea captain, aimlessly sails the American highways in his 18 wheeler mumbling manic, southern accented non sequiturs; carnivalizing roadside stops and happenstance towns while out-weirding cops and weigh stations with his new cryptic, over-coated hitchhiker buddy....
Guns & Lipstick
Character: Mickey
A female private investigator's latest client turns up murdered, and she is thrust into a deadly underworld of bi-sexual strippers, a Chinese Godfather with a taste for young girls and the hunt for one very elusive gem....
Sibling Rivalry
Character: Dr. Plotner
Marjorie Turner is suffocating in her marriage and day to day life. An extramarital affair with a stranger seems to be the answer until her paramour has a fatal heart attack, and turns out to be less of a stranger than she could have thought......
Waiting for Guffman
Character: Not Guffman
Aspiring director Corky St. Clair and the marginally talented amateur cast of his hokey small-town musical production go overboard when they learn that Broadway theater agent Mort Guffman will be in attendance....
The Front Page
Character: Plunkett
A journalist suffering from burn-out wants to finally say goodbye to his office – but his boss doesn’t like the idea one bit....
This Is Spinal Tap
Character: Tucker 'Smitty' Brown
"This Is Spinal Tap" shines a light on the self-contained universe of a metal band struggling to get back on the charts, including everything from its complicated history of ups and downs, gold albums, name changes and undersold concert dates, along with the full host of requisite groupies, promoters, hangers-on and historians, sessions, release events and those special behind-the-scenes moments that keep it all real....
Cocktail
Character: Finance Teacher
After being discharged from the Army, Brian Flanagan moves back to Queens and takes a job in a bar run by Doug Coughlin, who teaches Brian the fine art of bar-tending. Brian quickly becomes a patron favorite with his flashy drink-mixing style, and Brian adopts his mentor's cynical philosophy on life and goes for the money....
After the Sunset
Character: Night Shift Guard
An FBI agent is suspicious of two master thieves, quietly enjoying their retirement near what may - or may not - be the biggest score of their careers....
Isn't She Great
Character: Prof. Brainiac
An unsuccessful over-the-top actress becomes a successful over-the-top authoress in this biography of Jacqueline Susann, the famed writer of "The Valley of the Dolls" and other trashy novels. Facing a failing career, Susann meets a successful promoter who becomes her husband. After several failures to place her in commercials and a TV quiz show, he hits upon the idea for her to become a writer. In the pre-1960s, her books were looked upon as trash and non-printable. But then the sexual revolutio...
Cold Turkey
Character: Zen Buddhist
Reverend Brooks leads the town in a contest to stop smoking for a month, But some tobacco executives don't want them to win, and try everything they can to make them smoke. If townspeople don't go nuts, from wanting a cigarette, or kill each other from irritation and frustration, they will win a huge prize....
A Fish in the Bathtub
Character: Milo
A forty-year marriage begins to unravel when the husband brings home a pet fish that he wants to keep in the bathtub....
The Freshman
Character: Arthur Fleeber
After a film student gets his belongings stolen, he meets a mobster bearing a startling resemblance to a certain cinematic godfather. Soon, he finds himself caught up in a caper involving endangered species and fine dining....
Taking Off
Character: Ben Lockston
Unable to deal with her parents, Jeannie Tyne runs away from home. Larry and Lynn Tyne search for her, and in the process meet other people whose children ran away. With their children gone, the parents are now free to rediscover/enjoy life....
The Devil's Advocate
Character: Walter Krasna (uncredited)
Aspiring Florida defense lawyer Kevin Lomax accepts a job at a New York law firm. With the stakes getting higher every case, Kevin quickly learns that his boss has something far more evil planned....
A Mighty Wind
Character: Martin Berg
Three eclectic, never-quite-famous folk bands come together for the first time in decades following the death of their manager to put on an reunion concert in his honor, at the request of his son....
Sex, Shock & Censorship in the 90's
Character: Malcolm Maltved
Newswoman Fay Sommerfield takes a morally outraged look at excessive violence, bad language and sacrilege that pass for entertainment in the early 90s. She illustrates this with clips from (fake) current hit films and music videos....
Babycakes
Character: Magleby
Grace is an overweight mortuary cosmetician who falls in love with Rob, a handsome subway train conductor who doesn't even know she exists. When she finally devises a way to meet him, they discover that although they are physically different, they have a lot more in common than they think....
Hustling
Character: Lester Traube
Based on Gail Sheehy's book, this film chronicles how a reporter for a New York City magazine decided to investigate the city's prostitution industry to find out just who was making all the money. What she found out caused a firestorm of controversy--that many of the city's richest and most powerful families and corporations benefited directly and indirectly from the illegal sex business....
The Virgin President
Character: Rutherford Melon
The President of the U.S. is suceeded by his naive, wide-eyed son, and his advisors try to take advantage of the situation by planning to drop an atomic bomb on Manhattan and blaming it on the Red Chinese....
The Lonely Guy
Character: Dr. Zook (voice) (uncredited)
A writer for a greeting card company learns the true meaning of loneliness when he comes home to find his girlfriend in bed with another man....
Bad Dog
Character: Owner
A day in the life from dog’s point of view....