It’s no surprise Dennis Day came across in real life as a family man.
He had ten children.
Day appeared from obscurity to take over the vocalist’s job on the Jack Benny show in 1939. Nobody on the show was certain Day—that was the name they gave him—would make it. To hedge their bet, they brought on veteran actress Verna Felton to play Dennis’ overbearing mother. Felton was funny, but Benny and his people agreed Day was capable of handling the role without assistance, so Felton’s mother was reduced to occasional appearances.
As it turned out, Day developed a pretty good flair for comedy, both in the context of his quiet and silly character, and when it came to a small group of imitations, which the writers started putting in the show. He did funny versions of Jimmy Durante, the Mad Russian (Bert Gordon as Eddie Cantor’s foil) and Ronald Colman, and some over-the-top accents that were perfect for Benny’s sketches.
All this resulted in Colgate-Peet-Palmolive signing Day for his own radio series. When television came around, he starred in two short-lived series in the 1950s, but started raking in the big money when he headlined in Las Vegas.
Despite this, he seems to have been removed from the glittery world of show business celebrities, no doubt helped by publicity along those lines.
Here’s an example. TV Guide published this two-page profile on June 4, 1954.
Four Days Make One Weak
Dennis’ Children Keep Life Hectic For ‘TV Bachelor’
Brentwood, Cal., is one of those money-sprinkled suburbs whose shopping center is archly referred to as “the village”; whose winding roads bear names like Tigertail and Saltair and whose few remaining unsold lots are priced higher than a kite in an updraft. Being a sub-suburb of suburban Beverly Hills, it is loaded with movie and TV stars on a high turnover basis.
Now, in the film capital, a star’s home is rarely associated with the star himself. It is almost invariably "the old Gloria Swanson place” or “the former Rin Tin Tin manse,” regardless of who might be footing the current utilities bill.
An exception to this rule-of-thumb is the Dennis Day farmhouse, located north of Sunset Boulevard in the outer reaches of Brentwood. Day and his wife, the former Peggy Almquist, bought the place from its builder, who was not a star, thereby assuring its future pedigree as “the old Dennis Day place.”
The pedigree is going to have to wait awhile, however, as Dennis and his wife have remodeled it with a careful Irish eye on future expansion. They are the early settler type and, with four young McNultys all under the age of six, they are both early and settled.
Right here it should be explained that in this woodsy little corner of Brentwood the Days are known as “the McNultys,” Dennis’ real name being Eugene Patrick McNulty. The children, Margaret, 1; Michael, 3; Dennis, Jr., 4, and Patrick, 5, are known strictly as “the McNulty children.”
It’s the end of a perfect Day, you might say, when the kids rush out to meet their particular Mr. McNulty. That workaday character, name of Dennis, disappears, and in his place there’s only “Daddy.”
With four Indians of Irish descent on the premises, Dennis generally finds himself up by 7:00 A.M. whether he likes it or not. Breakfast is a pleasant sort of bedlam—the kind only parents can ever become accustomed to. After that, it’s up to Peggy McNulty to get her husband piled into his car, the two older boys piled off to nursery school and the other kids piled out from underfoot.
On weekdays Dennis generally gets home fairly late, just in time to try to calm the children with a quick story before their bedtime. He and Peggy like a quiet dinner together and spend most evenings watching television. Sunday, however, is family day. Dennis leads the entire brood off to church, after which the four Indians rule the roost and keep their father stepping.
An Irish Stew
A favorite Sunday occupation is a family barbecue, with Dennis himself presiding at the open pit built into the den’s huge brick fireplace. In warmer weather the backyard pool becomes the general meeting place, fairly crawling with McNultys. Dennis has four brothers and a sister, plus enough nieces and nephews to stock a small school. The canyon neighborhood, in fact, is rapidly becoming known as McNulty Gulch.
Aside from the occasional fishing sorties, which are strictly a mother-and-father deal, the McNultys are as tightly knit a family group as Hollywood boasts, and keep pretty much to themselves in their canyon hideout. Dennis keeps a firm hand on the children’s reins, and labors mightily to keep their natural, exuberant tendencies within limits.
