Robert Benchley

Robert Charles Benchley (September 15, 1889 in Worcester, Massachusetts – November 21, 1945) was an American humorist, newspaper columnist, film actor, and drama editor.

Film work

In 1928, Benchley starred in The Treasurer's Report, a short comedy film that was possibly the first all-talkie film shown in theaters (as opposed to The Jazz Singer (1927), which was primarily silent, and The Lights of New York (later in 1928), the first full-length talkie feature film). This led to a series of more than three dozen comedic instructional short films whose titles frequently began with "How to…". Each featured Benchley as a lecturer or as his family man alter-ego, Joe Doakes. How to Sleep (1935) won an Academy Award in 1938.

Related Topics:
1928 - Talkie - The Jazz Singer - 1927 - The Lights of New York - 1935 - Academy Award - 1938

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At the same time, he found frequent work, at several studios, as a character actor in feature films, often playing a variation on the befuddled burgher of his shorts or else a dipsomaniacal sophisticate. He appears in Alfred Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent, in Rene Clair's I Married a Witch and with Fred Astaire in The Sky's the Limit.

Related Topics:
Alfred Hitchcock - Foreign Correspondent - Rene Clair - Fred Astaire

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Benchley also appeared in the 1941 feature film The Reluctant Dragon, giving a loose tour of the then-new Walt Disney Studios facility in Burbank, California.

Related Topics:
1941 - Feature film - The Reluctant Dragon - Walt Disney Studios - Burbank, California

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Benchley was awarded a star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood. He is the father of author Nathaniel Benchley and grandfather of Jaws writer Peter Benchley.

Related Topics:
Walk of Fame - Hollywood - Nathaniel Benchley - Jaws - Peter Benchley

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On his passing in 1945, Robert Benchley was interred in the family plot at Prospect Hill Cemetery in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

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