Ben Stein Biography
Benjamin Jeremy Stein who is best known as Ben Stein is a conservative American writer, lawyer, actor, and commentator on political and economic issues. He entered the entertainment field and became an actor, comedian, and Emmy Award-winning game show host. He is most well-known on-screen as the economics teacher in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) and as Dr. Arthur Neuman in The Mask (1994) and Son of the Mask (2005).
Stein is also a filmmaker. He co-wrote and starred in the 2008 documentary Expelled, which portrays intelligent design (which some associate with creationism) as a scientifically valid alternative to Darwinian evolution and alleges a scientific conspiracy against those promoting intelligent design in laboratories and classrooms. Stein said that his aim was to expose “people out there who want to keep science in a little box where it can’t possibly touch God.”
Ben Stein Age
Ben Stein is 74 years old as of 2019 since he was born on November 25, 1944.
Ben Stein Education
Stein graduated from Montgomery Blair High School in 1962 along with classmate journalist Carl Bernstein, actress Goldie Hawn was one year behind. Actor Sylvester Stallone was a schoolmate at Montgomery Hills Junior High School.
Ben Stein Photo
He went on to major in economics at Columbia University’s Columbia College, where he was a member of Alpha Delta Phi and the Philolexian Society. After graduating with honors from Columbia in 1966, Stein went to Yale Law School, graduating as valedictorian in June 1970.
Ben Stein Family
Stein was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Mildred a homemaker, and Herbert Stein, a writer, economist, and presidential adviser. He is Jewish and grew up in the Woodside Forest neighborhood of Silver Spring, Maryland.
Ben Stein Marriage
Stein is married to entertainment lawyer Alexandra Denman, who is from Arkansas.
They were married in 1968, but later divorced in 1974. Eventually, they got back together, and in 1977, they were married again.
Ben Stein Children
They have one son, Tom, born in 1987.
Ben Stein Net Worth
Ben Stein has a net worth of $20 million dollars, gained as an American actor, writer, lawyer and commentator on political and economic issues.
Ben Stein Height and Weight
At the age of 74, Ben Stein’s height is 5 feet 11 inches (180 cm) while his weight is yet to be determined but very soon it will be updated.
Ben Stein Expelled
Author, actor and political commentator Ben Stein poses the argument that intelligent design and evolution are both valid scientific explanations for the development of life on earth, and that institutions that don’t embrace both views are guilty of stifling academic freedom. Stein makes his case through film clips, interviews with creationists and scientists and his own acerbic observations, including the opinion that Darwin’s theory of evolution is partially responsible for the Holocaust.
Ben Stein Articles
After graduation from law school, he started his career as a poverty lawyer in New Haven, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C. and later joined as an attorney with the Federal Trade Commission. Shortly after, he moved to California to teach film and law classes at the University of California. In 1973, he returned to Washington and resumed his job at the FTC.
As the Watergate scandal unfolded, he wrote editorials in defense of President Richard Nixon. When the articles caught the attention of the Nixon administration, he was recruited by Pat Buchanan. He began his political career as a speechwriter and lawyer for President
Nixon and later for President Gerald Ford.
In 1984, he made his big-screen debut in the role of a surplus salesman in the movie ‘The Wild Life’. His film career received a boost from his famous cameo role as the colorless and boring economics teacher in the 1986 cult movie ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’.
His other film appearances include character roles in ‘Ghostbusters II’ (1989), ‘Dennis the Menace’ (1993), ‘Casper’ (1995), ‘House Arrest’ (1996) and ‘Son of the Mask’ (2005). He also did voice works for several movies such as ‘Rugrats’, ‘Hercules’, ‘The Emperor’s New School’ , ‘King of the Hill’ and ‘Santa vs. the Snowman 3D’.
Some of his notable TV appearances was playing the roles of Rabbi Goldberg on ‘Family Guy’, Dr. Mopp on the ‘Hughleys’, Sam Hinkle on ‘Total Security’, Shellback on ‘Seinfeld’ and Thomas on ‘Married with Children’. He had a recurring role in the TV series ‘The Wonder Years’ (1989-91).
Ben Stein Author-writing
He is also a notable author, an accomplished writer of both fiction and non-fiction books. His fictional works include ‘On the Brink: A Novel’ (1978), ‘Dreamz’ (1978) and ‘Her Only Sin’ (1986).
Some of his non-fiction books are ‘The View from Sunset Boulevard: America as brought to you by the people who make television’ (1979), ‘How to Ruin Your Life’ (2002), ‘How to Ruin Your Financial Life’ (2004), ‘Yes, You Can Be a Successful Income Investor: Reaching for Yield in Today’s Market’ (2005), ‘The Real Stars: In Today’s America, Who Are the True Heroes?’ (2007) and ‘How To Really Ruin Your Financial Life and Portfolio’ (2012).
He continues to write on a variety of topics including politics, investing, and economics. He writes a regular column in the conservative magazines ‘The American Spectator’ and ‘Newsmax’. He has also written for numerous publications including ‘The Wall Street Journal’, ‘The New York Times’, ‘New York Magazine’ and ‘Penthouse’.
Ben Stein Books
Ben Stein Quotes
- The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.
- The human spirit needs to accomplish, to achieve, to triumph to be happy.
- Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will.
- Personal relationships are the fertile soil from which all advancement, all success, all achievement in real life grows.
