Eric Russell Bentley (September 14, 1916 – August 5, 2020) was a British-born American theater critic, playwright, singer, editor, and translator.[1] In 1998, he was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame. He was also a member of the New York Theater Hall of Fame, recognizing his many years of cabaret performances.
Bentley was one of the preeminent experts on Bertolt Brecht, whom he met at the University of California, Los Angeles as a young man and whose work he translated extensively. He edited the Grove Press issue of Brecht's work, and recorded two albums of Brecht's songs for Folkways Records, most of which had never before been recorded in English.
Bentley was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1969.[13] That same year, he made his homosexuality public. In an interview in The New York Times on November 12, 2006, he said he was married twice before coming out at age 53, at which time he left his position as the Brander Matthews Professor of Dramatic Literature at Columbia to concentrate on his writing. He cited his homosexuality as an influence on his theater work, especially his play Lord Alfred's Lover, based on the life of Oscar Wilde.
Bentley died at his home in Manhattan on August 5, 2020, at the age of 103.[16]
Selected works
He wrote numerous books of theatre criticism. In addition, he edited The Importance of Scrutiny (1964), a collection from Scrutiny: A Quarterly Review, and Thirty Years of Treason: Excerpts from Hearings Before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, 1938–1968 (1971). His most-produced play, Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been: The Investigations of Show-Business by the Un-American Activities Committee 1947–1958 (1972), was based on the transcripts from the House Un-American Activities Committee collected in Thirty Years of Treason.[17]