Hams Must Age, You Know
Patrick, the oldest boy, already has some of his excess energy siphoned off into show business, having appeared on one of his father’s TV films in the role of Dennis himself as a young boy. Whether or not the others will follow suit is something Dennis is not yet prepared to say.
“They’re too young at the moment,” he says matter-of-factly, “to do anything but get in and out of trouble. But they’re Irish and they’re mine, and it’s quite possible there is a small amount of latent ham in them.”
I’ve always liked Kenny Baker as a vocalist more than Day, though I’m not excited about the kinds of songs both were required to perform, but Day was more talented of the two. While Andy Williams and Perry Como were bigger on television, Al Martino and Johnny Mathis were bigger on the record charts, and rock would be embraced by young people, Day still attracted fans who wanted to see the singer they heard for years on a radio show with a comedian they loved.
An almost fatal car accident didn’t stop Mel Blanc. (You can read an account about it in this Yowp post).
He continued recording voices for Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros. He had formed Mel Blanc Enterprises to produce humorous commercials. And there was a happy, Christmas-time reunion on the Jack Benny television show in 1961.
But he obviously slowed down. In looking through newspapers in the first half of 1963, I can find only two on-camera appearances—one with Benny and another, somewhat improbably, with Arthur Godfrey.
Godfrey had been ubiquitous on CBS television in the 1950s. Things had changed by the end of the decade, perhaps because of the discovery that he wasn’t as charming and laid back in real life as he was on camera. It didn’t quite kill his career. He co-hosted part of a season on Candid Camera in 1960 before walking off annoyed at the show’s owner, Allen Funt (who didn’t have much good to say about Godfrey, either).
The network was still interested in Godfrey’s talents and signed him to host specials. One in early 1963 featured Blanc. It turned out the two men had something in common, as Earl Wilson reported in his column of March 8, 1963. As you might have expected, Blanc had a Jack Benny story.
INJURED, BUT THEY'LL DANCE
Arthur Godfrey and Mel Blanc—each survivor of a near fatal auto accident, each held together by silver plates and pins—will try to forget March 18 that they've had to use canes . . . and will try to dance on TV.
Mel Blanc, while still on a cane, learned about this ambitious undertaking when he reported to the big red-head Arthur (who’ll be 60 in July) for rehearsal for CBS' "Arthur Godfrey Loves Animals" TV show.
"Tell me about your accident," Arthur said first.
"Well, this leg here had 22 breaks in it . . . I had five fractures in my spine . . . I was unconscious for 21 days . . . they kept telling my wife, Estelle, that I couldn't make it . . . she'd cry and beg them 'Please don't say THAT!" . . . there were 18 doctors on duty at the UCLA Medical Clinic . . . practically all of them worked on me . . . I was in a cast eight months, but it was two months before they could put me in a cast . . .
“I've still got six silver screws through my leg . . .”
Blanc’ll do Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Speedy Gonzales, and Pepe Le pew, the French skunk, as well as the sound of Jack Benny’s expiring Maxwell, on the Godfrey show.
"THE ONE MAN who never forgot us when I didn't know whether I'd pull through," Mel said, "was Jack Benny. He’s come to see us every 10 days."
“One night we were having chicken-in-the-pot in the kitchen. He said he had to go to dinner at Dave Chasen's, but he'd just have some soup with us. Pretty soon he said he'd have dinner with us, and have dessert at Chasen's. Then Estelle brought out dessert and he said ‘Never mind, I’ll just have coffee at Chasen’s.’ He wound up going to Chasm's for an after-dinner drink."
A news release about the special said “With Mel Blanc, Arthur gets a taste of the wiles of Bugs Bunny when the sassy rabbit tried to fast-talk him into a television appearance while Sylvester and Pepe Le Pew interrupt with idea of their own.” The Boston Globe’s review added Blanc demonstrated the voices of “Sweetie Pie” and “baby Deeno.” Percy Shain evidently needed to watch more cartoons.
