On Friday I shared a post from Classic Movies Digest celebrating Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss and their remarkable 64-year marriage, so I thought this was a perfect time to bring back the opening to their 1967 sitcom, He & She
They met while attending Northwestern University and married in 1961. Then, six years later, CBS gave the real-life couple their own television marriage. Richard played cartoonist Dick Hollister and Paula played his wife Paula, a social worker — something still fairly unusual for a sitcom wife in 1967
Jack Cassidy nearly stole the show as Oscar North, the egotistical actor playing Dick’s comic-book creation Jetman on television. Oscar later became one of the inspirations for Ted Baxter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show
Unfortunately, audiences never really found He & She. CBS scheduled the sophisticated New York comedy Wednesday nights immediately after Green Acres, and Richard Benjamin later felt the two shows attracted very different audiences. After only 26 episodes, CBS canceled it
But the industry certainly noticed. He & She received five Emmy nominations, including acting nominations for Benjamin, Prentiss and Cassidy, and won for comedy writing. Allan Burns, one of those winning writers, would soon co-create The Mary Tyler Moore Show
Their careers certainly didn’t end with the show. Paula went on to The Parallax View and The Stepford Wives. Richard starred in Goodbye, Columbus, Westworld and The Sunshine Boys, then became the director of My Favorite Year, The Money Pit and Mermaids
One season together on television — and more than six decades together in real life
Does anyone remember He & She, or is this opening completely new to you?
