An Old, New Network For Jack

It was a callous firing. At least, the way it’s revealed in Bob Metz’s “CBS: Reflections in a Bloodshot Eye” (Playboy Press, 1975).

Jack Benny was, for all intents and purposes, grabbed by the network’s Bill Paley from NBC radio to move his show to CBS at the start of 1949. Benny slid into television and kept right on going.

That is, until 1964. CBS now had a president by the name of Jim Aubrey, who, as Metz put it, “seemed to relish telling stars they were washed up.” He went on: “When Aubrey kissed off Jack Benny, one of America’s all-time favorite entertainers, he did it with an emotionless ‘You’re through.’ This saddened Paley, but he couldn’t dispute Benny’s waning popularity. For if Paley had wanted Benny to stay, he certainly could have intervened.”

Paley put it this way in his autobiography, “As It Happened,” “I think Jack was hurt when CBS did not renew his contract in 1964, but he never said anything about it to me. One of the very sad things about all entertainment stars is that like athletes every one of them knows his or her career must end someday; but when that day arrives, it is very hard to accept the inevitable.”

A biography by manager Irving Fein puts it this way: “Our contract with CBS had only one more year to run, and they had an option to renew but had to do it a year in advance. Before the season started, we sent them a wire reminding them that the option time was coming up and we wanted a yes or no answer by September 1, the date called for in the contract. They wanted to wait until the season started and the ratings were in, but after consultation with MCA, owners of our company, we decided to stand firm, and as soon as the option had expired, we signed a one-year contract with NBC for the 1964-65 season.”

The impression Fein leaves—and so did the print media at the time—was it was Jack’s decision not to renew with CBS and jump to NBC.

Here’s a version along those lines as reported by syndicated columnist Margaret McManus, who wrote a number of feature stories on Jack. We’ve reprinted some from 1955, 1957 (two), 1958, 1959, 1960 and 1969. This one is from October 10, 1964; Benny’s season premiere had been on September 25th. Jack’s lead-in was Jack, at least partly. He appeared on a Bob Hope special. Following him was the man he had NBC put on their radio network as a summer replacement—Jack Paar.

It’s interesting McManus writes Jack “remembers the date” of his first NBC show. He didn’t. It was actually May 2, 1932.

