What happened to Dirk Benedict, Faceman from The A-Team?

Some may not have heard of the name Dirk Benedict, but if you love the '80s, you probably remember the actor who played Face in 'The A-Team' and Lieutenant Starbuck in 'Battlestar Galactica'. That was a long time ago so… Where is the actor now?

The characters we have mentioned were the most important ones of his career. Unfortunately, it didn't go very much further. The actor had to deal with cancer and saw how the industry turned its back on him. However, at almost 80 years old, Benedict is better than ever.

The veteran actor appeared at the Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle in March 2023. He spoke about his iconic character Lt. Starbuck. Having just turned 78, Benedict surprised the audience with his good looks.

These are the most recent images of the actor we have seen in almost a decade (apart from some posts on his Instagram account 'thedirkbenedict'). Before that, Benedict seemed to have said his last goodbye to the public scene.

But that wasn't entirely true. Apart from his cameo in the not-so-successful remake of 'The A-Team' in 2010, the actor was part of the B series action movie 'Space Ninjas' in 2019, and, in 2020, he starred in the Christmas made-for-television movie 'Charlie's Christmas Wish'.

Also, in April 2020, the actor was part of 'Talksport', a radio show of Wireless Group broadcast in the United Kingdom and Ireland, where Benedict discussed the English Premier League with other colleagues.

But let's go back to the origins of his career which started in the '70s and was full of great projects…

Benedict was born on March 1, 1945 in Montana, United States. At 27, he debuted in the Swedish-American co-production 'Georgia, Georgia' (1972). The film was a romantic drama (in the context of racial prejudice) where a black woman named Georgia falls in love with Michael Winters (played by Benedict), an American army deserter in Sweden.

After that, the actor continued to work on other projects: an episode of 'Hawaii 5-0' (1972), the film 'Sssssss' (1973), and as Agent Gil Foley in the show 'Chopper One', also starring Jim McMullan.

Dirk's real last name is actually Niewoenhner (from his German ascendency). However, at the beginning of his career, the actor adopted the Benedict name. How did he get to that particular name? Well, his agent suggested it after watching Dirk eating some eggs benedict!

Throughout the rest of the decade, Benedict continued with projects like the horror film 'W' (1974), the TV movies 'Journey from Darkness' (1975), 'The Cabot Connection' (1977), and 'Cruise into Terror' (1978), and a couple of episodes of 'Charlie's Angels'.

At that moment, the actor was about to live one of the most important moments of his acting career: being chosen as Lieutenant Starbuck in the classic science fiction movie 'Battlestar Galactica' (1978). Thanks to the success of the movie, the film was turned into a television series where Benedict played Starbuck in 21 episodes (1978-1980).

Starbuck was a Viper starfighter pilot of the Colonial Service who joined Galactica at the end of the Thousand Yahren War. He loved to gamble and was after the love of two different women: Lieutenant Athena and Cassiopeia.

It was precisely at the end of the decade when Benedict had to deal with the most difficult moment of his life. In 1975, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He refused to get any medical treatment…

In an interview with People magazine, the actor revealed: "In May of 1975 I was told I had prostate trouble". That illness came at the beginning of his career and marked his entire life and future in the industry.

Also to People, the actor revealed: "I'd already changed my way of eating and I was thinking in much healthier terms. I was so pleased, having thick hair and no arthritis. My whole body had changed. I just didn't believe this could happen."

According to what he explains in his book 'Confessions of a Kamikaze Cowboy', he continued to explore a healthy lifestyle. Advised by the actress Gloria Swanson, the actor locked himself up in a cabin in New Hampshire and focused on a strict macrobiotic diet. He ended up losing a lot of weight but successfully recovering from his illness. To this day, Benedict is still on a macrobiotic diet.

We must add that, according to scientists at the UK Cancer Research Centre, "There is no scientific evidence that the macrobiotic diet treats or cures cancer."

After 'Galactica' and his complicated health journey, the industry did not appear excited to welcome back Dirk Benedict. The actor appeared in a few less relevant movies and guest-starred in TV shows like 'The Love Boat', where he played two different characters: Gary Wells and Jeff Dalton.

Luckily for him, the '80s brought him the most important role of his career. From 1983 to 1984, Dirk Benedict became Templeton Peck, better known as Faceman, for 5 seasons and 96 episodes in the iconic show 'The A-Team'.

Like Lt. Starbuck, Face was a witty and funny womanizer who avoided unnecessary brawls. Thanks to his charm and disguise skills, he was able to obtain any kind of instrument that the group of former U.S. Army soldiers needed in their mercenary missions.

Did you know that another actor played Faceman in the pilot? Tim Dunigan had the part, but producers thought he was too young at age 28 to play a Vietnam veteran. That's when Dirk Benedict came in.

In that sweet era for Benedict, the actor starred in other projects like the movies 'Ruckus' (1980) and 'Body Slam' (1986), the miniseries 'Scruples' (1981), and the TV movie 'Trenchcoat in Paradise' (1989).

In the following decade, the actor continued to work for cinema in 'Blue Tornado' (1991), a questionable copy of 'Top Gun', as well as 'Shadow Force' (1992); 'Demon Keeper' (1994); 'Alaska' (1996); and 'Waking Up Horton' (1998).

In the '90s, Benedict also participated in famous TV shows: he starred in one episode of 'Baywatch' (1992), 'The Commish' (1993), 'Walker, Texas Ranger' (1995), and in two episodes of 'Murder, She Wrote' in 1989 and 1995. However, his star was already fading…

As for his personal life, between 1986 and 1995, Benedict was married to actress Toni Hudson and had two children: George and Roland. However, secretly, the actor had another son. After 30 years, he discovered that in 1968 he had fathered a child whose mother had given him up for adoption.

The '00s were a difficult time for his career. By 2010, the actor had only starred in 5 movies, had put his voice in the 'Battlestar Galactica' video game, and made a cameo in 'The A-Team' remake where Bradley Cooper played the role of Faceman.

Some of the last movies in which we could see the actor in the early '00s were 'Earthstorm' (2006), alongside Stephen Baldwin and Anna Silk; the German movie 'Goldene Zeiten' (2006); 'Recon 7 Down' (2007); and 'Inglorious Bumblers' (2009).

At 61 years old, Benedict also participated in the British edition of 'Celebrity Big Brother 5'. He made it to third place after Shilpa Shetty and Jermaine Jackson.

He also worked behind the camera. In 2001 wrote and directed his first and only feature-length movie, 'Cahoots', starring Keith Carradine, David Keith, and Wendie Malick. The actor had already ventured in that direction with the short film 'Christina's Dream' (1994).

Yet, after this long road with ups and downs, Dirk Benedict returned to acting in 2019 with 'Space Ninjas' and 'Charlie's Christmas Wish' in 2020.

And there's more… Did you know that there is a series of comics with the actor as the protagonist? The collection was called 'Dirk Benedict in the 25th Century', a space adventure that starts when the actor is signing books and a mysterious scientist takes him to the future where he has to try to save humanity from robots.

After a life full of incredible on-screen projects, romances, and an escape from cancer, the actor is arriving at 80. He is as charismatic as any of his most memorable characters. Can he surprise us with more projects?

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