At Whitman College, in Walla Walla, Washington, Dirk Benedict became interested in acting. During his freshman year, he accepted a dare to audition for the Spring musical and won the lead role of Gaylord Ravenal in "Showboat." The next three years were filled with many more musical productions. Upon graduation, Benedict began a two-year training program under John Fernald, who had headed London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London for fifteen years.
Benedict then played repertory theatre in Seattle and in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he played such roles as Edmund in "King Lear," Tarleton in "Misalliance," Ensign Pulver in "Mister Roberts," and the lead in Neil Simon's "Star-Spangled Girl." An agent sent him to an audition which resulted in a co-starring role with Diana Rigg and Keith Mitchell in "Abelard and Heloise," first on Broadway, then in Los Angeles. Two weeks after the show closed on Broadway, he was winging across the Atlantic to Sweden for his first movie, "Georgia, Georgia" in which he co-starred with the late Diana Sands. This film about draft resisters, shot entirely in Sweden, was written by the well known author Maya Angelou.
On his return to New York, Benedict replaced Keir Dullea in "Butterflies Are Free" on Broadway where he worked with Gloria Swanson as his mother. When the New York run ended, he received an offer to repeat his performance in Hawaii, opposite Barbara Rush. While there, he appeared as a guest lead on "Hawaii-Five-O." The producers of a psycho-thriller called "Sssssss" saw Benedict's performance in "Hawaii-Five-O" and promptly cast him as the lead in that move. He next played the psychotic wife-beating husband of Twiggy in her American film debut, "W." Benedict starred in the television series, "Chopper One," but his career break came when he appeared as Lieutenant Starbuck in the series "Battlestar Galactica".
Actor Filmography:
Director Filmography:
Writer Filmography:
Notable TV Guest Appearances:
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