Biography

Thomas Hart Benton was born on April 15, 1889 in Neosho, Missouri, USA. He was an actor, known for The United States Steel Hour (1953), Night Descends on Treasure Island (1940) and They Drew Fire (2000). He was married to Rita Piacenza. He died on January 19, 1975 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA.

Inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians, 1985.

Burt Lancaster hired Benton to paint a portrait of him in character as The Kentuckian (1955) to be used for publicity purposes. Benton traveled to the film location in Rockport, Indiana, in autumn 1953 to watch the filming. The painting, which pictures Lancaster as Eli Wakesfield and his son Little Eli, played by Donald MacDonald, was only exhibited at the Washington, D.C. film premiere, although it was later used on a limited edition bottle of Jim Beam's Choice Whiskey in the 1970s. Lancaster left the painting to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where it may be seen today.

In 1941 Benton was commissioned by Twentieth-Century Fox Film Corporation to do a series of lithographs portraying the habitat and main characters of their film version of Vereen Bell's "Swamp Water".

Life Magazine commissioned Benton to go to Hollywood in 1937 to paint his version of the movie capitol. Benton spent most of his time at 20th Century Fox, observing the filming of "In Old Chicago" and "Ali Baba Goes to Town," among others. The resulting painting "Hollywood" was later rejected by Life due to the scantily clad woman at the center of the painting. Life finally published the painting in their December 12, 1938 issue after it won 1st Prize at the Carnegie Institute Exhibit. While at Fox Benton also produced the ink wash sketches "Burning of Chicago," "Dubbing in Sound" and "Director's Conference." The "Hollywood" painting may be seen today at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri.

Benton worked in the film industry circa 1916-1917 in Fort Lee, New Jersey. He was hired by former roommate Rex Ingram to provide scenic research, set design and painted backgrounds.

[on his failed attempt at collaborating with Walt Disney] Walt Disney brought me out to Hollywood in 1946 to work on a picture that would have been sort of an American operetta about the life of Davy Crockett. Well, Disney had just put up a huge modern studio and was tremendously overextended financially, and his operations were actually under the control of a big New York City bank. And immediately the bankers started meddling with the story line. They knew that a large percentage of Disney's profits came from showing his films in Latin America, and so they didn't think it would be good business to have Crockett killed at the Alamo by Mexicans. So I suggested that we have Davy die in Congress from listening to all the oratory. They didn't like that, of course. They wanted him to just fade gloriously up in the sky or something. Well, hell, I wasn't going to have any part of that, so I sold my interest in the project to Disney for three thousand dollars and went home. I wish I hadn't signed away my interest. Years later Walt put Crockett on television and made a fortune.

[on his friendship with director Rex Ingram] One time Rex got it into his head that I might be made into an actor and gave me a part in a barroom scene with Paddy Sullivan and Jimmy Kelly and a lot of the other pugs of those days who put on the fights for the movies. When that picture came out, it went into theaters in Missouri and some friends of my father saw it, recognized me, and told him about it. The old man was outraged and wrote me a scathing letter about where my artistic ambitions were leading me.