Susan Harris Looks Back on "Benson"

[JamesG]

Harris knew “almost immediately” that the character of Benson — the Tate family’s sharp-witted butler played by Robert Guillaume — could carry his own show. When asked what interested her about building a show around Benson, she replies, “Money.”

Harris wrote the pilot and then returned to her “baby,” Soap — a pattern that would continue throughout her career. Benson would run seven seasons, three more than the show that spawned it.



Benson was such a beloved character, we knew we could do a spin-off. What [Robert] brought to the role was, he was the smartest person in the room. He was the voice of sanity and reality, and he let everybody know that. He really did everything — he served every aspect of a character that you could. And he was a pleasure to work with.

The show did very, very well. I was not very involved because of "Soap". I couldn’t do everything — as it was, I could hardly do "Soap". There’s just so much of me you can spread around. But it didn’t stop me from creating shows, writing the pilot, and leaving — and that’s why [my husband] called me a “creator-deserter.” I would stick around for the first couple of episodes and that was it. I wasn’t emotionally invested in those shows the way I was in "Soap" and "Golden Girls".

https://ew.com/tv/2018/10/15/susan-h...-oral-history/