Robby Benson: From teen idol to Dr. Mauer on "Severance"

Robby Benson is a man of many talents. He is an actor, writer, director, composer, lyricist, professor of film and a novelist.  Robby was born Robin David Segal on January 21, 1956 to a Jewish family in Dallas, Texas.  He is the son of Freda Ann (née Benson), a singer, actor and business promotions manager, and Jerry Segal, a writer.  When Robby was five, his family moved to New York City, where he grew up.  He appeared in television commercials and stage productions before establishing himself as a film star.

At the age of ten, Robby adopted his mother's maiden name as his stage name.  He attended the Lincoln Square Academy in Manhattan, where he graduated as class valedictorian.  By the time he was 12, Robby was co-starring with Ed Begley Jr. on Broadway in a play called. Zelda.  He left the production to star in the film Jeremy.  He also began writing scripts, and by the time he was 18, he'd sold his fourth script to Warner Brothers.

Robby became popular in the 1970s as a teen idol.  Young audiences identified with his coming of age films.  In the romantic drama Jeremy (1973), he co-starred with Glynnis O'Connor as two high school students who have a month-long romance.  In Ode to Billie Joe (1976), based on Bobbie Gentry's hit song, he played the title role of Billie Jo McAllister, with Glynnis O'Connor once again played his love interest.  In One on One (1977), Robby portrayed basketball star Henry Steele in the sports drama he co-wrote with his father, Jerry Segal.

Robby then melted hearts as Nick Peterson in the 1978 romantic drama Ice Castles, the story of the rise and fall of a young figure skater played by Lynn-Holly Johnson.  Robby, who had never skated before, learned how to skate for the film.   "The best thing is interacting with people," he said.  "If you stop and look into their eyes, nothing gets out of hand.  That happened on Ice Castles."

In 1981, Robby co-starred as Danny Saunders in The Chosen, a film based on the best-selling  novel of the same name by Chaim Potok.  

Robby provided the voice of the beast in 1991's Disney animated film Beauty and the Beast.  He also directed television shows, beginning with the first season of  Ellen in 1996, starring Ellen DeGeneres.

In 2007, Robby's novel Who Stole the Funny?  A novel of Hollywood, appeared on the Los Angeles

Times bestseller list.  It's a satire about Hollywood sitcoms.

Robby surfaced recently in the recurring role as creepy Dr. Mauer on Apple TV's Severance.  He told People that working on the series was a dream.  He praised Ben Stiller as the best director he'd ever worked with.  "From the costume designers to the makeup artists . . . Ben Stiller knows what he wants and he shoots it until he gets it, and it's fantastic."

Robby Benson, now 70 years old, leads a private life, focusing on his family and health advocacy.  However, he continues to work as an actor and a voice-over artist.  He also gives instruction on film at universities.

On July 11, 1982, Robby married singer, actress and voice artist Karla DeVito, in Karla's hometown of Mokena Illinois.  The couple celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary in 2023.  In the course of Karla's music career, she has sung many genres, from heavy metal to musical theatre to pop.  She and Robby have two children, a daughter, Lyric Benson (born August 4, 1983) and a son, Zephyr Benson (born March 23, 1992).  Robby and Karla met in 1981 when they were both performing in Pirates of Penzance on Broadway.  Robby was playing Frederic and Karla had replaced Linda Ronstadt in the role of Mabel.  "I fell in love with her immediately and begged her to marry me for a year," Robby told People magazine in 2025.  "I took a year of begging, and it's just the greatest thing that's ever happened to me."

Robby and Karl

END NOTES

* Robby Benson was diagnosed with a heart murmur during his teenage years, the result of an aortic valve defect.  He has undergone four heart surgeries, since age 28, including a bovine valve transplant, to correct congenital aortic valve defects.  Robby credits Karla for keeping him alive.  As a result of his surgeries, he became an activist and fundraiser for cardiac research.  He published a memoir in 2012, detailing his medial issues and his open heart surgeries.  It's titled I'm not dead . . . yet!

* Robby had an early role as Bruce Carson in the daytime soap Search for Tomorrow (1971-1972).  

* In 1975, Robby screen-tested for the role of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, but Mark Hamill was chosen for the part.

SOURCES: People magazine, "How '70s teen idol Robby Benson Ended Up Playing the Creepy Dr. Mauer on Severance"  (Exclusive), by Gillian Telling, March 26, 2025; AmoMama (amomama.com), "Robby Benson & Wife of 40 Years Are 'Simply Beautiful' in Their 60s after They Healed His Ailing Heart," by Junie Sihlangu, January 26, 2023; Wikipedia.; IMDb

- Joanne

The Consequences of a Baseball Lockout

A major league baseball lockout next season seems inevitable., especially after the L.A. Dodger' acquisition of Cy Young pitcher Tarik Skubal from the Detroit Tigers.  The Dodgers have won two consecutive World Series championships and seem poised to win a third.  

It appears grossly unfair that only some teams have the money and the resources to make such a deal.  Without a cap system, there is a terrible imbalance.  At the same time, however, I am very concerned about the damage a lockout will do to the game.  Are the owners and the players considering how a lockout will hurt the fans?  

