Bennett debuted on stage in the role of Ophelia in a
Queen's Theatre production of
Hamlet in 1959. He made his television debut in 1964, making early appearances in episodes of
Doctor Who and
Theatre 625. In 1966, he appeared as the lead Willy Turner in
BBC1 Wednesday Play "Where the Buffalo Roam". This role as a mentally disturbed, cowboy-obsessed teenager was the first of many parts in
Dennis Potter television plays. His first film appearance was as Leonardo in the 1966 Italian ''Il marito è mio e l'ammazzo quando mi pare'' ("It's my husband and I'll decide when to kill him"), directed by
Pasquale Festa Campanile, a comedy in which a young wife carefully plans to murder her husband, who is 40 years her senior, to marry a young beatnik. Bennett then starred as nervously virginal newlywed Arthur Fitton opposite
Hayley Mills in the
Boulting brothers' adaptation of
Bill Naughton's play
The Family Way (1966). He was cast after John Boulting saw him in the
Alan Plater play
A Smashing Day and felt he had "the appearance of both sensitivity and masculinity." The success of the film gained Bennett a contract with
British Lion Films Bennett's film roles continued into the 1970s, notably with the film adaptation of
Joe Orton's
Loot (1970) and
Endless Night (1972), an
Agatha Christie adaptation again pairing him with Hayley Mills. He was the preferred choice for the role of Brian Roberts in
Bob Fosse's
Cabaret (1972), but wrongly assumed it was a singing role and didn't read the script. The part went to
Michael York. He starred in the
Ralph Thomas-directed
sex comedies Percy (1971), in which he plays a shy young man who becomes the recipient of the world's first penis transplant, and
The Love Ban (1973). Of this period in his career, Bennett would later state "I had come in at the tail end of everything, the studio system and so on. I found myself in the early 70s with nowhere to go." He returned to the festival in 1990 as
Long John Silver in a stage adaptation of
Robert Louis Stevenson's
Treasure Island. He appeared in several
National Theatre productions including playing
Mark Antony in
Julius Caesar (the
Young Vic, 1972) and Marlow in the
She Stoops to Conquer (the
Lyttelton Theatre, 1984). Other notable roles include
Prince Hal in
Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2 (the
Mermaid Theatre, 1970), the lead in
Hamlet on a 1974 South African tour and Andrey Prozorov in
Three Sisters (the
Albery Theatre, 1987). Bennett's television career resumed with appearances in episodes of
Play for Today (1973) and
The Sweeney (1976). In 1978, he appeared in Dennis Potter's musical drama
Pennies from Heaven as Tom, a pimp. In 1979, Bennett appeared as the field agent
Ricki Tarr in
Arthur Hopcraft's six-part
BBC2 adaptation of
John le Carré's novel
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979), playing the character with "an ever-thinning veneer of boyish charm masking years of self-delusion and betrayal" according to the BFI. In 1981, he played
occult novelist Gideon Harlax in
David Rudkin's television play
Artemis 81. In 1979 he took the lead role in the
Thames Television sitcom
Shelley (1979–84) as the titular "professional freelance layabout" James Shelley, a philosophical and sardonic geography graduate with no desire to work. According to Bennett, "the writers had done something pretty amazing. They had created what was almost a monologue and turned it into a popular sitcom." In 1986, he played the investigative journalist Allan Blakeston in
Paula Milne's single drama
Frankie and Johnnie, a production he described as "one of the best things I've done in quite a long time". He lost weight to give the character a "hungry and haunted look". The following year, he played an architect whose reaction to urban violence is to steadily turn his suburban home into a virtual fortress in
Andy Hamilton's black comedy
Checkpoint Chiswick, part of the
Tickets for the Titanic anthology series. By the mid-1990s alcoholism and treatment for an overactive
thyroid He was often cast in unsavoury roles including club owner Arthur 'Pig' Mallion in Dennis Potter's final, linked television plays
Karaoke and
Cold Lazarus (both 1996) and the villainous Mr Croup in
Neil Gaiman's serial
Neverwhere (1996). On film, he played in
Dr. Crippen in
Deadly Advice (1994) and
Jean-Baptiste Colbert in
Vatel (2000). He appeared in
Lock, Stock... (2000) as Deep Throat and joined the cast of the long-running soap opera
EastEnders in 2003, playing
Jack Dalton – the ruthless gangland kingpin of
Walford. Other late television appearances include ten appearances as sex offender Peter Baxter in
The Bill (2002–2005) and as Dr. Mike Vine in the first episode of
Jam & Jerusalem (2006). His final television role was opposite
Peter Davison in an episode of
The Last Detective (2007). ==Personal life and death==