There came a time early in the 1940s when Benchley, after years of resisting identification as an actor, had to concede that he no longer considered himself a writer. Nathaniel Benchley tells of his father's announcement, in November 1943, "that he was through with writing and was resigned to being a radio and movie comedian," but he had already issued much the same statement two years earlier in a Columbia Studios press release. According to this source, he had wearied of trying to maintain several careers and had decided to narrow his activities: "Put me down as an actor.… From now on I am going to cut out everything but screen work, and limit that to acting." Between 1940 and his death in 1945, he played supporting roles in thirty feature-length pictures, starred in fifteen more short subjects, and continued his frequent guest appearances on radio broadcasts, though his own radio...