Bay Area Benny

Jack Benny was a hit wherever he went. Despite being on radio and TV in the first half of the 1950s, he was able to get away to appear with his act in public.

One jaunt was to San Francisco, where he also recorded two radio shows that aired in the first two weeks of May 1953. One included Gisele Mackenzie, who was included in Jack’s road troupe.

Benny’s arrival in any town began with a news conference and, then, interviews with individual members of the media. Here’s how the San Francisco Examiner reported it on April 3, 1953.

Jack Benny Arrives in S. F. For Stage Stint, Guild Frolic
Jack Benny arrived in San Francisco yesterday to make arrangements for his appearance at the nineteenth annual Newspaper Guild Frolic and the premier of his "Variety Review" at the Curran Theater.
The fast joking comedian and his new all-star variety show will headline the entertainment at the Newspaper Guild Frolic, to be held at the Curran on Monday night, April 20.
Benny's show will open its regular three week run at the theater the following night.
Before leaving the Southern Pacific's Lark for the Fairmont Hotel yesterday, Benny said he was looking forward to appearing in his stage show. It will be his first theater appearance here in eighteen years.
"I enjoy radio and television but I like the stage best," he said. Asked about the new three dimensional movies, he replied:
"I look bad enough on one-D; why should I try three-D?"
Benny, who makes capital of the fact that he watches the pennies closely, shouldered a bag of golf clubs and picked up his own suitcases.
"This isn't to save a tip," he explained. "I just need the exercise."
He brought the golf clubs to his daughter, Joan, 18, a student at Stanford.
"It would have cost at least $1.25 to ship them," he said.
A little later he scooted into Macy's department store where the theme of their eighth annual pre-Easter flower show is emblazoned "Great Musical Moments." Undaunted by the background of $50,000 worth of floral artistry, Benny whipped out one of his violins to give a few pointers on music.
Benny will record two shows for CBS while here. He will be guest of honor tonight at the weekly Gang Dinner of the Press and Union League Club.
Tickets for the Newspaper Guild Frolic are available at the Crane box office, 245 Powell Street. Mail orders for the regular run of the "Variety Review" are being accepted at the Curran Theater.

To give you an idea of the acts that appeared, let’s see what the city’s other paper, the San Francisco Chronicle had to say. This is from April 23, 1953.

Casual Benny Banter Ranks With Kaye Wit
By WILLIAM HOGAN
AS AN OCCASION MEMBER of the “vast radio audience,” I have been able to take the Jack Benny show or leave it alone these many years, of a Sunday evening. But I intend to tune in regularly for now on to find if Benny comes across on the air, or on television, the way he did Tuesday night at the intimate Curran Theater.
Benny is the deftest, subtlest, most accomplished comedian to turn up here at lease [sic] since Danny Kaye. The Variety Revue that surrounds him is crisply paced, the best yet in this upper-crust vaudeville format that has come our way regularly since the Judy Garland show a year or so back.
What makes Benny run? For one thing, it is timing—wonderful timing, and a superb indifference to what’s going on around him. Even when some of his gags are tired.
Benny can simply stand on stage with a bored look, light a cigar, gaze out at the audience (as if he hated it) and draw a roar. He puts on a pair of glasses, explains he doesn’t need them—just uses them for seeing. And somehow breaks up the paying customers. “Cheaper than buying a dog,” he explains, topping himself.
Benny survives a ridiculous interruption in his patter—a corny girl trio—and draws on his timing to exploit the interruption for enormous fun. Few comedians can do so much with so little.

LIKE DANNY KAYE’S, Benny’s comedy style (a very different one) defies analysis. Some of it stems from his radio background; some from his basic training in vaudeville years before. When he appears, an audience is ready to accept him as a character. Yet, at the Curran on Tuesday, few were prepared to find Benny’s casual air something close to a unique comic art—at least comedy technique ground like the Mt. Palomar lens.
Actually, there is little substance to Benny’s hour on stage. He attempts to play his violin; nobody is interested. He talks about people he works with on the radio, his Hollywood neighbors. He discusses his radio props, the Maxwell (now a Chevrolet, he explains; he took it to a Danish mechanic).
He introduces Zeke Benny’s Beverly Hillbilly band in a neatly-staged bit in which he finally does play the fiddle (“You Are My Sunshine”). And that’s about it. Yet the audience, as a result of Benny’s suave, likeable banter (thoroughly clean, incidentally), finds itself having a wonderful time.
The ending of the act is strictly from radio, but ingenious. Benny plays his violin in front of a spotlight. From a soundtrack, his voice give[s] his impression of the evening and the audience.
He’s on just long enough to make an audience want to drop into the Curran again.
AS BENNY SAYS, he may not be good himself, but he can sure pick the winners. The variety show that precedes him is an example of what he means.
The show stopper is Sammy Davis Jr., junior member of the Will Mastin Trio. Davis is on his way to becoming THE great Negro entertainer of our day, a Bill Robinson plus a sharp, imaginative comedy style. His impersonations of Lanza, Laine, Jerry Lewis, Johnnie Ray and others brought down the house. Davis’ dancing is skilled and polished—picked up, he explains, from his partners, his father and uncle.
Giselle Mackenzie [sic], TV and recording personality, brings a specialized, vigorous singing style to the show. She’s another performer who interrupts Benny later on in the proceedings. Other acts, all top-bracket variety turns, include Frakson, a magician; The Martells & Mignon, dancers; The Carsony Brothers, a breathtaking acrobatic act. They set the pace, wind up the audience for the headliner—and Benny comes through, as advertised.
THE MUSICAL DIRECTION by Mahlon Merrick and staging by Macklin Megley—probably best in the business of pacing and designing variety shows—insure the evening of becoming strictly big time. The Jack Benny Variety Review is everyone’s dish—and don’t forget the youngsters.

The trip was a financial success for Benny. The Examiner reported he took in $131,300 over the three weeks, with the profits rising every week. Lou Lurie, who owned the Curran, said Benny could have filled the theatre for another three weeks, but he had a TV show to do, and Phil Silvers had already been booked.