Humourist Robert Charles Bentley (1889-1945) made his name writing for Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, and carousing with the other intellectuals (and Harpo Marx) at the Algonquin Round Table. He was also well known as a drama critic and reluctant stage performer.
Benchley appeared in films from 1928 (having earlier written titles, in two distinctly different ways. His first appearances were in very early Movietone sound shorts, in which he recreated revue monologues such as The Treasurer’s Report and The Sex Life of the Polyp (both 1928). Later on, he wrote and starred in a series of ‘instructional’ comedy shorts for MGM, starting with How to Sleep (1935), which won the Best Short Film Oscar. Other titles, in many of which he took the name Joe Doakes, included How to Be a Detective (1936), How to Figure Income Tax (1938) and Seeing Your Doctor (1939). After leaving MGM, who did not treat him well, Benchley made further shorts at Paramount. Many of these lecture films were based on his own earlier written material.
Alongside this, Benchley had a peculiar career as a character actor in around 50 feature films. Frequently cast as a drunk (reflecting his personal proclivity), Benchley was often permitted to write his own dialogue. Notable appearances included Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent (1940), The Major and the Minor (very much restricted to speaking Wilder-Brackett lines and I Married a Witch (both 1942).
Benchley’s two forays into MGM musicals were supporting roles in Dancing Lady and Broadway Melody of 1938.
Benchley’s early death was the result of cirrhosis of the liver.
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