There was an interesting and unique follow-up to this story in the Fremont Tribune of June 17, 1963. The columnist in this Nebraska newspaper was not an entertainment writer. He was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. We’ll leave him with the last line, again showing the selflessness of a supposed 39-year-old.
Reflections
Two Entertainers Offer Lesson in Enduring Woe
By CHARLES S. RYCKMAN
The capacity for achieving amazing triumphs over physical handicaps seems to be in some people in proportion to the severity of the disability. The most complaining and despairing sometimes are those with minor and temporary impairment of their bodily faculties.
Those with major loss of physical powers, and especially those with long and perhaps permanent experience with agonizing suffering, often rise to the highest peaks of endurance and accomplish the greatest degree of mastery over the tragedies with which they must live for the remainder of their years.
The current activities of two great entertainers offer vivid illustration of these facts. Radio and television personality Arthur Godfrey is one. The movie and TV veteran Mel Blanc is the other. They appeared together on Godfrey's television program in March, supporting themselves on canes. They danced, told jokes, kidded each other and themselves, treating their own disabilities so lightly and casually that viewers had little understanding of the bitter hell both men have known, and still must know as long as they live.
Arthur Godfrey was an auto accident victim many years ago. He has had so many operations he has lost all count. His body is so pieced and patched that what he was born with and what now holds him together are so intermingled that identification, like the lady's hair color and her hairdresser, is known only to his surgeons.
* * *
Mel Blanc went down into his purgatory by the same route, but much later. One leg had 22 fractures. There were five breaks in his spine. He was unconscious for 21 days. It took two months to get him in condition to wear a cast, and he wore the cast for eight months. He still has six silver screws in the formented leg.
But you knew mighty little of this as they danced, gagged and entertained millions of people. They themselves seemed scarecely conscious of the tortured road by which, they had come. They know about it, well enough. Neither is a stranger to pain and fear nor ever will be again.
And, for a wry item, of all Mel Blanc's friends only one was a constant visitor at his bedside through-out the long months of his ordeal. That was comedian Jack Benny, who works so hard to develop an image of himself as a selfish man.
How could Jack Benny win an award from a television academy before he ever appeared on TV?
Simple. He didn’t win an award for television.
In case you’re confused, we’ll sort it out.
The year was 1950. Jack’s award did not come from the American Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, which gave out the Emmys in January that year in a ceremony from Los Angeles. His honour was handed out in March by the Academy of Radio and Television Best Arts and Sciences in New York. Benny’s radio show was still going strong, so the Academy feted him for his radio show.
From what I can tell, this was the first and only time this Academy mounted an awards ceremony. While the winners were announced in the national press, the ceremony itself was not broadcast on radio or TV, and it avoided the notice of the show biz bible, Variety.
The awards were called the “Michaels.” Who Michael was, I leave you to discover.
The International News Service wire wrote, in part, on March 22, 1950, the day after the awards.
GODFREY SHOW UP FRONT
Dinah, Bing top list for radio-TV ‘Oscars’
NEW YORK (INS)—The Academy of Radio and Television Best Arts and Sciences made its first annual awards for the year's best performances in those fields last night to a host of celebrities including Walter Winchell, Jack Benny and Arthur Godfrey.
The radio and video awards were made at a reception and dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel as the first annual designations in several radio and TV classifications in what is hoped will be the equivalent of the movie "Oscar."
The winners were chosen by a field of top experts in radio, newspaper, magazine, educational and sociological fields from throughout the country. [The AP reported there were more than 1,250 judges]
[...]
• • •
NOT ALL those honored could be present personally. Among the radio and television celebrities present were Tex and Jinx Falkenberg, singer Monica Lewis, Columnist “Bugs" Baer and Mrs. Baer, Mrs. Wendell Winkle, RCA president Frank Folsom and CBS vice president Hubbell Robinson.
