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Although their TV show lasted only one season, He & She stars Paula Prentiss and Richard "Dick" Benjamin captured the hearts of thousands of Americans with their on- and off-screen chemistry.
Married for 57 years, Prentiss—best known for leading turns in The Stepford Wives, What's New Pussycat?, and Catch-22—and Benjamin—who also starred in Catch-22 and won a Golden Globe for his performance in The Sunshine Boys, in addition to directing such feature films as The Money Pit (1986)—have one of the longest lasting unions in Hollywood, just shy of Kirk and Anne Douglas' 63 years of marriage. They'll both celebrate 80th birthdays this year—he on May 22 and she on March 4.
Their story began at Northwestern University, where they met while studying acting. Prentiss, born Paula Ragusa, came from an Italian family in San Antonio, Texas. Benjamin came from an entirely different background, which Prentiss found intriguing: According to a 1976 People story, she said he was the first Jewish man from New York she'd ever met.
They moved in together shortly after—a serious taboo at the time that ultimately "forced [them] into marriage...to keep up appearances," according to the fan site Retro Active Critiques. Prentiss signed a seven-year contract with MGM in 1960 and the studio didn't want her traveling on promotion junkets with a man who wasn't her spouse, so they asked the two to wed, though not before milking the wedding for publicity: Prentiss had to make long-distance calls to gossip columnists Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons just before the ceremony, according to People. They were married by a New York judge on Oct. 26, 1961.
"I accepted it all to be with the girl I wanted to be with," Benjamin admitted later.
Their whirlwind rise to fame continued during the '60s as Prentiss played the leading lady to such stars as Steve McQueen, Rock Hudson, and Jim Hutton, and Benjamin landed guest spot after guest spot on numerous television series. Their workaholic tendencies caught up with them, however, around 1965 when Prentiss suffered what some called a "mental breakdown" on the set of What's New Pussycat? in Paris.
"One day during shooting, I just climbed up the ropes to the catwalk and started walking the beams. Very loudly and clearly I called down to everyone on the set, 'I'm going to jump.' A French technician grabbed me, and there I was, hanging by one arm," Prentiss told People.
She did a nine-month stint in the hospital, first in Paris then at New York's Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic. Benjamin took her on outings once a month but she was so medicated "she wasn't Paula," he has said. "It was like taking a carrot out to lunch. What did I know about psychiatry? I was a Jewish boy, and in our house, if someone had a headache, no one worried about brain tumors or neurosis. It just meant you hadn't eaten enough."
After her release, Prentiss remained on hiatus from filmwork to focus on outpatient therapy. Benjamin, meanwhile, landed his big break starring opposite Ali McGraw in Goodbye, Columbus. In 1967, the couple co-starred in the CBS series He & She, a role Prentiss found therapeutic. "It was worth it after what we'd been through," she told People. "By working together we learned to live with each other again."
They also starred in Catch-22 (1970) and Saturday the 14th (1981) together, as well as the Broadway play The Norman Conquests (1975). They hosted SNL jointly in 1980, one of the few couples to have shared that gig.
In their personal lives, they've also collaborated on two children. Their first child, a son named Ross, was born in 1974 after 13 years of intentional childlessness. "We didn't want children," Benjamin told People. "We were too wrapped up in ourselves."
"Having the baby made us grow up," he added. Their daughter, Prentiss, came along four years later. Both of the couple's offspring are now professional actors.
So what do the couple credit for a marriage that's quickly approaching diamond status? Perseverance and perspective, for starters. "When Paula was sick, people wondered why I didn't leave her," Benjamin explained to People. "And when I wasn't working they wondered why she didn't leave me. People all along have tried to come between us. It took a long time to figure out that it was their problem, not ours."
Their work, like their marriage, is still going strong. Prentiss played a supporting role in the 2016 Netflix movie I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, directed by family friend Osgood Perkins (whose father starred in Catch-22 with the couple), and Benjamin has had turns on the late-night comedy Childrens Hospital and the Showtime series Ray Donovan in recent years.
