Benaderet was born 112 years ago today. Her family moved to San Francisco where she began her radio career as a singer in the mid-1920s. She moved to Los Angeles and eventually had regular roles on a number of network shows—The Great Gildersleeve, My Favorite Husband with Lucille Ball and especially on The Burns and Allen Show. It was with Burns and Allen she went to television and there was never a season she didn’t have a regular TV role until her death.
The Philadelphia Inquirer of May 10, 1964 published this feature piece with Benaderet. If you want to read more about her, go to THIS POST on the Yowp blog.
Bea Benaderet—Mama of the Year
By HARRY HARRIS
Of The Inquirer Staff
HAPPY Mother's Day to the successful new mama of the current television season!
That would be Bea Benaderet, who as widow Kate Bradley in CBS' Top Ten "Petticoat Junction," Tuesdays at 9 P. M. on Channel 10, has three beauteous teen-age daughters: blond Jeannine Riley, brunette Pat Woodell and redhead Linda Kaye (As Betty Rubble in ABC's "The Flintstones" responsible for the character's voice and, by example, batting eyelashes she also has a cartoon kid: Bam-Bam.)
Miss Benaderet, alias Mrs. Gene Twombley (her husband since 1957 is a sound-effects engineer), has two real children by an earlier marriage to actor-announcer, ex-"Red Ryder" James Bannon: Jack, 23, and Maggie, 16.
She's a TV mother now because she failed to become a TV grandmother last season. She had her heart set on the "Granny" role in "The Beverly Hillbillies," which went to Irene Ryan instead, but wound up in the same Nielsen-pacing show as Aunt Pearl.
Earlier, TV audiences saw her as Wilma, the housekeeper, in the "Peter Loves Mary" series and, earlier still for eight years as Blanche Morton, the neighbor, in "The Burns and Allen Show," where her successive spouses were Hal March, John Brown, Fred Clark and Larry Keating.
A professional performer at 12, and for quite a spell one of radio's busiest dialecticians (she played continuing roles in numerous comedy shows), Bea now gets top billing for the first time in a long career—"Shall we say 30 years?"
"I'm glad to be a star," she tells interviewers, "but I don't feel like one."
One frequent concomitant of TV situation comedy stardom is the use of one's own Christian name onscreen. Thus, Lucille Ball plays a Lucy; Danny Thomas, a Danny, etc.
"We kicked around the idea of using 'Bea,'" the brown-eyed blonde (via black and gray) told us, "but I didn't think it would be appropriate. If the character were closer to me, yes, but she's entirely different.
Her name is her own, despite repeated efforts to get her to change it.
"When I was doing radio, many years ago, on a San Francisco station, they'd say, 'Anything's better than Benaderet—How about Smith?' But now it's a little late, don't you think? The boat has sailed.
"People don't seem to be able to remember there's only one A. It's Benaderet, not Ben-AdA-ret. It was misspelled on the Burns and Allen show—in big letters!—for years and years.
"In the seventh year, they wanted to correct it, but I said, 'Don't—not now!’
"It's misspelled where I park my car at the studio, and it's misspelled on my checks. Benny Rubin used to call me 'Benny de Rat.' Usually I'm just 'Bea' or 'Beazie.' "
She's enjoying other attributes of stardom, however—greater recognition, higher income, a posh dressing room, more tender working conditions.
"Last year, when they threw Cousin Pearl into the water for a 'Beverly Hillbillies' scene," she remembers, "the water was ice cold. When they threw a cat in—that crazy, skinny Rhubarb—a crew kid yelled, 'Hey, Bea, see, we heated the tank for the cat!'
" 'Sure,' I said. 'Cats have a better union!'
"Don't misunderstand," she adds quickly. "I have no desire to act like a star. I don't think I'm all-important. An actor is only as good as what he gives and gets back.
"I've kept busy because I'm lucky and because people have trusted me to give a role a different flavor. I think I've done that.
"But a show is more than one person, and there are lot of reasons "Petticoat Junction" is so well liked: Paul Henning (the show's producer, who also created "The Beverly Hillbillies"), my 'daughters,' fine actors like Edgar Buchanan, Smiley Burnette and Rufe Davis..."
