Jack Benny, Tricker or Treater?

This is a Hallowe’en tale about Jack Benny that isn’t.

Erskine Johnson put together a syndicated column in 1959 with the idea of crafting a story either about Jeanne Crain or trick-or-treating. It’s mostly about Crain but Benny ended up being the point of it all. It appeared in papers starting around November 2nd.

I must admit, when transcribing this, I was surprised by Johnson’s use of an uncomplimentary term referring to illegal Mexican immigrants.

The Night Jack Benny Gave Money Away
By Erskine Johnson
NEA Staff Correspondent
HOLLYWOOD — (NEA) — The guide book to Halloween fun doesn't mention it, but we can report today that Jennne Crain lives in the Mother Lode country of trick or treat. You just wouldn't believe what goes on along Jeanne's block in Beverly Hills.
"Last year I kept count," she told me, "and 602 kids rang our bell."
It all started, you see, on "The Night Jack Benny gave Half Dollars Away."
That's right, Jack Benny!
He's one of Jeanne's neighbors along with Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Thomas Mitchell, Rosemary Clooney and Jose Ferrer, Ira Gershwin, Diana Lynn and, the last time Jeanne counted them — "a total of 27 children."
Five of them are Jeanne's and next year she and hubby Paul Brinkman will have six.
Well, anyway, Jack probably told Mary, "No kid is going to call ME a cheapskate."
So every Halloween night since Jack unlocked his basement vault and handed out those half dollars there has been a kiddie rush to Jeanne's neighborhood, where the treats, she says, seem to get "bigger and better every year."
Like wetbacks sneaking across the Mexican border, kids pile into the land of plenty from all over town, brought by parents in autos and station wagons.
"Last year," Jeanne said, "someone had a jar full of pennies — and they let the kids take home as many as they could grab in one hand."
There's no official record of Jack repeating his half dollar treats but if he does the kids and the neighbors, well-stocked with generous treat gifts, will be ready for him. Keeping up with the Beverly Hills Joneses named Jack and Desi and Ira isn't like Peoria, you know.
Keeping up with the stork, her big family and her career is much simpler, Jeanne indicated, except, of course, for such minor things like her nine-year-old Tim occasionally upsetting the household ("He's a character — he thinks he's Jerry Lewis") and a movie director telling Jeanne:
"I want you to give me a sexy, boyish walk."
"Now, really," the gorgeous red head laughed.
But the director had a point, she admitted. It was for her early scenes with Alan Ladd in the film. "Guns of the Timberland," in which she plays a western ranch boss. For the first 15 minutes of the film. Ladd and the audience aren't supposed to know whether she's a boy or a girl when she's seen in cowboy duds, breaking a bronco.
Playing a murderess in her first telefilm, "Riverboat," was something else again. Jeanne said the frantic pace just couldn't compare with live shows she has done in New York.
"The live shows were easy in comparison," she said, recalling the hours until 1 a.m. and struggling through a muddy swamp. "And when I climbed out of the swamp, the assistant director said: ‘And now Miss Crane, we will go to the dinner scene. Have your hair fixed and change into that fancy dress QUICKLY.’
"Give me the live shows," Jeanne pleaded. Then she took off for the Farmer's Market, still obviously haunted by "The Night Jack Benny Gave Half Dollars Away."
"I'm thinking," she winced as she left, "of individual five-pound candy boxes this year. Paul suggested individual, gift wrapped speedboats," but I talked him out of it."