Although his actress wife Paula Prentiss became a star by the early 1960s, it took Richard Benjamin almost fifteen years to establish his screen persona, but the wait was rewarding. After extensive work in theatre as actor and director, and his participation in the cult TV series He & She (1967), in which he co-starred with Prentiss, he won the starring role in the screen adaptation of Philip Roth's best-seller, Goodbye, Columbus (1969). That was followed by roles in Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970), The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker (1971) and another Roth adaptation, Portnoy's Complaint (1972), that turned him into a prominent "archetype of East Coast Jewish intellectual agony", as critic Jonathan Romney defines him. But his forte was comedy and he won a Golden Globe when he repeated his stage role in the film version of Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys (1975). Although he still performs, Benjamin turned to direction since the 80s with the highly acclaimed comedy My Favorite Year (1982).
Veteran character actress Linda Hunt was Born April 2, 1945 in Morristown, New Jersey to Raymond Davy Hunter and Elsie Doying Hunter. She attended the Interlochen Arts Academy, and the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago (now part of DePaul University). Her film debut was in Robert Altman's Popeye (1980). She played the role of Oxblood Oxheart's mother. Soon after, she appeared in what would be an Oscar-winning performance. The role of male Chinese-Australian photographer Billy Kwan in The Year of Living Dangerously (1982). She went down in history as the first person to win an Oscar for playing a character of the opposite sex.
