Famous People with Name Benjamin

Richard Benjamin            Origin/Culture/Country: American

Richard Benjamin: is an American actor and film director.Benjamin was born in New York City, New York and attended the High School of Performing Arts. He married actress Paula Prentiss on October 26, 1961 and they have two children. He graduated from Northwestern University where he was involved in many plays and studied in the famous Northwestern theater school. Benjamin is Jewish.[1

Joel Benjamin            Origin/Culture/Country: American

Joel Benjamin: is a chess Grandmaster and is currently the highest rated active chess player who was born in the United States. In 1998 Benjamin was voted “Grandmaster of the Year” by the U.S. Chess Federation.

Dwayne Benjamin            Origin/Culture/Country: American

Dwayne Benjamin: a Canadian economist and member of the University of Toronto faculty.Benjamin is currently the managing editor of the Canadian Journal of Economics and an associate editor of the journal Economic Development and Cultural Change.Benjamin received his B.Sc. from the University of Toronto in 1984. He later obtained M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1986 and 1989 respectively.

Jason Benjamin            Origin/Culture/Country: Australian

Jason Benjamin: an Australian painter. Benjamin was born in Melbourne in 1971 and now lives and works in Sydney. He has been exhibiting since 1989 and won the 2005 Packing Room Prize at the Archibald Prize with a painting of actor Bill Hunter titled "Staring down the past". He won the 1993, 1994 and 1996 Mosman Art Prizes in Sydney. In 1997, he was awarded the prestigious Kings School Art Prize for landscape painting.

Sathima Bea Benjamin            Origin/Culture/Country: African

Sathima Bea Benjamin: a South African vocalist and composer born in Johannesburg, raised in Cape Town, and now based in New York City.As a youth, Sathima Bea Benjamin first performed popular music in talent contests at the local cinema (bioscope) during intermission. By the 1950s she was singing at various nightclubs, community dances and social events, performing with notable Cape Town pianists Tony Schilder and Henry February, amongst others. She built her repertoire watching British and American movies and transcribing lyrics from songs heard on the radio, where she discovered Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, Doris Day, Ella Fitzgerald. These musicians would come to influence her singing style, notably in terms of light phrasing and clear diction.