Miltie and Donzie on Jack

Jack Benny’s comic abilities were lauded by everyone and so was his kindness and charity. That includes praise from some people in show business who weren’t universally praised.

An editor with the Charlotte Observer put together a column that dealt with Jack in a few places after getting calls from Los Angeles. The Observer isn’t exactly one of America’s Great Newspapers in terms of circulation. You have to wonder how many newspapers got similar treatment.

Milton Berle had his detractors (Fred Allen was one). The editor asks him a question, seemingly out of the blue, about Jack. The other correspondent is Don Wilson, so talking about the Benny TV show was almost a given. Around this time, Wilson seems a little annoyed he was known only as an announcer, so he tried some acting jobs. He’s trying to give his acting career a little push through this interview.

The paper was published on November 1, 1959.

INTERVIEWS
Berle And Wilson Talk Over Shows
By DICK BANKS
Observer Arts Editor

Milton Berle, on one occasion, and Jack Benny's Don Wilson, on another, called last week to talk about television shows they are appearing in today.
Berle said his guests will be Desi and Lucy in a comedy situation show: Berle is working in a Las Vegas hotel. Desi is his orchestra leader. Lucy is along. Berle forgets his wedding anniversary.
Lucy persuades him to buy a stolen diamond to square things. And a couple of racketeers after the diamond thicken the plot.
Berle said in an average day he's at the office at 8:30, home at night at 7, with the time in between going into interviews, the business of his own production company, discussions of properties he’s producing. "Then there are beneficial funds, and everything, tapes, speeches, you know . . .
"I'm taking it easy. Next week we're going to Switzerland to see our daughter Vicki [missing words] in school there. Have to take time out for family life.
“How come overexposure hasn't got Jack Benny?"
That's something for Jack Benny to answer. Then he's not on every week, is he? And Jack Benny didn't come into the television picture until quite late. Radio? Oh that's another story."
Berle said his favorite comedians of the current crop are Mort Sahl, Buddy Hackett and Mike and Elaine. His comment on pay-TV brought the only wisecrack of the interview: "I think a lot of people these days should get paid to watch TV.”
As to the trends in comedy: "It all revolves in a cycle. When television started, there was just me and Hopalong Cassidy, right? Now it's back again to 'Gunsmoke.' I don't think basic comedy will change, never will."
Berle said about the only unfulfilled ambition he could think of at the moment was to have another baby with his wife Ruth. "The father instinct is pretty strong, I guess."
Don Wilson said Jack Webb will be guest on the Benny Show tonight.

Benny as Charlie Chan will be running a Chinese laundry. His Number One son will turn out to be Jack Webb. Together they will team up in Dragon-Net to solve a mystery.
Wilson says he's doing other things these days besides announcing for Benny, guest appearances, for instance.
In the Death Valley Days series Wilson plays an itinerant gospel speaker, Gates Ajar Morgan, a real bum. But after helping rob Wells Fargo he reforms and turns out to be a good guy. "You know the good guys always have to win."
But before his reformation he gets into a fist fight and is thrown out of a saloon. "It was a lot of fun doing it.
"The fellow who plays my son on the Benny Show isn't really. He's an actor, a young fellow who works at the Pasadena Playhouse, handles lights and directs some things.
"My wife on the show is my real-life wife, a professional of long standing in the theater, Lois Corbet.
"Last summer we played in summer stock, did 'The Great Sebastians," Got wonderful reviews. It was a vindication for Lois. She hadn't appeared in a play in 22 years. Showed she still holds on to her acting techniques.
"What Is Jack Benny really like?
"Well the character in the show is only done in fun. In real life he is quite the contrary, thoughtful, tolerant, generous.
"Benny has a deep-down-in consideration and thoughtfulness for what other people do.
“For instance when I was appearing in a play on Broadway, 'Make A Million,' Benny managed so I could come on his show once a month. Set the whole thing up with my manager so I could get a lot of publicity.
"We've been 20 seasons together, I think he's a great man in our profession. Just tops."

Yes, you are reading that right. Don Wilson was on Broadway. He was in the opening night cast of “Make a Million” on October 23, 1958. He was replaced along the way; perhaps his TV commitments precluded him from working in New York. He appeared on camera in various roles on rare occasion, and then relaxed in Palm Springs where he and Lois had a local TV interview show until the station went in a “different direction.” Meanwhile, Uncle Miltie was less than a year away from emceeing the ever-popular Jackpot Bowling. Jack Benny carried on with a regular TV show and then specials, along with his humanitarian work, until his death in 1974.