Acclaimed filmmaker Robert Benton has died at age 92.
He was best known for writing and directing the 1979 Best Picture Oscar winner, Kramer vs. Kramer.
His son, John Benton, confirmed that the three-time Academy Award winner passed away on Sunday at his Manhattan home of “natural causes”.
Benton earned two Oscars for Kramer vs. Kramer- one for Best Director and another for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Acclaimed filmmaker Robert Benton has died at age 92
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He won his third Oscar for writing Places in the Heart (1985), a film he also directed.
Throughout his storied career, Benton collaborated with numerous acclaimed actors, many of whom earned Academy Awards for performances in his films.
Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep both won Oscars for Kramer vs. Kramer, while Sally Field received hers for Places in the Heart.
Benton also co-wrote the groundbreaking 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde with David Newman.
The two first met while working at Esquire magazine- Benton as an art director and Newman, a former staff member.
Their creative partnership extended to several projects, including There Was a Crooked Man (1970), What’s Up, Doc? (1972), Oh! Calcutta! (1972), and the 1978 blockbuster Superman.
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Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep both won Oscars for Kramer vs. Kramer
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Born in Waxahachie, Texas, just outside Dallas, Benton credited his love of film to his father, Ellery Douglass Benton, a telephone company employee.
Rather than focusing on schoolwork, Benton’s father often took the family to the movies.
He also passed on vivid memories of attending the funerals of infamous Texas outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, who grew up near Dallas.
Benton studied at both the University of Texas and Columbia University before serving in the U.S. Army from 1954 to 1956.
While at Esquire, he helped launch the magazine’s long-running Dubious Achievement Awards and briefly dated Gloria Steinem, who was then working at the satirical magazine Help!
In 1964, Benton married artist Sallie Rendigs. The couple had one son, John.
Despite his major successes, Benton’s career was marked by occasional dry spells
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Despite his major successes, Benton’s career was marked by occasional dry spells.
Later films like Billy Bathgate, Twilight, and The Human Stain failed to match the acclaim of his earlier work.
However, he found renewed success with the 1994 dramedy Nobody’s Fool, based on the novel by Richard Russo.
The film starred Paul Newman, who earned his final Oscar nomination for his role as a small-town troublemaker. Benton himself was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Reflecting on the significance of the Oscars in a 1998 interview with Venice magazine, Benton said: “Somebody asked me once when the Academy Award nominations came out and I’d been nominated, ‘What’s the great thing about the Academy Awards?’
“I said ‘When you go to the awards and you see people, some of whom you’ve had bitter fights with, some of whom you’re close friends with, some people you haven’t seen in ten years, some people you just saw two days before - it’s your family.’ It’s home. And home is what I’ve spent my life looking for.”
