William Benedict

Benedict was born in Haskell, Oklahoma, After his father's death when Billy was three years old, his mother supported him and his two sisters. He took part in school theatricals, and on leaving school he made his way to Hollywood.

Benedict's first film was $10 Raise (1935) starring Edward Everett Horton, which launched the blond-haired young man on a busy career. He almost always played juvenile roles, such as newsboys, messengers, office boys, and farmhands.

In 1939, when Universal Pictures began its Little Tough Guys series to compete with the popular Dead End Kids features, Billy Benedict was recruited into the cast. These films led him into the similar East Side Kids movies, usually playing a member of the East Side gang, but occasionally in villainous roles. The East Side Kids became The Bowery Boys in 1946, and Benedict stayed with the series, as "Whitey", to the end of 1951.

Other films included My Little Chickadee (1940) starring W. C. Fields and Mae West, The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), Ed Wood's Bride of the Monster (1955), The Sting (1973) and Farewell, My Lovely (1975). Benedict never shook his juvenile image completely, and continued to play messengers and news vendors well into his sixties. He often worked in television commercials, and in television series, including The Andy Griffith Show, All in the Family, and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

Benedict died at age 82 on November 25, 1999, at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, following heart surgery.