Jack Benny on Mary and Mary Jane

Jack Benny toking up?

We don’t know if it ever happened, but he wanted to give it a try (You’d think one of his musicians would be able to find some pot for him).

That revelation comes from an April 16, 1972 interview in the Detroit Free Press, where he talked about a bunch of things, including Vietnam and the idea of an autobiography.

He May Look 39 and Stingy, But He’s Not—Just Ask Any Cabbie
BY BOB TALBERT
Free Press Columnist
Jack Benny does the BEST Jack Benny I've ever seen.
That is, if he wants to; if he's in the mood; if a dozen people aren't swarming around him, tugging on his sleeve and asking a million of the same questions they've asked for decades.
When he wants to, Benny can cock his head just a trifle, hike up one shoulder a touch, rest his cheek on a hand, elevate his voice and eyebrows ever so slightly, and, pausing set you up with the precision of a poolshark for the prescribed, patented and priceless one-world line: "w-e-l-llll!?!"
Right on the floor you go, knocking over tables, rolling on the carpet, getting tears in your eyes—Wow!
I mean, Jack Benny has just laid a Jack Benny on you.
I mean, is anyone else in the world 39 and stingy? I mean, for the past 39 years?
I DEFY anyone to be around Jack Benny for more than two minutes, 14 seconds without falling into a Jack Benny imitation. The only person in the whole wide world who doesn't do this is his best friend, George Burns, who's too busy doing a George Burns imitation.
At 78, all Jack Benny needs to do is be 78. He's earned whatever grand retirement and imperial status show business offers its patriarchal monarchs. And when you can be 78 years old and damn-near-for-true look 39 and for sure act even younger then you should just walk around the country and let people look at you.
But for most people, just looking at Jack Benny is enough to cease a break-up. All-down, knee-walking, table-grazing break-up. It's because Benny can lay a little take on you that's beyond description. He can do his number that wonderful combination of posture, timing and delivery and you're gonna cry happy tears. But enough enshrinement of Jack Benny. I mean, Jack Benny was in town to do a benefit—the Adas Shalom Synagog fund-raiser—and he was feeling good, exceptionally good. Rested and running on at the mouth like a teenager about a lot of things.
What did he have to say? Well, let's listen to Benny, talking off-stage and behind the scenes about what Benny thinks:
AMERICA'S sense of humor: "The biggest problem with the public's sense of humor is that we keep losing a laugh at. National issues don't have much humor in them. Vietnam, the economy, busing, credibility of one lenders? You can find some humor in the economy, no matter how had it gets, because we always come out of any economic phase.
"But you don't come out of lot of the things we like to boys losing their lives in wars. They know more about this in Washington—at least I think they do—but I think Vietnam has been handled wrong. We're getting out now, and as sure as I'm sitting here, the Viet Cong is going to take over and we've lost 50,000 of our young men for nothing. I've never been for or against Vietnam, but I've always thought you got into a war to win it. People still like to laugh, as long as it doesn't hurt someone and isn't painful to laugh."
ETHNIC HUMOR: "I don't care who tells it, if it's a clever story and doesn't hurt anyone, it works, ethnic or what-have-you. I don't prescribe to the theory that only blacks can tell black jokes or only Jews can tell Jewish jokes. I don't htink [sic] the public demands anything from a performer except a good performance of what you do.
"Personally, I don't like to play to any 'one group' an all-jewish affair, an all-ethnic group, or all one-age audience. I like a mixture, a broad range of people.
"I don't like to do stags anymore, either. If I want to say something risque, I want to be able to say it in front of a mixed group. God knows I'm not a prude, but even my risque material has to stay in character. I've never used a blue line or a dirty word just for shock value."
ARCHIE BUNKER: "I love 'All In the Family' and 'Sanford and Son, too. Archie Bunker sort of proves that he's not all that much of a bigot in each show. That show they did with Sammy Davis, Jr. was a great show. That's what television can be and should be more often. It was great for Archie and great for Sammy, too."
MOVIES: "I've really liked some I've seen lately: 'The French Connection,' 'The Godfather' and 'The Last Picture Show.' But others seem to have gotten too dirty. Nudity, to me, is useless unless it has a lot to do with the story and how many times does nudity really have something vital to do with the story?"
MARIJUANA: "I don't even smoke cigarets but I'd like to try pot once, just to see what it tastes like. I only smoke cigars, but I don't smoke them too well."
HEALTH: "I watch my diet. I have a touch of diabetes and have to stay away from sweets, which I love. I eat and drink moderately and never late. I always need more rest than I get and I get my exercise from constantly working and staying on the go."
