The Night They Raided Jack Benny's Show

A combination of factors managed to put Jack Benny in the radio business, and he reminisced about them in 1963 as he was returning to New York.

Jack was about to do a show at the Ziegfeld Theatre. Of course, he recalled it well, turning back the clock about 35 years.

We’ll let him tell the story. This column appeared on the news wire starting February 23rd.

Benny Back on Broadway at 69
Previous Appearance Was 32 Years Ago, When Police Raided the Show
By Jack Gaver
UPI Drama Editor
NEW YORK, Feb. 23 (UPI)—WHEN JACK BENNY returns Feb. 27 to the New York stage in an intimate revue of his own devising after a 32-year absence—during which he aged exactly two years to his perennial 39—he is sure of one thing.
Backstage at the Ziegfeld Theater won't be swarming with cops, and they won't be backing up the paddy wagon to the stage door to haul away the boss and some of the cast.
That's what happened with the last New York show in which he appeared, and it was only because of the stoutness of the Benny moral fiber that he wasn't one of those in the Black Maria.
The show was the eighth edition of the late Earl Carroll's lavish "Vanities" revues in 1930.
"I must tell you," Benny interpolated, "that in that show Carroll really did out-Ziegfeld Flo Ziegfeld and his 'Follies.' He was always trying to do that. There were never so many gorgeous girls in one show as in that 'Vanities.' Audiences cheered the sight of them. It was a really beautiful production."
And a funny one, too, according to reviews of the day. Four comedians—Jimmie Savo, Herb Williams, Patsy Kelly and our hero—headed the cast. Funny but quite dirty at times.
"There was this one pantomine sketch especially," Benny recalled. "It involved the apprentice window dresser of a department store getting into all sorts of difficulties with the dummies. There were numerous suggestive bits of action. The laughs, of course, were inspired by the fact that the dummies were real live and scantily clad showgirls.
"I was supposed to have played the window dresser. When I found out what the sketch was like, I told Carroll I wouldn't do it. He threatened me with breach of contract charges, and I said that if Actors’ Equity ruled that I had to do the scene, I'd quit show business. He gave in and had Jimmie Savo play it.
"The police got into action soon after opening night. They took a few looks at the number and then hustled Carroll, Savo and Faith Bacon, a beautiful fan dancer who had a principle role in the manhandling, off to the station house. The result was that the sketch came out."
That stand by Benny against a powerful producer was a courageous one. He really wasn't a big enough stage personality to be certain of getting away with such defiance—“Vanities” was only his second legitimate show—although his years of vaudeville experience after World War I had boosted him into a term movie contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer that paid well.
"The trouble," the comedian explained, "was that M-G-M wasn't giving me enough work, and when this 'Vanities' offer come along, I persuaded the studio to free me to take it. I've played a number of hunches through my career and—knock wood—they've worked out.
"I was paid $1250 a week by Carroll while the show was in New York, and $1500 for touring. Do you realize how much money that was in those days with low taxes, depression prices and a hard dollar? And I didn't have to work very hard in the show, either."
Benny got another of his hunches after the show went on tour. "I hadn't been paying any attention to radio," he said, "but everywhere we went I'd hear people talking about Amos and Andy and other unknown guys who were suddenly becoming stars out of nowhere because of broadcasting. Maybe this annoyed me a little. It certainly made me curious about a medium that could do that in a short time.
"In the spring of 1932, an old friend, columnist Ed Sullivan who had a 15-minute radio show for CBS, asked me to appear on it just for kicks—no money. We cooked up some dialogue between us, and the right people happened to hear me and liked what they heard.
"Within a week, I had a sponsored half-hour radio show twice a week. And we did it with one writer. Can you imagine that? I've been in broadcasting ever since." It was on the first radiocast of his own program that Benny uttered that classic self-introduction, a line that set the pattern for the Benny character as a performer. "This is Jack Benny—and who cares?"
And now the veteran of 31 years of radio and television—69 years old and the past Thursday, Valentine’s Day—approaches the five-and-a-half-week engagement at the Ziegfeld, following a two-week tryout in Toronto, like a newcomer with his first chance to make good.
"I've been threatening to—wanting to—do this for years," the comedian said. "I managed to put together a pretty good show last spring for a short engagement in Las Vegas, where I make an occasional night club appearance just for kicks, and I just made up my mind that I'd better make the move to New York now or I never would."

Benny’s first radio series wasn’t a week later, but it’s generally conceded Jack’s appearance on Sullivan’s show led to it. And not once, until his TV series ended in 1965, was he raided again.