Martin Benrath, born Helmut Kurt August Hermann Krüger on November 9, 1926, in Berlin, attended actor's training at Maria Loya's and became a cast member of Theater am Schiffbauerdamm already one year later. In 1952, he went to Düsseldorf"s Schauspielhaus to work with Gustaf Gründgens. Due to an accident which left him with a scar on his cheek similar to the gashes of members of student"s fraternities, Benrath was often to be seen as a member of a student"s corps or as a Prussian officer like in his movie debut, the exceedingly successful two-part film "Meines Vaters Pferde" (1954).

In the following years, Benrath became one of the most sought-after actors for minor roles. He played in popular music films like "Tausend Melodien", in sentimental regional films like "Heidemelodie", or in comedies like "Die ideale Frau" ("The Ideal Woman") – commercially successful movies with little to no ambition. But in Bernhard Wicki's war movie "Morituri" (1965) Benrath was finally allowed to play a complex character. Alongside Marlon Brando and Yul Brynner, Benrath made a remarkable appearance as a reckless Nazi officer who puts his career first.

Despite his movie success, Benrath still mainly performed on stage. He was a cast member of Düsseldorf's Schauspielhaus until 1962 before he went to Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel for seven years. But from the mid-1970s on, Benrath again focussed on his movie career and played, for example, in Bernhard Sinkel's and Alf Brustellin's "Berlinger – Ein deutsches Abenteuer" ("The Outsider"). Benrath also received rare reviews for his roles as a cynical operative in the thriller "Kaltgestellt" ("Put on Ice") and in "Der Kinoerzähler" ("The Movie Teller"), a nostalgic homage to the era of the silent film. Both films were directed by Bernhard Sinkel.

In the later part of his career, Benrath gave memorable performances as the lonely chief editor of "Stern" in Helmut Dietl's satire "Schtonk" (1992) and as the sage grandfather in Jo Baier's adaptation of Erwin Strittmatter's novel "Der Laden" (The Store), which won Benrath the Grimme Preis in Gold in 1999. In the same year, he starred in the three-part TV movie "Zwei Asse und ein König". The role of the king was to be the last role in his long career. Martin Benrath died on January 31, 2000, the day of the first broadcast of "Zwei Asse und ein König", in Herrsching at the Ammersee.