Richard Samuel Benjamin (born May 22, 1938) is an American actor and film director. He has starred in a number of well-known film productions, including Goodbye, Columbus (1969), based on the novella by Philip Roth; Catch-22 (1970), from the Joseph Heller best-seller; Westworld (1973), a science-fiction thriller by Michael Crichton; and The Sunshine Boys (1975), written by Neil Simon. After directing for television, his first film as director was the 1982 comedy My Favorite Year. His other films as director include City Heat (1984), starring Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood, The Money Pit (1986) with Tom Hanks, and Made in America (1993) with Whoopi Goldberg.
Benjamin was born in New York City, the son of Samuel Roger Benjamin (1910–1997), a garment industry worker. Benjamin's uncle was vaudeville comedian Joe Browning. His family was Jewish. He attended the High School of Performing Arts and graduated from Northwestern University, where he was involved in many plays and studied in the Northwestern theater school. While there, he met Paula Prentiss, whom he married in 1961.
Benjamin struggled to get work early in his career, while Prentiss became a film star almost immediately in Where the Boys Are (1961). Benjamin appeared on stage in The Taming of the Shrew and guest-starred on shows such as The New Breed and Dr. Kildare.

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