Dirk Benedict is a Montana-born actor and author best known for two big TV roles: Lieutenant Starbuck in the original Battlestar Galactica and Templeton "Face" Peck in The A-Team.

Dirk Benedict was born Dirk Niewoehner on March 1, 1945, in Helena, Montana, and grew up in the small town of White Sulphur Springs, where he hunted, fished, and played a lot of sports, especially football. At Whitman College in Washington, friends dared him to try out for the musical Show Boat; he won the lead role, discovered he loved acting, and later completed a two-year theater training program with director John Fernald, performing in plays such as King Lear. Early in his career he chose a stage name by shortening his last name and, according to his often-told story, taking "Benedict" after a breakfast order of Eggs Benedict that his agent noticed.

Benedict's first major film role was in Georgia, Georgia in 1972, and he soon appeared on TV shows including Hawaii Five-O, Chopper One, and other series and TV movies. His big break came in 1978 when he was cast as the charming pilot Starbuck in the science-fiction movie and TV series Battlestar Galactica, and he returned to that role in the Galactica 1980 episode "The Return of Starbuck." In 1983 he began playing smooth-talking Lieutenant Templeton "Face" Peck on The A-Team, appearing in 96 episodes until 1987, and many years later he made a brief cameo as a prisoner in the 2010 A-Team movie.

Dirk Benedict has also written books about his life. In his memoir Confessions of a Kamikaze Cowboy he describes growing up in Montana, becoming an actor, and being diagnosed with prostate cancer in his early thirties, which he says he treated by following a strict macrobiotic diet instead of standard medical care. Health experts consider this choice very risky because it is not supported by good medical research, and modern cancer doctors strongly recommend evidence-based treatments-such as surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy-for prostate cancer. Benedict continues to promote macrobiotic and vegetarian eating and wrote another reflective book, And Then We Went Fishing, about family and life lessons.

In 1986 Benedict married actress Toni Hudson; they had two sons, George and Roland, and later divorced in the mid-1990s, after which he returned to Montana and raised his sons there while continuing to act, direct, and write. For Montana students, his story shows how someone from a small town can end up starring in famous TV shows, writing books, facing serious health challenges, and still choosing to live close to the mountains and countryside where he grew up.