Biography

Robert Benedetti was born on February 27, 1939 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988), Miss Evers' Boys (1997) and A Lesson Before Dying (1999). He has been married to Joan M. Howe since 1966. They have two children.

He was awarded a 1980 Joseph Jefferson Award Citation for Director of a play for "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" at the Court Theatre in Chicago, Illinois.

Had a daughter with the late Karen Black, Diane Koehnemann Bay, who was born March 4, 1959, when Karen and Robert were respectively 19 and 20 years old. Karen was then a divorcée studying at Northwestern where Robert was also studying. Diane was adopted at birth by Don and Joan Koehnemann. On August 7, 2012, Diane got in touch with Karen through Facebook after the state of Illinois unsealed its adoption records; ironically, Karen had disclosed the secret of Diane's existence to her own family just a few months earlier. Diane's memoir, "Finding Karen Black," came out August 8, 2022.