Portrayed by Dean Bennett

Best known for inventing the phonograph, motion picture camera, and a long-lasting light bulb, every day we touch something that Edison touched. With 1095 patents, this  7th child of 7 children was an inventor and had his first business by the age of 12. His success is all the more remarkable because Edison was a sickly child, homeschooled by his mother and then self-taught. But this enterprising young man was always alert to life’s possibilities and was sometimes rewarded for his awareness. For example, after saving a 3 year-old boy from being hit by a train, the grateful station agent (and father of the child) trained young Edison to operate a telegraph. Never one to let circumstance limit him, Edison believed that each person is in charge of his own being. Although Edison was 80% deaf in one ear and 100% deaf in the other, he loved music and musicals. He made the most of every situation, improving what already existed and inventing what did not yet exist. As he said, invention is “99% perspiration and 1% inspiration.” By being prepared, being aware, and taking (repeated) action, there will be success.

Like Edison, Bennett is a lover of music and shows a deep appreciation for a life spent exploring life’s opportunities. Bennett’s Edison is a man enamored of the quest for information, intrigued with education and committed to improving the world through his participation in it.  Bennett’s Edison is a hard-working man, like Bennett himself, not content with the status quo, always asking questions and encouraging audience members to do the same. Intimately familiar with Edison’s inventions and improvements, like microphones and light bulbs, because of a successful career in radio and in the theatre, Bennett’s Edison can speak with authority on the practical applications of electronics and engineering. And like Edison, a defender of Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason, Bennett is a deeply moral man, seeking to make the world a better place with his humor, his imagination and his insights.

Invite Dean Bennett’s Thomas Edison to gatherings of inventors, engineers, artists:

• Educational Programs: Programs for Schools, Libraries, Museums, Historical Sites
• Pair with Alexander Graham Bell, Samuel Morse, Thomas Paine
• Dean Bennett: Bio of Actor/Historian, Reenactor, or Impersonator