Jack Benny Goes to a 7-11

What was it like hanging around Jack Benny?

Let’s find out in this column from the Orlando Sentinel of February 4, 1966. Jack was in town for another one of his concert stops. I wonder if Jack went inside the grocery store or stayed in the car.

My Weekend With Jack Benny
By HOCKER DOENGES
Why do I think Jack Benny is a good guy?
I guess because he's one of us—he's a gentleman and a scholar and a story teller.
He arrived on Sunday at 10 p.m. Beth and George Johnson and Ann and Bob Crane and Bob Doenges and I met him—also more important, Mayor Robert Carr and Helen Ryan.
We took him to the Cherry Plaza, and all of a sudden Jack Benny said, "I need something to eat before I go to bed." He had flown from Los Angeles and we never thought of food. Have you ever tried to find food at 10:30 on a Sunday night? For a celebrity? No food.
We found a 7-11 open and bought a baloney Poor Boy and a regular quart of milk. We went to the Johnsons, doctored up the Poor Boy with cheese and toasted it. He loved it. The milk was wrong—he only drinks skim milk.
FINALLY WE got through all of this and Jack put up his feet and said, "I would like to have a cigar and I'm out of them."
No husband could produce a cigar. He couldn't have been nicer—said he'd smoked his quota on the way out so really shouldn't have one. Who else would have acted like this to save our feelings?
HE MUST use a pen a day, he never turns any one down. After the concert he signed at least 250 autographs. I thought we would never get him to the party.
He called his Mary every day in Palm Springs, where she was with friends playing golf and gin rummy. He doesn't own a Maxwell and never has. He doesn't have a Rochester, but he has Irving.
IRVING IS his manager and although he scared me at first he does a terrific job and I miss him, too. Jack looks much younger than 39 and asks no quarter from any one. He calls his wife every day and finds out her golf score or whether she has won or lost at gin rummy. He even sang "Happy Birthday" to a 20th birthday gal at the Skyline when they brought in her birthday cake. She almost fainted!
HIS STORIES and conversation are terrific. He was in Berlin four days after the armistice of World War II. He was doing a show over there and after the armistice he couldn't find any of our boys to play for, so he followed them into Berlin.
He has an orange grove and a ranch in California. We gave him some lousy weather, but he didn't complain, didn't even make a snide remark about the weather here or California. I would have.
HELEN RYAN started working to get Jack Benny here 21 years ago, and finally we had him and he LIKES us. His audience at the benefit he liked—he liked the party afterwards—it was not the cost plush party, but it didn't cost $5,000 or $10,000—every penny HE made for us went directly to the Symphony deficit and Jack Benny likes that. He doesn't want to donate his time and have a lot spent on the party afterwards.
Jack remarked several times that our conductor, Henry Mazer, was one of the easiest to work with. He liked us and we loved him.
I still think Jack Benny is a great guy!
Signed His Den Mother for Three Days, Harriet (Hocker) Doenges

The paper ran a full page about Jack after his death in 1974. There were a number of wire service stories, one dealing with pancreatic cancer, another with reaction from Jack's many celebrity friends, including future president Ronald Reagan. The Sentinel reporter who covered the concert looked back.

Jack's Quips Remembered By Reporter
By SUMNER RAND
Sentinel Star Staff
When Jack Benny visited Orlando just under nine years ago to take part in a benefit concert for the Florida Symphony Orchestra (FSO), he hit some of the coldest weather that winter.
"I just came from six nights in Canada," he joked. "It was almost as cold as Miami."
THE COMEDIAN, who over the years raised more than $5 million for symphony orchestras throughout the country, impressed the Orlandoans he met, including this reporter who met him briefly at a press conference, with his informality, lack of pretense and free and easy manner.
He appeared at a press conference held in what was then called the Cherry Plaza Hotel in a dark gray sports jacket, flannel slacks, black loafers, blue ascot and scarlet handkerchief with a huge cigar.
Asked if the cold weather might affect his violin playing, he joked, "I play exactly the same whether it's hot or cold. In fact, that's how I play, hot and cold."
He said the idea of coming to Orlando to help the Florida symphony reduce its deficit came from conductor Alfred Wallenstein who had been a guest conductor of the local symphony a couple of seasons before Benny's appearance.
"He conducted my first four concerts. The other conductors weren't afraid to have me after that," Benny quipped.
He described the act he put on for orchestra benefits as follows: "I play the world's greatest violinist. Actually, I have no business to be within eight blocks of a concert hall."
His playing and his quips before a capacity audience in Orlando Municipal Auditorium that night Jan. 27, 1966, though, helped raise $23,200 net profit for the Florida Symphony.

Hocker Doenges was right. Jack Benny was a great guy.