Biography

December 19, 1919 · New York City, New York, USA

February 24, 2012 · Corte Madera, California, USA

1.78 m

Son of Rumanian-born David Freedman who was renowned as "Broadway's leading jokesmith" and the "czar of radio," a Broadway librettist and writer/producer of several radio shows, including the Eddie Cantor program; also grandson of Israel ("The Yankee") Freedman, drama critic and city editor of Yiddish newspapers in New York. Benedict's mother, Beatrice Goodman Freedman, was a Presbyterian missionary.

Novelist, radio scriptwriter, dramatist, mathematician, and aerospace engineer, Ben Freedman planned one career at Columbia University as a premedical student, but he was already noted as being gifted in math (specializing in games and recreational mathematics) and as a contributor of material to radio comedy programs (from the age of 17!), including those of Al Jolson and Robert Benchley. He went next to Curtiss-Wright Technical Institute at Glendale, California, earning a degree in aeronautical engineering.

During the 1940s, Freedman taught calculus and airplane structure at Curtiss-Wright, and was a stress analyst in the aircraft plant of 'Howard Hughes'.