BEING 78: "Everyone tells me I look about the same, but they never say the same what. As you get older you try to look as good as possible. We're all vain. I may be vainer than most. It takes 800 make-up men for me today and we still keep moving the cameras back."
STINGINESS: "I've always liked the stingy image. I think it's very funny. But if you really thought I was the stingiest man in the world, there would be no way I could play that role. I tip big. Always have. Particularly cab drivers, because I use them for such short distances."
FAVORITES: "Ed Wynn, I think, was the funniest, most honest funny man who ever lived. Al Jolson was the greatest entertainer. Phil Silvers is another comedian who never, but never makes a mistake. Bob Hope is the epitome of a gagster. George Burns? I'm his greatest audience. New comedians? Flip Wilson is a marvelous young talent, but a very tough person to write material for."
PEOPLE HE ADMIRES: "Pablo Casals, for one. I met him once and played with him. He played the cello and I fiddled. I've been friendly with most of the Presidents. I was closest to Harry Truman and the Kennedys. Today, I'm neither a Democrat nor a Republican. I'm a registered Whig. I'm also a Millard Fillmore man. At least HE kept us out of Vietnam."
AUDIENCES: "The most important thing is to make instant contact with the first few rows. If you do that, you can make contact with thousands of rows. Keep those down front with you and the others will be with you, too."
THE BENNY BOOK: "I wrote an autobiography once. Then I read it and tore it up. Many nice things have happened to me that should be in a book, but I don't feel comfortable writing about them. I would prefer a biography. I'd like Shana Alexander to write it. She knows me. Or Candy Bergen. You know. Candy Bergen could write it very well, too.
"A book about Jack Benny should be done, but it would be a tough one to do. I've never been very poor. In fact, my personal preference for a book's title would be 'I Always Had Shoes.' Publishers want titles I can't stand: "My First 390 Years' or 'W-e-l-lll! !' I never walked barefoot in the snow to sell newspapers. I never got beat up and cut like Joe E. Lewis. And I never grew up having to face the problems Sammy Davis Jr. did.
"I've never been thrown out of anything. My career had a slow, but steady rise. No setbacks, no personal misfortunes. I've been married to one wife, Mary Livingstone for 44 years. I've never been to a psychiatrist. For a comedian I'm surprisingly normal and really very dull. I've had a wonderful life, but not the sort of sensational one that sells books. Anyway, I won't write it. Let other people white [sic] it."
NOSTALGIA: "To hell with it. The past is gone. I'm interested in how I did last night and what I'm going to do tomorrow night. Thinking about the past makes you older quicker than anything else. I always like the next thing I'm supposed to do better than what I've just done."
HIS SECRET: Does there have to be a secret? A reason for my success? Let's see. Most people say timing. Some say likability. Both pacing and material have been named. I've been analyzed by the best and the worst also, I might add. I think basically I enjoy my work. I love what I do and I feel the audiences have always known this.
"Sooner or later in this business, everyone finds out what he's supposed to do. From the beginning, when I walked on the stage at the tough 125th Street Theatre vaudeville stage in Manhattan, I knew I wasn't a one-line jokester. My thing was and is, to this day to get on a subect [sic] and stay on it, then switch carefully and gracefully to another subject without the audience knowing it.
"I never have advocated college for a comedian. Finish high school, by all means, but a college education takes away something. It makes you a little too aloof or something. You stop being down-to-earth-ness. Not earthiness, but down-to-earth-ness. Of course, this is only my opinion, but it's an opinion I respect. Comedy writers don't suffer from going to college, but I think the fellow out in front does. The most educated comedians I know never went to college.
"I sincerely believe my strongest point as a comedian is probably the least understood: I may be the-best editor of comedy material I've ever met. When Hillard Marks, my writer, and I put it down on paper I have a sense about what is right—right for me, right for the occasion and right for the times. An exemple [sic] of selectivity: there is no humor in the issue of busing because it is an issue that makes too many people from too many areas too uncomfortable for too many different reasons.
"As the editor of my own material, I have always had an advantage. My writers have always given me the best of material. It's easy when you only have to deal with good material, picking the best from the best. I think I put together a very good show, with the right timing and proper pacing. It's as an editor I have this sense of what WILL work and what WON'T. I make my decision based on which line or sketch or piece of material I will enjoy doing the most. If I don't enjoy doing it, how can anyone enjoy hearing it?"
See what I mean about Jack Benny doing Jack Benny?