Ready For Television in 1933

KTTV signed on in Los Angeles in 1949 and Jack Benny made his TV debut that evening. He didn’t have his own television show on CBS for another year. But he was apparently ready for the small screen before that.

We’re talking about the days when the small screen was part of a set with a spinning wheel in the back to pick up the signal. This is TV in the pre-electronic, mechanical days when Jack’s radio career was not much more than 15 months old.

Here’s an unbylined story from the Sandusky Register of July 30, 1933. Since Jack hadn’t been in radio all that long, the story focuses on his pre-radio accomplishments. Some of the story isn’t altogether accurate—“Jack Benny” was not his real name, the story of meeting Mary Livingstone was a little more involved, his first movie was a short for Warner Bros. (in New York) and Harry Conn would have debated that Jack wrote “most” of his radio show (he was involved in the writing process, though, and remained so during his entire radio career).

It would appear he never got over his parents’ early wish that he would become a violin virtuoso. He did as he predicted in 1933—he came back to the violin, constantly performing charity concerts to help symphony orchestras, their homes and their musicians.

War Started Jack Benny Talking
It took a World War to start Jack Benny talking. Before joining the Navy he played a violin in vaudeville and said nothing. After one attempt to raise funds with a musical appeal at a seamen's benefit, Benny dropped the violin and started talking.
Since then he has talked his way through several Schubert musical revues, two editions of Earl Carroll's "Vanities," half a dozen feature motion pictures and into radio over National Broadcasting Company networks as a laugh-getting master of ceremonies.
He is noted as a wit, monologist, comedian. His quips and stories have enlivened stage, screen and air. But habit is a hard master. For years after he deserted music for speech, Benny carried the old violin on and off the stage at each appearance. He never played it, just carried it along and looked at it wistfully now and then. Some day, he says, he's going to use it again— providing he can stop talking long enough.
Born In Chicago
Benny always had ambitions. His family lived in Waukegan, Ill.—but Jack was born in Chicago. Then they carried him back to Waukegan, and he stayed there for seventeen years. He was not idle, by any means, during those years.
“My father gave me a violin and a monkey wrench,” explains Benny. “He told me not to take chances. Plumbing isn't a bad business.”
Young Benny didn't get far with the monkey wrench, but he was practicing on the violin before he was six years old. When his thirteenth birthday arrived he was still at it, and by the time he was fourteen he had determined to make it his profession.
He started with an orchestra playing for dances in and around Waukegan. He was sixteen then, and after one year with the orchestra he decided he had sufficient professional standing to go on the stage. With a partner who played the piano while he played the violin, Benny launched his first vaudeville act.
Toured Six Years

For six years he toured back and forth across the United States playing his violin and saying nothing. Then the United States entered the war, and Benny joined the Navy. As a musician he was soon drafted for sailor shows for the Seamen's Benefit Fund. His violin playing brought applause, but no contributions. After all, reasoned Benny, if you want money, you have to ask for it. He put the instrument down and broke a six-year silence.
He got contributions. But what surprised him more, he got laughs. Gingerly, he tried a few more gags. A wave of laughter swept through the audience. At the next show, Benny played less and wise-cracked more. When the war was over he returned to vaudeville—as a monologist.
In the years that followed, Jack Benny, a glib young man carrying a violin he never played, became a celebrated comedian. He was a headliner in vaudeville, and one of the first and most successful masters of ceremonies in Broadway revues. He was a popular night club entertainer.
Apparently, he was permanently attached to the theater when the end of a transcontinental vaudeville tour brought him to the Orpheum Theater, in Los Angeles, the port of Hollywood. Benny stayed at the Orpheum for eight straight weeks, establishing a new house record for a single artist. Meanwhile talking pictures and the first wave of screen revues came to Hollywood.
To keep the talking Jack Benny out of talking pictures would have been a real problem. Nobody tried to. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer promptly offered him a contract and he made his screen debut as master of ceremonies in the Hollywood Revue. Other feature pictures, and comedy shorts followed in rapid succession.
Benny might have been in Hollywood yet if he hadn't met a Los Angeles girl — and continued to talk. The young lady just nodded her head, and said they would go East for their honeymoon. (Now she is doing some talking for herself, and you frequently hear her on the air with Benny. Her radio name is Mary Livingston.)
In “Vanities” Cast
The Bennys arrived in New York just as Earl Carroll was casting the annual edition of his “Vanities.” At Carroll's request, Benny dropped in to witness a rehearsal. When the curtain went up on the opening night Benny was still there. He was, in fact, the star of the show.
For two years he was the leading comedian and master of ceremonies in the Carroll revue. Then came radio, and now the comedian is waiting for television. The Bennys live in New York where Jack belongs to the Friars' Club and the Lakeville Golf and Country Club. He thinks radio is more fun than either the stage or screen, but he hasn't forsaken the earlier mediums. He frequently dashes from a personal appearance at a moving picture theater to the studio for a broadcast, and back again for another personal appearance.
He writes all of his stage monologues himself, most of his radio programs, and he generally broadcasts with his hat on. He often has difficulty in convincing people that Jack Benny is his real name. It is.