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Robert Benton is an American screenwriter and film director, best known for Kramer vs. Kramer and Places in the Heart. He won three Academy Awards and was nominated for six more, and also wrote Bonnie and Clyde and Superman.
Robert Benton is an American screenwriter and filmmaker who won two Oscars for Kramer vs. Kramer. He also wrote Bonnie & Clyde, Superman and Oh! Calcutta!, and directed Places in the Heart, Twilight and Nobody's Fool.
- January 1, 1
- 32 sec
- Waxahachie, Texas, USA
Robert Benton is an American screenwriter and filmmaker who won two Oscars for Kramer vs. Kramer. He also wrote Bonnie & Clyde, Superman and directed Twilight, Bad Company and Nobody's Fool.
- Writer, Director, Producer
- September 29, 1932
Robert Benton is an American screenwriter and film director who won Oscars for Kramer vs. Kramer and Places in the Heart. He also wrote and directed Bonnie and Clyde, Superman, and The Ice Harvest.
- Overview
- Early films
- Directing
- The 1980s
- The 1990s and beyond
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Robert Benton, (born September 29, 1932, Waxahachie, Texas, U.S.), American filmmaker who directed and wrote a number of acclaimed movies, including Kramer vs. Kramer (1979).
Benton served in the U.S. Army in the 1950s, and during this time he painted dioramas. In 1958 he became the art director of Esquire magazine, but he switched in 1964 to the post of contributing editor. In 1966 he cowrote (with fellow Esquire editor David Newman) the book for the Broadway show It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…It’s Superman. The two then collaborated on the script for the film Bonnie and Clyde (1967). The crime drama was considered pioneering for its frank depiction of violence and sexuality, and Benton and Newman received Academy Award nominations for their screenplay. Benton subsequently earned writing credits for There was a Crooked Man… (1970), What’s Up, Doc? (1972), and Oh! Calcutta! (1972).
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In 1972 Benton made his directorial debut with Bad Company, an iconoclastic western that starred Jeff Bridges and Barry Brown as a pair of Civil War draft dodgers who head West, robbing and stealing to support themselves. The film, which Benton wrote with Newman, exhibits touches of black humour, and cinematographer Gordon Willis, who also shot The Godfather that year, gave it a striking palette. With that modest success, Benton was able to leave Esquire and devote himself to filmmaking full time.
Benton next directed The Late Show (1977) from his own screenplay about an aging private eye whose partner is killed while trying to help a quirky woman find her cat. Art Carney was impressive as Ira Wells, the gumshoe who is falling apart at the seams, and Lily Tomlin gave arguably her finest performance as his client who, much to her surprise, finds herself falling for him. Benton’s next project was cowriting the screenplay for Superman, which was directed by Richard Donner. The critically acclaimed action film was a blockbuster.
Benton took three years to release his next project, Still of the Night (1982). A derivative thriller (written by Benton and Newman), the film miscast Streep as a woman suspected of murder, and Roy Scheider was less than compelling as the Manhattan psychologist who tries to determine whether she is the actual killer or just disturbed. Places in the Heart (1984), however, was more comfortable territory for Benton. The drama was set in his hometown of Waxahachie, Texas, during the Great Depression, and it featured Sally Field as a widow who must provide for her children by working her 40-acre cotton field with the aid of a black labourer (Danny Glover). The notable cast also included John Malkovich, Lindsay Crouse, Amy Madigan, and Ed Harris. Field earned acclaim for her performance, winning the Oscar for best actress, and Benton took home another Academy Award for his original screenplay. The film was also nominated for best picture.
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In 1987 Benton directed Nadine, a comedy set in 1950s Austin, Texas. Kim Basinger gave a fine performance as a madcap manicurist who is in the midst of divorcing her husband (Bridges). When she tries to recover nude photographs of herself, she stumbles across plans for a superhighway that a developer (Rip Torn) would kill to recover. Nadine proved a box-office disappointment.
Benton opened the 1990s with an elegant but muted adaptation of E.L. Doctorow’s Billy Bathgate. The 1991 drama centres on a kid from the Bronx (Loren Dean) who becomes involved with notorious gangster Dutch Schultz (Hoffman) and the widowed moll (Nicole Kidman) of a rival (Bruce Willis). Despite a strong cast and a script by Tom Stoppard, the film failed to interest moviegoers. In 1994 Benton directed another film adaptation, Nobody’s Fool. Paul Newman played Sully, a bone-weary, cynical handyman in a small economically depressed town in upstate New York. In Richard Russo’s best-selling novel, Sully is self-deluding; onscreen he is endearingly cranky as he interacts with his estranged son (Dylan Walsh); his landlady and former eighth-grade teacher, Miss Beryl (Jessica Tandy, who died shortly after filming was completed); Carl, a smart-aleck construction kingpin (an expert turn by an unbilled Willis); and Carl’s sexy but neglected wife (Melanie Griffith). Benton, a well-known perfectionist, admitted in an interview that he had rewritten his script at least 20 times, and he was rewarded with an Oscar nomination for adapted screenplay.
Benton went on to direct Newman in Twilight (1998), a rather formulaic murder mystery. He then reteamed with Kidman on The Human Stain (2003), which was based on Philip Roth’s best-selling novel; it also starred Anthony Hopkins. After cowriting (with Russo) the screenplay for The Ice Harvest (2005), Benton made Feast of Love (2007), a middling romance with strong performances by Morgan Freeman and Greg Kinnear.
Robert Benton is an Oscar-winning director and writer who made acclaimed movies such as Bonnie and Clyde, Kramer vs. Kramer, and Places in the Heart. Learn about his early career, his collaborations, his awards, and his later works.
- Michael Barson
Jan 12, 2004 · Former Esquire editor Robert Benton made a memorable entry into movies when he won an Oscar for co-writing Bonnie And Clyde. He later won directing and screenwriting Oscars for...
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Robert Benton is the screenwriter behind such classics as KRAMER VS KRAMER, BONNIE AND CLYDE, and SUPERMAN. Originally born in Texas, Benton went on to attend Columbia University in New York...
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