On Friendship, Work and Decorating

If you had to name the two biggest radio/TV comedians of the 20th century, you couldn’t go wrong picking Jack Benny and Bob Hope. Both had long careers that were ended only by ill health. Benny started and finished earlier than Hope, while old Ski Nose was long past his prime when he finally stopped broadcasting specials.

The two were extremely close. Hope appeared on the Benny radio and TV shows, quite content to toss away the script and see if Jack could keep up (at best) or fit a word in (at worst). It was Hope who finished the eulogy at Benny’s funeral when George Burns broke down and couldn’t carry on.

Hope gets a mention in a rambling syndicated column about Benny by Margaret McManus, who had been a writer for the New York World-Telegram and Sun. Perhaps the column’s rambling because of poor editing. It opens talking about an actor who isn’t even the focus of the story and quickly disappears. There are some comments about Hope and then the article veers off in a completely different direction before coming to a sudden stop.

I’ve found two versions of the column, both of which contain the middle piece about Hope, and working, so I’ve mushed them together. They’re from two different papers of March 1969.

You also get an idea of the huge amounts of money Jack Benny had. Who else could buy a house, have it re-decorated, and then sell it because the décor wasn’t right? Not me.

Jack Benny Very Proud Of Friendship With Bob Hope
By MARGARET McMANUS
Pope Hadrian was about to leave. He had been calling on Jack Benny, in Benny's suite at the Sherry Netherlands in New York. The Pope is currently portrayed on Broadway by the English actor, Alec McCowen, in "Hadrian VII."
McCowen is one of the comedian's most enthusiastic and vocal admirers. He thinks Benny is one of the great comedians of his day and a great actor as well. He says Benny is the only comedian who seems to be thinking while he is performing.
Jack Benny was obviously delighted with his visitor. He had first met McCowen in London when he was playing Hadrian there, and he was genuinely happy to see him again in Manhattan. Benny, at 75, is a warm and kind man, who responds to friendship. Affection and loyalty have real significance to him. He relishes talking about his friends, smiles to himself when he's recollecting.
"When you add up this many years, you do take count of what you're proudest of. You know what I'm very proud of? My friendship with Bob Hope. He's a wonderful man and I'm very proud that he's one of my closest friends. He says we're the two biggest hams in the world but he's worse than I am.
"I came in by train this time. I hadn't come by train in 12 or 14 years. I wanted to try It one more time. I thought I'd practice my fiddle on the way, but I didn't. You know Hope could never come by train. He couldn't stop working for four days. Now George Burns doesn't want to work at all anymore. You can't get him to work. All he wants to do is play bridge."
Benny doesn't know how to play bridge. He plays a little gin rummy and he says if he played better golf, he is sure he would work less.
"I play such a lousy game of golf, I get discouraged, and I have to go right back to work," he said. "I like to play with Gary Morton (Lucille Ball's husband). He's a terrific golfer, but he's so nice to play with. He can even make me feel good about my game. That takes talent."
Were he the Ely Culbertson of bridge, and the Jack Nicklaus of golf, Jack Benny would still continue to work. It makes his heart beat and he knows this too well. He enjoys traveling, but he enjoys it much more if he is working at the same time.
“I won’t do more than one show a night, but it’s more fun to come into a strange city if you’re working. All your friends come to see you, and they come back stage, and you have someone to go out to supper with.
“You come into a city as a tourist, and you check into a hotel, and you sit there by yourself. Nobody even knows you’re in town. What else would I be doing if I weren’t performing? I wouldn’t want to go over to somebody’s house for dinner every night. I’d rather do a show.”
His violin concerts are what he most likes to do as a performer.
“I just love to play with symphony orchestras. I love that background. It has such dignity.”

Two years ago Benny and his wife, Mary Livingston, sold the house in Beverly Hills where they had lived for 30 years and moved into an apartment.
“Mary thought she’d love it and she did a beautiful job decorating it. Mary always buys the best. She spent a fortune and two weeks after she had it all finished. I looked at her face one night and I said, ‘you don’t like it, do you?’ She said, ‘I hate it.’ I knew I was dead.”
Now the Bennys have bought another house, in Holmby Hills, and Mary is off to the decorator’s.
“It’s a smaller house than we had but it’s a solid, well built house and it lovely setting, lovely grounds. When Mary gets finished with it, it’ll be a beautiful house. Absolutely nobody can spend money like my wife. Gracie was pretty good at it, but nothing like Mary.
Mary is also his best critic.
“When Mary tells you it’s good, you know it,” he said. “She’s the acid test.”
The Benny’s only daughter, Joan, married to movie producer Robert Blumofe, lives just a few minutes from them, in Beverly Hills. She has four children, two boys and two girls.