PASSINGS : Warner James Bentley; Founder of Arts Center

Warner James Bentley, 86, founding director of the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College and director of dramatic production at the old Dartmouth Center which in 1939 attracted some of America’s brightest writers and entertainers to the campus. Among them were Brooks Atkinson, George M. Cohan, Helen Hayes, Walter Huston and Orson Welles. Working with author Robert E. Sherwood, Bentley developed an arts center where thousands of plays were staged by the Dartmouth Players. In 1962 he became founding director of the Hopkins Center for the Creative and Performing Arts with Moss Hart, William Inge, Sidney Lumet and Sylvester Weaver Jr. serving as advisers. The center was credited with sparking a national interest in arts centers. In Claremont, Calif., on Saturday.