Answering the Phone on the Radio

A wonderful cast of secondary players populated the Jack Benny radio show, ones who weren’t part of the opening credits. In the post-war years, Mel Blanc was at the top of the list. Jack loved his work so much that Mel would be referred to be name in a number of the shows and he pretty much appeared every week for the last several years.

A few of them, besides Blanc, had several roles on the show, and they included Bea Benaderet and Sara Berner. They became telephone operators at the start of the 1945-46 season. Benaderet stayed until the end, Berner was replaced by Shirley Mitchell in early 1953 in what TV Guide said was a dispute over money.

Their characters moved from NBC to CBS along with the radio show. I don’t recall a reference on the show to their move, though there were some jokes about Bill Paley inducing all kinds of people to switch networks.

Radio Life wrote about them in its issue of November 9, 1947. It doesn’t really say all that much, other than give a few radio credits.

Introducing the Two Very Adept Actresses Who Are Jack's "Number Plee-yuz" Problem
By Judy Maguire
(BUZZERS LOUD, AS IN A SWITCHBOARD)
Bea: Oh, Mabel.
Sara: What is it, Gertrude?
Bea: Your outside line is flashing.
Sara: You get it, will you?
Bea: Okay. (SOUND, CLICK OF PLUG). National Broadcasting Company. Oh, hello. What? Just a minute, I'll connect you. (SOUND, CLICK OF PLUG). Oh, Mabel, it's Mr. Benny.
Sara: I wonder what Spam-face wants now.
Rea: He wants me to connect him with the mimeograph department, because they haven’t delivered his scripts yet.
Sara: Scripts? Well, how do you like that? And he palms himself off as an ad-lib comedian.
Rea: Yeah. He couldn't ad-lib a click if he had false teeth.
Sara: Ain't it the truth.
Bea: But I don't care if he can ad-lib or not. I think he's cute.
Sara: Why should you think he's cute? He's gone out with me more times than he has with you.
Bea: He has not.
Sara: He has too.
Bea: Oh Mabel, let's not argue. When we look like we do we should be happy we've got each other.
Brooklynesing this dialogue for the past three seasons as the sassy PBXers who make Jack Benny's life an open book are two of radio's most adroit character experts. Bea Benaderet, who's "Gertrude Gearshift," and Sara Berner, who's "Mabel Flapsaddle," started as a one-time-only comedy spot with Jack, have been on the show ever since.
Neither of them, incidentally, could operate a switchboard if she tried. NBC knows, because the girls did try, when they took over the station's Hollywood board for some publicity pictures. Bea was pregnant at the time. Photographers, regular operators and press agents had to work around her. In the confusion, cords flew, dialers yelped, ousted "help" tried to save what calls they could, Sara and Bea wailed "What'll we do now?" and one important coast-to-coast executive cooled his heels on a call for a fine ten minutes.
The place has never been the same since, declares NBC's head operator, Billie Clevenger, who is nonetheless the girls' most loyal fan. Coincidentally, another Gertrude (Smith) regularly works the Hollywood Vine and Sunset board right next to Billie.
Not Likes
But, while they're identically gum-popping, short-skirted and flip-commented on the program, Bea and Sara could hardly be paired as like types away from the studio.
Bea, who has just had her hair pouf-cut and dyed a soft feathery red (from its previous long page-boy black) is a swinging, adjusted soul who effects a "gosh, don't mind me" congeniality. She is the very happy wife of Jim Bannon, announcer and actor, and the mother of seven-year-old Jack and five-month-old Maggie. Professionally, she is: "Eve Goodwin" on the "Great Gildersleeve" show; "Mrs. Anderson," henpecker of Dink Trout, on the Dennis Day show; "Mrs. Carstairs" on "Fibber and Molly"; and "Gloria" on "Ozzie and Harriet", as well as one of Benny's switchboard sweeties. She's more interested in her family, she admits, than anything else.
Whereas, little, quiet, big-brown-eyed Sara Berner, by contrast, is absorbed in her career of mimicry. "Sara's a real ham," says Bea with affection. And gentle, soft-voiced Sara will indeed exert any effort to achieve an impersonation of character which has intrigued her.
"I've often wanted to be a telephone operator," she offers with enthusiasm, "so I could listen to all those wonderful people who call in!" Sara spent four years in vaudeville with her "impressions" and traveled the country during the war with them. She's "Little Jasper" on the "Puppetoons." She's the animated mouse who said "Lookit me, I'm dancin' " in "Anchors Aweigh.' She was one of the two talking camels on "The Road to Morocco." And you ought to hear her get going on her take-offs of Edna Mae Oliver, Bette Davis, Mrs. Roosevelt, Una Merkel, Fannie Brice, Gracie Allen! On the air, she plays both Ida and daughter Marilyn Cantor; a complete assortment of colored characters for "Amos 'n' Andy"; Jack Benny's girlfriend "Gladys Zybisco" (in addition to switchboarder "Mabel") ; dramatics and dialects on call.
Sara, who went with the Benny troupe on its tour to Canada, knows a story of the trip that few have heard. On the way out of Corvallis, Oregon, the plane (a giant DC-3) hit a thunderhead, went up 2000 feet, down 2000 feet and finally the pilot turned the ship back.
When they landed again in Corvallis, the entire company piled shiveringly into the town's hotel. "And there in the lobby," relates Sara, "were a whole lot of people sitting around an old radio listening !o the Jack Benny rebroadcast. You can imagine what happened when Jack himself walked in. Nothing in the place was too good for him!
"We all crowded into Jack's room then ... the cast, WAC's and generals from the nearby army camp and folks from all over the town ... for a big party that lasted all night. Wonderful ad-libs! Phil said to Rochester, 'Boy, you look like a bottle of Adohr Milk,' and Roch said, 'Me? No mo' airplane rides fo' me, I'm goin' home by ox.' We blamed the plane trouble on Don . . . he'd just dropped off to sleep in the ship's tail.
"What a night! What a party!" enthuses the little veteran actress who loves every inch of her career. "It was just like being born again!"

Bea Benadaret appeared regularly on television until cancer spread; she died in 1968. Sara Berner did not. She had personal and health issues that made her appearances a rarity; she passed away in 1969.