She hasn't always played comedy.
"I started as a dramatic actress," she says. "Well, as a singer, actually; then as a dramatic actress, at a little theater in San Francisco. (New York City-born Bea moved there when she was 4.)
"For a while I did radio dramas with Orson Welles from Hollywood, both comic and serious. I recall when they were casting 'Algiers.' I had an audition appointment with John Houseman, who was with Welles at the time, and I went to his office, prepared to read.
"We talked for 30 or 40 minutes, and then he said, "Rehearsal is at 9 A. M. Monday.' I thought I'd be a super, an ad libber, but it was a leading role. 'I don't understand,' I said. 'Wouldn't you like me to read?' No,' he said, you’ll be fine.' And you know something? I was fine.
"I worked with Welles from then on. We used to do two shows one for the East Coast, one for the West Coast First we'd do the script as it was, then Mr. Welles would sit down and frantically cross out five minutes of dialog, after he'd heard how it 'played.'
"I've done a few dramatic shows on television—a 'Line-Up,' a 'Restless Gun' but not many people will take a chance. They're afraid of laughs.
"I have no desire to change from comedy, I'm very happy in this field, but every actor yearns for variety. It's like a form of exercise. The acting muscles get a little numb."
"I was staff, in San Francisco, and used to do 14, 15 shows a week. They came to town for a personal appearance and did a broadcast I worked with them.
"Several years elapsed. I went to Los Angeles and almost immediately I went to work for Burns and Allen, for Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor, Lux Theater'. . .
"I was with George and Gracie, on radio and TV, for 20 years. George is one of the top craftsmen in this business, always businesslike, but always a joy to work with.
"Their television shows were rehearsed one day and shot on another. There was no time for tomfoolery. . .Nobody stands over you with a bullwhip, but this is a fast business.
"The Burns and Allen television show started in New York. For two years it was 'live,' and then they started doing some shows on film at the same time it would be live one week, film the next.
"In live TV, it's do-or-die. In film, if you make a mistake, you know you can shoot it over. When we started using film, I got a little lazy about memorizing. "Then, when we had a live show, I found the words weren't coming as easily. So I started putting notes all around.
One day I planted some on a fireplace behind a vase, but so did the others. I had a line about four-minute eggs that was supposed to lead into a twisted-word thing for Gracie, but all I could see was George's 'What did the doctor say?'
"We never did find the egg line!"
Does she ever long for the good old days of radio when she kept shifting gears between telephone operator Gertrude Gearshift on "The Jack Benny Show" and Mama (a much earlier mama!) on "Meet Millie"?
"Television has never been a problem to me," she says. "I happen to be a good study, fairly intelligent and able to take direction, and I find television very exciting.
"Lake all actors, I didn't realize how lucky we were. It's not that I enjoyed radio more than I do TV, but it would have been so much simpler if television had come first. Now we could have relaxed!"
Great story on Bea. Thanks. I remember one sad episode of Petticoat Junction after Miss Benaderet has passed. They used the back of a stand in's head and looped some earlier dialog of Bea's. Thankfully, that practice was used only once, no " Fake Shemps ". I enjoy picking out her voice on many Looney Tunes shorts. Remembering this talented artist and a big part of my growing up on her birthday.
ReplyDeleteThey actually only had the "Bee" misspelling on Benaderet's name for the first half of the first filmed season of "Burns and Allen" (they fixed the error when they changed the credits mid-season, after Paul Henning left the writing staff). But as with some of the stories Mel Blanc would embellish at Warners, the idea that the first name mistake went on for years makes the point of that part of the story sound better.
ReplyDelete"Petticoat Junction" followed the pattern of several other successful 1960s shows, in that the best episodes were the black & white ones, and by the time the shows hit syndication in the 1970s, the attitude of a lot of TV stations were people wouldn't watch B&W reruns, so the weaker color episodes ended up representing the show for future generations (Season 2 of PJ was supervised by the same group of writers and producers who'd go on the following year to do "Green Acres" and several of those episodes feature the same type of surrealism and fourth wall-breaking that GA became known for).