Benzali began his acting career as a theatre actor, including the Royal Shakespeare Company in Great Britain.
He played faded film director Max von Mayerling, alongside Patti LuPone, in the original (1993) cast of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard.
[7][8] In 1985 he was cast in the James Bond film A View to a Kill as W. G. Howe,[9] the Californian director of Oil and Mines, based at San Francisco City Hall.
Bochco later revealed that he fired Benzali because he refused to leave his home before he completed his morning bowel movement and was perpetually late to the set.
[3] Benzali also starred in the TV series The Agency and appeared in feature films including By Dawn's Early Light (1990), Murder at 1600 (1997), The Grey Zone (2001), and Suckers (2001).
[9] He appeared in the post-apocalyptic CBS series Jericho as the enigmatic former Department of Homeland Security director Thomas Valente.