The fans are not appreciated enough.  I am on their side completely.  The cost of attending a baseball game continues to increase.  Many are forced to stay home and watch the games on television.  Now, the greedy MLB is streaming games on Apple TV, so they won't be able to view those games on the tube.

The fans are being used as pawns, manipulated into spending more and more of their hard-earned money.  For many people, baseball is a welcome diversion from all their problems and their financial woes.  The owners and players possess obscene amounts of money.  Their greed knows no bounds.  There may be a valid reason for a lockout, but the fans will be the ones who pay the price.  I'm talking about the ordinary Joes who just love the game.  Where is the justice in that?

Players, agents and owners consider baseball to be a business.  But why does it have to be only a business?  The powers that be should not forget about the devoted fans, the kind of fans who sit in the bleachers and keep box scores.  We all know the story of how greed killed the golden goose.

- Joanne

Language Corner: Fun with pangrams

What is a pangram?  It's a sentence that contains every letter of the English alphabet at least once.  The most well-known pangram is "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."  It consists of nine words and a total of 35 letters, which is slightly longer than other pangrams.  However, due to its simplicity  and clarity, it is often used for typing practice and to test fonts and computer keyboard layouts.  The origin of this expression can be traced back to February 9, 1885 in The Boston Journal where it appeared as "A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." in an article recommending it as a practice sentence for writing students.  In June of 1885, a similar version appeared in The Mainland Mercury newspaper. The earliest known use of the phrase beginning with "The" can be traced to 1888 in the book Illustrative Shorthand by Linda Bronson and in newspapers such as The Queenslander.

The word "pangram" is derived from the Greek root words "pan," meaning "all," and "gram," which is defined as "something written or recorded."  A perfect pangram is a sentence that contains each letter of the English alphabet only once.  Therefore, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." is not a perfect pangram.  It is, however the most popular pangram.  There are, of course, others.  Here are some examples:

"Quick zephyrs blow, vexing daft Jim."

"Mr. Jock, TV quiz PhD bags few lynx," is a perfect pangram, using only the 26 letters of the English alphabet.  Perfect pangrams are extremely rare.

"Six big devils from Japan quickly forgot how to waltz."

"Farmer Jack realized that big yellow quilts were expensive."

"Amazingly, few discotheques provide jukeboxes."

- Joanne

Some good news for Canada amid Trump turmoil

"I feel sorry for Americans.  If you can't be friends with Canada, then you almost certainly do not have a friend anywhere in the world - and that is a very lonely place to be."

- David Eby

Premier of British Columbia

Premier Eby refused to budge on U.S. booze ban.  He proclaimed, "There is not a chance in hell that U.S. alcohol is going back on the shelf in British Columbia."  Good for him!

Eby is right.  Enough is enough!  Canadians must stand united.  Canadians must stand strong and firm against the bullying of the Trump administration.  The survival of our beautiful country depends upon it.  Trump is trying to pound us into submission.  We must show him that we will not submit.  We must demonstrate that we will not relinquish our sovereignty.  We will never become "the 51st state," as Trump wants.

David Eby

It's sad that the relationship between Canada and the United States has become so strained. 
Canada has always been a good friend and neighbour to the United States.  Unfortunately, the current occupant of the White House and his sycophants seems determined to destroy Canada-U.S, relations, and all the good will that has existed between our two countries.  Only Trump could vilify a peaceful, benevolent nations such as Canada.

How are Canadians supposed to deal with an American president who is clearly deranged and demented?  We cannot trust him.  We cannot believe a word he says because he is unstable and volatile.  He changes his mind from one day to the next.  Trump and his enablers blame Canada for everything and have imposed a 50 per cent tariff on Canadian goods, using rarely-invoked Section 338 of the 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariff act.  It doesn't matter to the Trumpers that Smoot Hawley worsened the Great Depression.  

Oh yes, Donald Trump also had the temerity to blame Canada for the devastating wildfires in the country this summer.  Of course, the blustery Trump has conveniently forgotten that Canadian firefighters regularly assist with firefighting efforts in the United States, including a British Columbia helicopter pilot who lost his life on July 12th, while battling wildfires in Colorado.  Trump is also known for his aversion to fighting climate change and conserving the environment.  He thinks its some kind of hoax.

It is beyond the pale that this man is allowed to wreak such havoc on the world, destroying lives, starting an illegal war against Iran that is killing humans and costing billions of dollars.  He had no plan for waging the war and no plan to exit it.  Donald Trump' enablers among Republicans and billionaires will have much to answer for as this dangerous man continues his assault on humanity and all that is good. 

Despite the Trump tariffs, there was some great news for Canada today.  Canadians need to celebrate and revel in it.  Jacob Tsimerman, a University of Toronto professor, has become the first Canadian-based mathematician to win the prestigious Fields Medal, widely considered to be the discipline's equivalent of a Nobel Prize.  The 38-year-old Tsimerman specializes in number theory and related areas.  Congratulations, prof!  You have made Canada proud.  By the way, Tsimerman is an immigrant to Canada, originally from Russia.

Jacob Tsimerman

My gratitude to all the decent Americans who defend Canada against such bullying, and a special thanks to Democratic Senator Patty Murray (Washington) for calling Republican criticism of Canada's wildfire management insulting and ridiculous.  She said to blame climate change, not Canada.

- Joanne