Description:
Dirk Benedict was born in Montana on March 1st, 1945. He was raised in the country, far away from anything connected with movies or acting. He gathered his first experiences in acting (on a dare) in a college production of "Showboat" where he got the main part. His father, a lawyer, died when Dirk was 18, which was hard for him to take. While working on Georgia, Georgia (1972) in Sweden, he made the first contact with a macrobiotic diet and changed his eating habits drastically. He was 26 at that time. A few years later, doctors found that he had cancer of the prostate. He refused to accept the usual treatment and moved away to a secluded cottage. Dirk managed to cure himself from cancer by following the rules of his macrobiotic diet. When he got his part as "Starbuck" in Battlestar Galactica (1978), the doctors stated that he was in good health. Dirk's main successes were "Battlestar Galactica" and The A-Team (1983) in which he played "Templeton - The Face - Peck". He was formerly married to actress Toni Hudson and has two sons (George and Roland).
Birthday
March 1, 1945
Born In
Helena, Montana, USA
Height
178 cm
Parents
Priscilla Mella Niewoehner
Children
George William Niewoehner
Relatives
Roy Niewoehner (Sibling)
Trivia
After his parents divorced, Dirk's mother got a restraining order taken out against her ex-husband, prohibiting him from seeing the children at their own home. When Dirk was 18, his father violated the order and told Dirk to go fishing with him. Dirk's mother had previously told him to say whatever he needed to to get out of going with his father. Fed up, his father stormed into the house, was shot and killed by his older son, who also nearly shot Dirk when he followed their father into the living room.
Quotes
[on the The A-Team (1983)] I enjoyed it immensely. By nature I'm terribly serious, so as an actor I tend to want to be silly. It was a comedic show, almost like a cartoon. We just had to hang on to enough reality to make
it possible for adults to watch it. The actors I worked with, especially Mr. T and Dwight Schultz, were very funny people. It was pretty much four years of laughter.
