Dirk Benedict, who will forever be known as Templeton “ The Faceman” Peck” from the popular ’80s TV show the A -Team and Starbuck from the original Battlestar Galactica, has been “working on maintaining his anonymity” since the A-Team ended in 1986.
He will be a special guest at Lethbridge Comicon, Oct. 17-19 at the Lethbridge College Barn.
The obvious question is what he’s been doing since then. He is a great observer of the world around him.
“It’s been 20-30 years. It’s a book,” Benedict said, taking a long pause over the phone from his home in Montana, to light or relight a cigar as he thinks about the question.
He has in fact written a couple of books, “ Confessions of a Kamikaze Cowboy: A True Story of Discovery Acting Health, Illness, Recovery and Life ” about how to eat healthy, which he released in 1987 and “ And Then We Went Fishing: A Story of Fatherhood, Fate and Forgiveness,” which he released in 1995 about his own early years and his wife’s home birth.
“ I’m driving to Lethbridge, so I can bring some of the books with me for people. Usually I fly and they’re too heavy to carry. I have a great publisher. He keeps them. I sell maybe 3,000 a year. Most publishers would drop you for that,” he said.
Recently he co-wrote a comic book “Dirk Benedict in the 25th Century, with Scott Phillips a story about Benedict appearing at a Comicon and being taken by aliens to the 25th century.
“I wrote three issues with Scott Phillips and the guy disappears. I’ve never even seen an issue. I’d like to find a copy of it and so I could bring them to these Comicons so I could tell people about it and get paid for them,” he said adding he goes to a couple of Comicons a year including several in Europe where the A Team and Battlestar Galactica are very popular.
“It’s very funny. It was a lot of fun to write it, I’m trying to convince the aliens that I’m not Starbuck, but go to the 25th century and find out I actually can do all of these things,” he continued.
But the main thing he’s been doing is raising his sons, now 24 and 26.
“I’ve been being a single father and that's a difficult. It’s a 24-7 job,” he said adding one of his sons is a very good soccer player, so he has been accompanying him to places like Glasgow and Malta while he pursues his dreams.
Soccer has brought him to Lethbridge a couple times.
“ You have a really beautiful indoor facility there.
His team won a big tournament here a few years ago.
He noted television of changed since the days of the A-Team, which he compared to the old westerns of the ’50s and ’60.
“ When they redid Battlestar Galactica, the first thing they did was turn me into a girl. And they made Cylons the good guys and humans the bad guys,” he observed.
“In the day of the A-Team team things were more black and white. There were bad guys and good guys. Now it’s all shades of grey,” he continued adding he has found it fascinating to watch how television has changed, though he doesn’t watch a lot of TV or go to many movies.
“ Now everything is so politically correct. Even James Bond has come a long way from Sean Connery. Now the Bond girls are all martial arts experts. They're warriors,” he said.
“We took her out to dinner and told her, no, we don’t need a fifth member of the A-Team. You’re supposed to be the reporter. We’re playing with guns and doing foolish things. You’re supposed to be on the sidelines rolling your eyes saying, ‘oh now they’re doing this.’ She wanted to have a gun and get into a fight which is what the girls are doing now” he said.
“Both the shows I was in were ensembles. There were no quote, unquote stars. I didn’t write or produce the show, but I created the character. And I’m proud, no I’m pretty pleased to be identified with these characters. They were family shows. I could be identified with a show like Breaking Bad where they guy is making Meth or the Sopranos where the guy is known for killing a whole bunch of people,” he said.
“But people who saw these shows when they were eight are 35 or 38 now. And their kids are watching it,” he observed.
“You couldn’t let your 7-year-old watch the new Battlestar Galactica. Well you could but I wouldn’t,” he said.
He has tried to keep touch with his fellow A Team stars.
“I talk with Dwight (Schultz, who played Howling Mad Murdoch) quite a bit. He’s still in Hollywood. He does a lot of voice work. And I was in touch with Mr. T until about 8 or 9 years ago but we’ve lost touch,” he said.
“ I’d love it if somebody would come up with enough money to get all three of us in a new project,” he said.
He misses acting though not the acting business in Hollywood.
“ In a way it’s hell always been taken back 30 years because everybody knows me from the A Team and Battlestar Galactica,” he said.
“I could do it again if I wanted— do the interviews and get an agent but I’d have to move back to Hollywood,” he said.
“ So I sit here waiting for the phone to ring. Well I don’t but if someone calls and offers me a job, I take it,” he said adding in 2010 he performed as Lieutenant Columbo in the stage production in Europe.
“A lot of people didn’t know, including me, that Columbo started out as a very popular Broadway play in 1961. it was a huge success,” he observed.
He also got along well with George Peppard, who passed away several years ago.
“He was the older actor and most experienced. I learned a lot from him. Mostly about scripts. He was always changing things and editing. Mostly removing things which caused some trouble with the producers. He understood script. He understood that the A-Team was supposed to be cartoonish,” he said.
“ I got along well with him. I’ve got along with everybody, he said.
He noted people are obsessed with the concept of celebrity.
“People think if they become a celebrity it will solve all their problems, but if you already have problems, being a celebrity will only make them worse. You can just afford bigger problems,” he said
While he doesn’t watch a lot of television or movies, he explored the exploding of “reality” television by being on a season of Celebrity Big Brother.
“I didn’t find it very difficult. I ’ve been living as a recluse in Montana anyway, so being locked up with 30 other quote unquote celebrities was actually very nice. I have very few needs. I smoke cigars and I had it in my contract that I could have them. And we were living on rice and beans, which is all I eat anyway,” he said adding his favourite part of it was watching the other celebrities.
“ Girls and their chocolate. You wouldn’t want to get in their way otherwise they’d kill you. It’s an addiction,” he said embarking on a long diatribe about the dangers of sugar and chocolate.
“ Sugar is how they reward kids today with Halloween and Christmas.”