Radio Daily had a full list in its story:
Award Winners Named At Dinner In Waldorf
Winners in 27 categories were named last night as recipients of the first annual "Michael" Awards, sponsored by the Academy of Radio and Television Best Arts and Sciences. The awards were announced by Ed Sullivan at a $25-a-plate Awards Dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria, which was co-sponsored by the New York Heart Fund.
Winners listed in one-two-three order were as follows:
News & Commentary (radio)—Walter Winchell, ABC; Edward R. Murrow, CBS; Lowell Thomas, CBS.
Comedy & Variety (radio)—Jack Benny, CBS; Amos 'n' Andy, CBS; Godfrey's Talent Scouts, CBS.
Education, Forums, Etc. (radio)—American Town Meeting, ABC; People's Platform, CBS; Meet the Press, MBS.
Religions Programs (radio)—Greatest Story Ever Told, ABC; Eternal Light, NBC; Family Theater, MBS.
Drama (radio)—Theater Guild on the Air, NBC; Lux Radio Theater, CBS; Railroad Hour, NBC.
Educational Documentaries (radio)—You Are There, CBS; Living, NBC; United Nations Series, NBC.
Agricultural (radio)—Farm & Home, NBC; CBS Farm News, CBS: American Farmer, ABC.
Music (radio)—Telephone Hour, NBC; Voice of Firestone, NBC; NBC Symphony. NBC.
Children's Programs (radio)—Let's Pretend, CBS; Juvenile Jury, MBS; Greatest Story Ever Told, ABC.
Outstanding Comedian (radio)—Groucho Marx, CBS; Jack Benny, CBS; Bob Hope, NBC.
Outstanding Comedian (television)—Milton Berle, NBC; Ed Wynn, CBS; Sid Caesar, NBC.
Outstanding Dramatic Actor (radio)—Everett Sloane, House Jameson, Staats Cotsworth.
Outstanding Dramatic Actor (television)—Ralph Bellamy (Man Against Crime), Charles Heston (Studio One), Everett Sloane.
Drama (television)—Philco Playhouse, NBC; Studio One, CBS; Ford Theater, CBS.
News & Commentary (television)—Camel News Caravan, NBC; Headline Clues, DuMont; Leon Pearson & News, NBC.
Variety Programs (television)—Toast of the Town, CBS; Texaco Star Theater, NBC; Talent Scouts, CBS.
Children's Programs (television)—Kukla Fran & Ollie, NBC; Mr. I Magination, CBS; Singing Lady, ABC.
Sportscasters Mel Allen, Bill Stern, Harry Wismer, ABC.
Promising Stars—Dave Garroway, Abe Burrowsm Jack Carter, Fran Warren.
Special Citations — Lawrence Tibbett, Paul Winchell, Fred Waring.
Outstanding Dramatic Actress (radio)—Helen Hayes (Electric Theater); Agnes Moorhead (Suspense); Ann Sothern (in Theater Guild's "Burlesque").
Outstanding Dramatic Actress (television)—Gertrude Berg, CBS; Felicia Montealegre; Faye Emerson.
Top Feature Vocalist (radio & TV)—Dinah Shore, CBS; Jo Stafford, CBS; Monica Lewis.
Top Male Vocalist (radio & TV)—Bing Crosby, CBS; Frank Sinatra; Perry Como, NBC.
Outstanding Radio Writer Cy Howard for “My Friend Irma" and "Life with Luigi"; Norman Corwin; Morton Wishengrad.
Outstanding Producer Director (radio)—Homer Flickett for "Theater Guild on the Air"; Fletcher Markle; William Keighly.
Outstanding Producer Director (television)—Worthington Minor for "Studio One" and "The Goldbergs"; Mark Daniels; Burr Tillstram [sic].
Program of the Year (radio)—You Are There, CBS; "Could Be" by Norman Corwin, NBC; "Sister Carrie" (NBC University Theater).
Program of the Year (television)—Godfrey's Talent Scouts, CBS; Eisenhower's Crusade in Europe, ABC; Kukla, Fran & Ollie, NBC.
The Michael wasn’t the only honour Benny got in March 1950. Radio Daily made this declaration on its front page of March 10.
