Roasting Benny

Show biz people moved from New York to Los Angeles, so it was only appropriate that parts of show biz should move with them. So it was the Friars Club was started in California by Milton Berle and his compatriots in 1947.

The Friars were known for their roasts. Broadway and trade reporters sanitised their coverage of the events back East and the same thing happened in the West. The way they were reported, they were as harmless as a radio comedy show script.

Jack Benny was the victim of the first Hollywood Friars roast; it seems to me he was the “guest of honour” as the same kind of testimonial dinner in New York years earlier. Here’s how it was reported by the Newspaper Enterprise Association on July 7, 1947.

Jack Benny Is 'Honored' Guest At Friars Fete
BY ERSKINE JOHNSON
HOLLYWOOD (NEA)—Fred Allen would have been drooling. All of Jack Benny's friends were insulting him at the first stag beefsteak dinner given by Hollywood's new Friars Club. (Jack consented to appear only after being assured that he wouldn't be charged for his dinner.)
The speaker’s table looked like a million-dollar movie cast—George Burns, Danny Kaye, Groucho Marx, George Jessel, Sam Goldwyn, Eddie Cantor, Parkyakarkus, Orson Welles, George Murphy and Pat O'Brien. The greatest wits in show business, plus the nit-wit—Benny.
Benny was the Friar's first victim—the questionable guest of honor in what will be a series of roast dinners with Jessel as roastmaster.
Jessel started things off by telling a Benny anecdote and then adding. "I was married but I can't recall to whom at the time."
Eddie Cantor just couldn't insult his old friend and praised him instead. So Jessel insulted Cantor.
"It's easy to wax sentimental," said Jessel, "when you haven't got any jokes."
But everyone else ripped Benny to shreds. "They charged 85 cents to see Benny's last movie, 'The Horn Blows at Midnight, " said Groucho Marx, who then added, "They charged it but they didn't get it."
Fred Allen, of course, wired from New York: "There isn't a beefsteak big enough to cover the black eye Jack Benny has given show business."
Jessel introduced Sam Goldwyn as "Hugo Goldwyn, the man who makes all those mistakes in English but when he makes pictures we should make such mistakes."
Pat O'Brien thought Goldwyn's speech about Benny was much too sentimental. "It sounded," said Pat, "like the 'Best Tears of Our Lives.' "
Orson Welles cracked that the only reason Benny was guest of honor was to remind movie makers of Benny's existence.
But Orson got it, too. Jessel introduced him as the "distinguished everything. When we called up Orson to join us he told me, 'I'll be there, I'll cook the dinner, dress the room, make all the speeches, and clean up.' "
Benny took it all with a smile. "This," said Jack, "is not a spot for a suave comedian."
Jack thought it was a mistake to appoint Bing Crosby as a Friar dean. "He isn't here tonight." said Jack. "In fact, he didn't even send in a transcription."
Jack looked at Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz of Los Angeles and quipped: "He looks like a sheriff in a Pine and Thomas picture."
The Friars just moved into their new clubhouse—the onetime Clover Club where Hollywood folk once lost thousands at the dice and roulette tables. "We were a little late to opening," said Jessel. "It took us three days just to get the dice out of here."

Hedda Hopper wrote in her column that the Friars should have recorded the “tributes” and sold the recordings to stag clubs for $1,000 to go to charity. Jack was as baudy as everyone else that evening.

He was lauded by the Friars a number of occasions; one of his roasts was (necessarily) edited and put on television, sponsored by Kraft as a special replacement for the Kraft Music Hall (from these dinner, a non-Friars series of specials was developed for TV starring Dean Martin). Jack served a term as abbot of the Los Angeles Friars organisation which fell apart through legalities and other problems in 2008.