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ALL YOUR HAP. PY OCCASIONS (313) 544-7373 Let Do The Your Words - Talking in THE JEWISH NEWS C ritics are praising his latest effort, which stars Cher and Winona Ryder as an odd couple of floundering char- acters: Mom is a sexy '60s sweetie with hip- huggers where her heart should be; daughter Charlotte is a nice Jewish girl who wants nothing more than to be a nun. Mermaids is doing swimm- ingly — and so is Mr. Ben- jamin, who left the world of acting in 1982 for directing, winning raves and respect for his first effort, My Favor- ite Year. In the years since, Mr. Benjamin has helmed Rac- ing With the Moon, City Heat and My Stepmother Is An Alien. The serio-comic sense of alienation existing between the misguided mom and daughter of Mermaids hits home for many in the au- dience. Mr. Benjamin most likely identifies more with the conflicts between the Jewish characters of Good- bye, Columbus, in which he made his movie acting debut 21 years ago. At the time, Columbus was a brave new world for the then-30-year-old actor, whose earlier work had in- cluded Broadway's The Star- Spangled Girl and a TV series with his wife, Paula Prentiss. The film world discovered Richard Benjamin in Columbus, and Mr. Ben- jamin found fame. The actor also had a close encounter with reality in that first film, with its jabs and japes at Jewish sensibilities. "It depicted the middle- class neighborhood I grew up in," says New Yorker Ben- jamin of Columbus. "I felt the same insecurities the character did when he was going out with a girl who came from a better financial situation." Mermaids is making money in a competitive market. Mr. Banjamin, not . surprisingly, has nothing but kind words for Cher, nothwithstanding re- ported rifts the star had with the film's first two directors Call the Jewish News Advertising Dept. 354-6060 72 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1991 Michael Elkin is an enter- tainment writer for the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia. Richard Benjamin on the set. before Mr. Benjamin took over. But Mr. Benjamin would rather direct his attention to the here and now. And one question draws a loud laugh: Who would survive if two demanding Jewish mamas Benjamin is well familiar with — Mrs. Portnoy of Portnoy's Complaint, a film in which Mr. Benjamin starred some years ago as the put-upon son, and Mrs. Flax of Mermaids — were forced to share a room the size of a closet? "I don't know," he muses. "But I'd like to see that one." Mr. Benjamin has seen his way clear to a successful ca- reer that now includes his current coming-of-age com- edy. When did Richard Ben- jamin come of age? He laughs.- "It hasn't happened yet." But Mr. Benjamin did learn responsibility early on. "When I was young, my mother became ill. I felt I had to grow up quickly." The little boy surfaced at matinees. "I went to the movies- every week," re- members Mr. Benjamin of those afternoons that helped give direction to his life. "My uncle was in vaudeville," Mr. Benjamin says of comedian Joe Brown- ing, who used to perform at the Palace in New York. "When I was 5, my parents took me out to see him. I was only in pajamas and a robe, I remember. It's like a dream to me now." A dream burnished with a golden glow. "My uncle was like a 'Sunshine Boy,' " says Mr. Benjamin, who, ironical- ly, earned a 1975 Golden Globe Award as "best sup- porting actor" for portraying the nephew of a legendary comedian in The Sunshine Boys. But back at the Palace .. . "I remember my uncle stan- ding up there on stage. I knew he was talking and people were laughing, and I thought, 'Gee, Uncle Joe has all these friends. He knows 2,000 people who like to visit him.' " Certainly, his nephew was one of them. "I remember very vividly as a child how I used to visit him at the Beacon Hotel. And he always had this trunk in the middle of the room." Have vaudeville, will travel? "He was always ready to go." Years later, Richard Ben- jamin, then in his 20s, had the opportunity to meet the legendary Stan Laurel. "And when I visited him, there it was — the same thing, a trunk in the middle of the room. It was the same deal — he was ready to go." That sense of mission beckons Mr. Benjamin. Only now, he says, the trunk has been traded in for a streamlined model. "The contemporary version for me," chuckles Mr. Ben- jamin, "is the hanging gar- ment bag." Don't hang a "woman's movie" label on his Mer- maids, says Mr. Benjamin,