Indestructible
Jack Benny Just Likes Good Shows
By MARGARET McMANUS
Fifteen years ago Jack Benny was the first of the big radio stars to leave NBC for CBS. He led the way. He started a parade, and CBS, then an inconsequential baby in the broadcasting field, took that parade and turned it into a rivalry which has kept NBC quivering on its toes ever since.
This season Jack Benny has returned to NBC TV (9:30 PM Fridays), though reruns of his show are on CBS-TV at 5 PM Sundays.
It has been 32 years since his first NBC radio show. Jack remembers the date easily, May 10, 1932. Whether or not he will start another parade in the opposite direction remains to be seen.
BENNY, AT the age of 70, looks closer to 50. He has had all the success a man could ask for, and he has the fame and the money to prove it. From his movies, his personal appearances, the reruns of his television shows, there is scarcely a country in the world where his face is unfamiliar.
He owns all the baubles of extreme success, a Rolls Royce, a house in Beverly Hills, a house in Palm Springs, a Stradivarius violin, if you could call such a treasure a bauble. The gray tweed in his sports jacket is fine and soft, and the blue of his shirt and tie do indeed make his blue eyes bluer.
IN SPITE of his treasure, Jack Benny is still vulnerable. He is very human. How he feels toward CBS is his own secret, but anybody can make a guess. He spent 15 years there and he made an enormous contribution to their growth. CBS, of course, could well say the network much for Benny.
However when his contract was running out last season, nobody rushed in to persuade him to stay. When NBC came up quickly with a good deal, Benny accepted it, just as quickly.
He is philosophical.
“A change is good,” he said. “My show won’t be changed that much. I have the same people with me—Don Wilson, Dennis Day, the same writers. But it’s a whole new environment and that’s good. They take you for granted when you’ve been around too long. I’m very happy the way things worked out.”
AT LUNCH in the Oak of the Plaza in New York, Benny ate his scrambled eggs and sausages and tried to be impervious to the four women lunching at the next table who made no attempt to hide their piercing stares nor their audible comments.
“I don’t mind it," he said. “I have a lot of friends who claim to hate being recognized, but after all these years I’d be a little frightened if I went somewhere and nobody recognized me.
“Have you heard the wonderful story Bob Hope tells about going to Russia and sitting down at this impressive state dinner and he's trying to make conversation with the lady on his right and suddenly she said to him, ‘Mr. Hope did you bring your violin?’”
Benny, with the reputation as the comedian who is the best audience for other comedians, doesn’t actually laugh. He smiles broadly and chuckles. When he’s telling another comedian’s story, he always gives a credit line. He ordered coffee, very hot, and this reminded him of a line of his closest friend, George Burns.
“George Burns once said to a writer in Lindy’s. ‘I want coffee so hot that if you can carry it in, I don’t want it.’” Benny smiled very broadly. He got his coffee scalding hot.
JACK AND his wife, Mary Livingston, live in Beverly Hills, next door to Lucille Ball and her husband, Gary Morton. They're all good friends, Jack and Morton play golf together, Jack and Lucy guest on the other’s television show on opposing networks.
Benny said when he Mary recently bought Tom May house, which is a real show place in Palm Springs Mary said to Lucy:
“Can you imagine, Lucy, I used to sell hosiery in the May Company and now Jack and I own the house of the man who owns the May Company.”
And Lucy said:
“Whaddya mean honey, can I imagine? I used to be an extra at RKO and now I own the whole studio.”
A COUPLE of weeks, Jack Benny, born Benny Kubelsky, went back to his home town of Waukegan, Ill., to give a violin concert with the Milwaukee Symphony to raise money for a local music center. The concert was in the auditorium of a new modem school, West Campus High. Benny went to Central High for just one year.
Although he has raised $3,500,000 for various musicians’ charity funds across the country, this was the first time he gave a benefit concert in his home town.”
“I can’t say I feel any nostalgia about Waukegan,” he said. “It’s a part of me. You never completely get over your home town. Sometimes when I go back, I like to take a look at one house where we lived. Sometimes I walk past the spot where my father had a little clothing store, but it’s all so long ago. I have no family there. I have just one sister and she lives in Chicago.”
JACK BENNY continues to take great pride, meticulous care, and pleasure in his work. It is as much a part of him as Waukegan. It is both a compulsion and habit. His real joy, however, is in playing the violin and in the benefit concerts he gives with symphony orchestras around the country. He has already willed his Stradivarius and another fine violin he owns to the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
“Once in a while I think if anything ever happened to these two fingers and I couldn’t play the violin, everything else, television, everything, would go down the drain. Isn’t that crazy, for me to think such a thing?”
One of the highlights of Benny’s visit to New York was hearing Jascha Heifetz. Among the distinguished musicians, one of his closest friends in Isaac Stern, the master violinist. His friends run the scale. They do not run to type or profession. He enjoys them all, musicians, comedians, writers, politicians, golfers.
Golf is second to the violin as a relaxation to Benny and he likes very much to go out and play nine holes all by himself.
"I bought a cart but the caddy rides in it more than I do,” he said. “I just use it for a couple of steep hills.”
“I don’t worry about ratings,” Benny said. “I worry about shows, good ideas for shows. The scripts are easier if the idea is good.
“After 30 years you worry less. They can't throw me out now. It’s too late.”

In a way, they did throw him out. Jim Aubrey counter-programmed the Benny show with Gomer Pyle, USMC, which turned out to be the ratings winner. NBC cancelled Benny after one season. But Jack was still popular enough for a solo sponsor to bear the expense of paying for a Benny special. Occasional television seemed to suit him just fine. It gave him more time to play benefits with symphony orchestras, his real love now.

Another “Farewell Special” was in production when Benny died in December 1974. CBS broadcast its own farewell tribute three days later. Jim Aubrey, disgraced and fired, was long gone.