Paul Benedict (born September 17, 1938 in Silver City, New Mexico) is an American character actor who has made several appearances in television and movies from the 1960s on. He is probably best recognized for his roles as The Number Painter on the PBS children's show Sesame Street, and as the quirky English neighbor "Harry Bentley" on the CBS sitcom The Jeffersons.
As a young man, Benedict suffered from acromegaly, a pituitary disorder that affects the extremities and face, which accounts for his slightly oversized jaw and nose. As one can hear in his other film and TV roles, he has a slight English accent even when not in character as Bentley.
Benedict played the director of the Richard III production in the movie The Goodbye Girl starring Richard Dreyfuss, in which play Richard was to be portrayed as a stereotypical gay man. He was in a short scene in the mockumentary film This is Spinal Tap. He also made a memorable appearance as the incorrectly assumed title character in the 1996 film Waiting for Guffman, another mockumentary involving many of the same writers and actors. Benedict also played the role of a slave trader in Dino de Laurentiis' Mandingo opposite James Mason and Perry King
Suffered from acromegaly as a young man, which accounts for his slightly outsized nose and lower jaw.
In an interview, he said he was constantly mistaken as an Englishman because his work on "Jeffersons, The" (1975) as Englishman Harry Bentley.
