The Kid is Not My Son

Two people on the Jack Benny TV show appeared in Charley’s Aunt. One was Benny himself. Who was the other?

Well, we should qualify that it wasn’t the film version Benny was in. The answer is revealed in the May 2, 1952 edition of the Casper Star-Tribune.

Dale P. White of Casper, a veteran of the Brigham Young University stage, recently was seen in the lovable Thomas comedy, 'Charley's Aunt", which was produced April 23 through April 26 on the campus.
He is the son of Mr. and Mrs. W. F. White, 815 South Ash. He is registered in the college of Fine Arts majoring in speech, is a member of the regular staff of KBYU campus radio station, and has participated in several of the radio dramas. Dale is lighting technician for all major drama productions at BYU, and at present is vice-president of the Wyoming club. Before his graduation in 1950 from N.C.H.S , Dale was president of the Thespians, national drama society for high schools, student-body secretary, and a member of the wrestling team.

The paper anxiously followed White’s acting career. Every time he appeared on the Benny show, it published a little squib about it.

Dale White was a reluctant actor. He didn’t want to be one. But he ended up playing Don Wilson’s son Harlow on the Benny TV show.

Wilson’s middle name really was Harlow. But, no, he had no children in real life. He had none on radio. He had none on TV, too, until White appeared out of nowhere as his grown son.

The circumstances are explained in this publicity piece from 1960.

This TV Guest Forced To Watch His Figure
By CBS Press Department
The rotund young man hung his head shyly while his hands nervously clasped and unclasped over a well-fed stomach. He stood beside a slightly larger carbon copy of himself and in humble, nasal tones said. "Yes, Daddy." The audience watching howled.
In the past four years the young man, Dale White, has appeared on Benny's program several times, always as the son of announcer Don Wilson. He's due back for another appearance on "The Jack Benny Program" Sunday.
No Pro Actor
Despite the expert job of acting he turns in as Wilson's pride and joy, White isn't even a professional actor.
He's head of the television department at the Pasadena Playhouse, where he also instructs in television techniques. He also teaches a course in sound effects for the stage and is developing a stereophonic sound-effects system for the legitimate theater.
White was born in Otto, Wyo., and reared in Casper, Wyo. He studied engineering at Utah State University for a year and then spent two more years at Brigham Young University. During this time he was an expert wrestler and won several titles on the Intercollegiate mat.
Married when he was 18, White brought his bride, Marie, to California in 1954. He was determined to make the theater his life's work and enrolled at the Pasadena Playhouse, where two years later he was awarded a bachelor of theater arts degree.
White's entry into show business as an actor was, as White put it, "a peculiar and wonderful quirk of fate."
Dick Fischer, who was at that time an associate producer of Benny's television show, was at the Playhouse on other business when he saw White. His resemblance to Don Wilson was so striking that Fischer grabbed the youth as if he were a long-lost rich uncle.
For some time Benny had wanted to do a skit based on Don having a roly-poly son, but had been unable to find anyone who could properly portray the role.
"Son," Fischer" shouted, "how would you like to be on Jack Benny's television show?"
Stammers—Then Acts
White recalls he stammered a bit, not understanding completely, and almost before he knew it he was rehearsing for the show as an actor. That initial show was such a success that Dale has been called back repeatedly to portray Wilson's chubby and embarrassingly shy son.
White's ambition is to be a director. He says the life of an actor is too nerve-wracking.
"Every time I'm on the show I lose weight," he explains. "And like Mr. Wilson, if I lose too much, I’d be out of a job.
"I'm fully aware that I owe my job not to any great acting talent, but to my figure."

The Benny TV series ended in 1965. And that’s when Dale White ended his acting career. He wanted to direct—in the 1950s, he started a small film company—and that’s what he did.

White was a Mormon, and found a home in Utah. This feature story appeared in the local paper in Bountiful, April 30, 1996.

Longtime actor, director makes his home in Bountiful
Quig Nielsen
Contributing Writer
Not often do you find someone who is a superlative actor, talented director, master behind the camera, organizational genius, and has quiet, charismatic energy! Would you believe it? I found one who has all these skilled attributes and he is right here in Bountiful. He is Dale White, who lives with his lovely wife, Marie, in a gorgeous new home near the majestic Bountiful Temple.
This congenial couple, parents of three married children, joined the Bountiful residents in 1991 and, making friends quickly, has concluded this city of beautiful homes is the place to live. Further, one of their sons, Frank, and his family live only a few blocks down the street from them.
Of the many highlights in Dale’s fabulous career, and perhaps the best known, is that for ten and a half years he acted in the highly popular and top rated Jack Benny comedy television show. His first performance on the show, which emanated from the CBS studies in Hollywood, was as Don Wilson’s son. Wilson was the rotund and well-liked television announcer for the Benny show. Following his inaugural performance with Benny, Dale performed in a variety of roles in the show over the years.
As a young college student Dale White had difficulty choosing a career. He attended Utah State, briefly studying mechanical engineering but, after a year, decided that wasn’t the field for him. He gave law school at BYU a try and said no way. Then he met the eminent T. Earl Pardoe, BYUs widely-recognized and acclaimed teacher of the dramatic arts. After a long period of serious thought and discussion with the professor, Dale concluded he’d take a shot at theater arts. He became Pardoe’s stage manager for BYU productions.
When young White wanted to pursue more education in the drama and movie-making field, Professor Pardoe recommended that he attend the Pasadena Playhouse, College of Theater Arts, in Pasadena, California. “It was called the Cal Tech of the theater world,” Dale remembered. “Enrolled in the school were students who wanted to become actors and some who wanted to acquire a degree. I was one who wanted a degree. Because of my experience in theater work I was called the ‘Orson Welles’ of the Pasadena school.”
It was at Pasadena when he was chosen from a large group of applicants for his first role on the Benny show. Dale continued with his education, acquiring his degree, and then, to his surprise, was invited to teach, a work he thoroughly enjoyed.
While teaching Dale took a shot at directing. He quickly learned “that to be a good director you had to be a good actor. I was fortunate,” Dale continued, “to get a job as the cameraman at one of Hollywood's big TV stations, KCOP.” So now he excelled as an actor, a director, and as a photographer.
He organized White Productions and began producing portrait, industrial, and training videos for commercial companies and was extolled for the high quality work he did. General Dynamics who had a big plant in Rhode Island, another in Connecticut in addition to divisions in California and other states was one of the many companies to profit from the White Productions videos.
Dale said he would have liked to have done shows for the motion picture market but "there is so much intrigue in the financing of the productions that I felt it was better to leave that aspect of the business alone.” Numerous made-for-TV movies are listed in Dale's creative accomplishments.
A national film trade magazine, considered the most prestigious in the industry, wrote an article about White Productions in which it said "White Productions has the most difficult qualities to find in film production today, integrity, intelligence, and imagination." Quite a compliment. Dale’s company also was lauded in a Wall Street Journal article.
As a member of the LDS Branch Presidency of the Rocky Mountain and South Davis Community Care Centers here in Bountiful, Dale has produced a video teaching the young people how to assist in caring for those confined residents. It's a film everyone should see.
Currently Dale’s working on an hour-long film of the love story of Joseph and Emma Smith. Now that’s something to anticipate.
Dale White’s ancestors who came from England on the Mayflower and landed at Plymouth Rock in America in 1620 have got to be proud of their descendant. But that's another story.

White died in his new-found home in February, 2006, age 74. Read a tribute in the Salt Lake City newspaper.

20 years ago, a posting by Gerry Orlando on the International Jack Benny Fan Club web forum wondered about White. The answer, Gerry, took a little while in coming, but it’s been answered today.