Richard Benjamin (born May 22, 1938) is an American actor and film director.

He has starred in a number of productions, including the 1969 film, Goodbye, Columbus based upon the novella of the same name by Philip Roth, and with Yul Brynner in Westworld in 1973.

Benjamin was born in New York City, New York and attended the High School of Performing Arts. He married actress Paula Prentiss on October 26, 1961 and they have two children. He was graduated from Northwestern University where he was involved in many plays and studied in the famous Northwestern theater school. Benjamin is Jewish. He and his wife appeared together in the short-lived television series He & She (1967-68), as well as the film Catch-22 (1970).. In 1978, he starred in the ambitious, but short-lived, television series Quark.

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 (I)'s best-seller, Goodbye, Columbus (1969). That was followed by roles in Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970), Marriage of a Young Stockbroker, The (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 Sunshine Boys, The (1975). Although he still performs, Benjamin turned to direction since the 80s with the highly acclaimed comedy My Favorite Year (1982).