Dirk Benedict
Dirk Benedict
Dirk Benedictis an American movie, television and stage actor who played the characters Lieutenant Templeton "Faceman" Peck in The A-Team television series and Lieutenant Starbuck in the original Battlestar Galactica film and television series. He is the author of Confessions of a Kamikaze Cowboy and And Then We Went Fishing...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Actor
Date of Birth1 March 1945
CityHelena, MT
CountryUnited States of America
I went from being a big TV star on the lot, with my own parking space, my own table in the commissary, to a complete nobody! When I went to get my stuff, they wouldn't let me on the lot.
With my introduction to Miss Swanson and macrobiotics, I had become obsessed.
We live in an age of experts, and if you are a TV star... it is difficult, if not impossible, to gain respect as a writer of the kind of books I've written or the kind of film I wrote and directed.
Over the years I've had many agents, too many to remember.
It is marketing that makes films popular. Cross-marketing. Selling movies with hamburgers and Coke.
My son flipped. He loved it. He's 9 now, but he still loves reptiles. To this day, he's so proud that his Dad turned into a snake.
That's the network mentality. They're always chasing the polls, trying to second-guess what the people like.
My children are with me morning and night and weekends. Constantly. They are my complete priority, have been, and so they aren't suffering from lack of being with dad.
I was an actor. I wanted to act. But... I didn't want to be a movie star. Never had wanted to be a movie star. I was so naive as to assume that anyone who knew me would know that went without saying.
We had many intellectuals and industry people who looked down on us, as if it were beneath them to even watch us. Nowadays, those comparisons aren't made.
We played on Sunday nights opposite All in the Family. We were supposed to knock off All in the Family. Well, we didn't. They had a different audience and besides, it's a classic. So in the network's view, we were a failure, even thought we were in the Top 20.
The neurosis of all this ageism is that Harrison Ford, Eastwood, Redford, Newman, etc., etc., have been playing heartthrobs until they need more filters than a pack of Camels. And their girlfriends are in their 20s. But being a Movie Star changes all the rules.
The beef, venison and elk vibrations of my first 22 years were still very much controlling the nature of my day-to-day activities. Arthritis was my morning wake-up call, mood swings between ecstasy and despair my daily state of mind, and Scotch my release from it all.
You can never tire, never wilt-and become half-tyrant, half-psychiatrist, half-madman, and half-dead to get it the way you want. Which I did. And it almost killed me.