- Jump into the middle of things, get your hands dirty, fall flat on your face, and then reach for the stars.
- It’s amazing what ordinary people can do if they set out without preconceived notions.
- You must take the first step. The first steps will take some effort, maybe pain. But after that, everything that has to be done is real-life movement.
- If you can’t stand the heat, don’t go to Cancun in the summer.
- The successful people of this world take life as it comes. They just go out and deal with the world as it is.
- Nothing happens by itself… it all will come your way, once you understand that you have to make it come your way, by your own exertions.
Ben Stein On Trump
Stein’s sense of humor was very much evident in a talk that warmed up the audience with a stream of jokes. But after that, he got down to business, and a grim business it was. After cataloging ills ranging from slavery to the 2008 economic meltdown that the United States has survived, only to see new problems crop up, he concluded “What have we learned? Things are very uncertain.”
Then he launched into what he sees as the most pressing problems confronting the nation today. First on his list was the deficit. “It’s getting out of control,” he said. He had harsh words for President Donald Trump’s tax cuts.
“You cannot expect to cut taxes drastically and expect to have more revenue,” he said. “It can’t be done. It’s the Republican answer to the Green New Deal. It’s a childish fantasy.”As for the Democrats’ Green New Deal and Medicare for All proposals, if they were enacted “we will be bankrupt instantly,” Stein said. Come to that, “we’re bankrupt right now” if we add up all the country owes in bond payments, Medicare, Social Security, and other benefits, he said.
Beyond the economic unsustainability of the Green New Deal, Stein claimed enforcing the plan would put the nation on “a straight line to dictatorship.”He’s also fearful of inflation. “We’re pumping money into this economy at an alarming rate,” he said. If inflation takes off, there’s no remedy in sight for a couple of reasons, he said. The country can’t cut expenditures without infuriating the left and we need to spend more on defense. If the Federal Reserve raises interest rates, the nation risks plunging into recession.
“We are living in a Pollyannaish best of all possible worlds but it can’t go on,” he said. Stein also raised red flags about the U.S. education system, for which he said the country pays more and gets less than other developed nations, and loosening marijuana laws. His pal tycoon Warren Buffett says the country will get through these problems just as it has the ones that preceded them, Stein said.
Ben Stein Evolution
Ben Stein got his start as a lawyer and a speechwriter for Presidents Nixon and Ford, and in more recent years he has written books, offered investment advice, and hosted both a game show (Win Ben Stein’s Money) and a reality TV show (America’s Most Smartest Model). But he is probably still best known for playing the boring high-school economics teacher who took attendance in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Now Stein is tackling education of a different kind, as the star of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, a documentary about the Intelligent Design movement—and the academic establishment’s efforts to stifle the debate over the limitations of evolutionary theory that many ID advocates have been calling for.
The film opens in limited release this Friday.
How did you get involved in this movie?
Ben Stein: Walt Ruloff [co-writer and co-producer of the film] contacted me and showed me a bunch of very interesting slides and moving pictures about the cell. We talked a lot about the historical effects of Darwinism and social Darwinism, and he asked me if I would like to host a discussion about where Darwinism had gaps and where there were some unanswered questions about evolution. He said I could have a little bit of input into the storyline. I told him I was especially horrified by what Darwinism’s social and historical impact had been on Jews, and that that would motivate me to try to get some involvement in the project.
How familiar were you with the subject of Intelligent Design prior to this?
Stein: Not at all. I’m still not that familiar with it. I’m more familiar with it than most people, but nowhere near as familiar with it as a genuine expert in the subject. I don’t pretend to be a scientist. I’m the person who moderates the …
Ben Stein Bueller
It’s been 30 years since Ben Stein’s dry, droning roll call in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” but that iconic line is still regularly quoted by fans of the cult classic. Remarkably, Stein says he didn’t even consider himself an actor when he delivered that infamous scene. The former lawyer says he just happened to be in the right place at the right time.“Talk about good luck,” Stein tells “Oprah: Where Are They Now?” in the above clip. “One of the people I met when I was first out here, they said ‘We’re making a movie called “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and we’d like you to read the roll off-camera.’”
Stein was a game. “I showed up and I remember just waiting and waiting and waiting, they were running way behind,” he recalls. “And I sat there in the director’s trailer visiting with John Hughes, who was a super, super famous director, producer, and writer of youth comedies. Then it came time for me to play my part and I did the reading of the roll off-camera, and the student extras just laughed their heads off. [They were] screaming with laughter.”
Under John Hughes’ direction, Stein read the roll again. The cast laughed even harder, Stein says. “[Hughes] said, ‘Alright, I want you to do a scene – just make it up in your head, don’t even tell it to me, in which you’re teaching about some current economic event and some controversy.’”His background in economics paid off, and his audition impressed more than just Hughes.
“When I was done with the scene, Matthew Broderick came up to me and said, ‘You’re really great. Have you done much Broadway?’ I said, ‘Well, I’m not an actor.’ He said, ‘You should be.’”The role launched Stein’s acting career and gave him instant fame. “It’s been 30 years,” Stein says. “Even now as I’m going through the Atlanta airport or the Denver airport, or any airport, everybody stops me and says, ‘Say Bueller, say Bueller.’”Stein wouldn’t have it any other way. “I just walk by and say ‘Bueller, Bueller.’” he deadpans. “It’s fabulous.”