BENNY ACCLAIMED TOP PERSONALITY
Crosby, Hope And Amos 'n' Andy Also Rate High With Radio Editors In Radio Daily Poll
Jack Benny has been acclaimed "the greatest radio personality during the last 25 years" in a questionnaire poll of 330 of the nation's radio editors completed yesterday by RADIO DAILY.
In naming Benny many of the radio editors supported their choice with comments about him as a master show-man who has consistently presented top comedy programming over the years.
Second choice of the radio editors was Bing Crosby who ran close to Benny in the balloting while third place resulted in a tie between Bob Hope and Amos 'n Andy.
In selecting Benny most of the radio editors wrote in their non-commercial choice. This honor went to the late Franklin Delano Roosevelt, of whom one editor wrote: "He relied almost entirely on radio to instill confidence, faith and courage in this nation."
Comments were many and varied among the radio editors in awarding the honor to Benny. Among them were:
"Jack Benny for his personal accomplishments and those he has helped to stardom."—Nat Lund, Seattle Times, Seattle, Wash.
"Jack Benny is not necessarily the best or the greatest judged in terms of pure talent—but he deserves the title of 'greatest' in the sense that his radio characterization has not only become a national tradition, but has maintained itself as such in the top levels of public acclaim longer than any other." — Ben Gross New York Daily News.
"If by radio personality you mean entertaining personality, I'd say Jack Benny." — Peg White, San Diego Journal, San Diego, Calif.
"If F. D. R. is barred from competition, I'll throw my vote to Jack Benny who had led the way so many years."— John Crosby, New York Herald-Tribune.
In taking the poll RADIO DAILY asked radio editors one question: "Who Was the Greatest Radio Personality During the Last 25 Years?" Editors were invited to comment on their selection.
Among other personalities who received ballots in the poll were Walter Winchell, Arthur Godfrey, Lowell Thomas, Major Bowes, H. V. Kaltenbom, Alexander Woollcott and Will Rogers.
Jack Benny, currently starred in the "Jack Benny Show" on Columbia Broadcasting System Sundays from 7:00 to 7:30 p.m., EST, under sponsorship of the American Tobacco Company, first entered radio 18 years ago.
Started In 1932
Back in 1932, Benny bumped into columnist Ed Sullivan one night in a Broadway restaurant. Sullivan asked him to guest on his radio program the following evening. "But I don't know anything about radio," Jack protested. "Nobody does," Sullivan replied.
Benny offered to give it a whirl, gratis, and on this first broadcast of his life introduced himself with a line now immortal in radio, "This is Jack Benny talking. Now there will be a brief pause for everyone to say, 'Who cares'?"
First Commercial On NBC
Millions did care, as Benny soon found out. The same year, 1932, he had a sponsor and a network program on NBC. He was a sensation from the start, zooming to the top in rating sweepstakes and helping to put radio on its first real pants. He has remained at the top, or pretty much so, ever since, a national institution and trail-blazer in radio comedy.
The "Jack Benny Show" has remained virtually constant in basic pattern through the years, evidence of its tested value as a style of entertainment. As everybody knows, Jack doesn't tell the jokes himself, though he is a master wit. He is the "unhappy" target for the barbs of his radio gang.
As a master showman, Jack Benny's genius is universally recognized. His knack of building personalities into stars of their own right is well known. Dennis Day, Eddie Anderson, who plays Rochester, and Phil Harris are notable examples of his star system.
Benny and his company moved over to CBS from NBC in January, 1949, and since then his Lucky Strike broadcasts have been a Sunday night feature from Hollywood.
The day before the survey results came out, Radio Daily published the latest Pacific Hooperatings. Jack’s show was number one at 40.9, with Bergen and McCarthy next at 33.1. Incidentally, Dennis Day was 11th at 19.6, while Phil Harris and Alice Faye followed at 18.9.
Jack continued to popular. It took another 15 years before he succumbed to glum ratings. 1932 to 1965 is a pretty good run for anyone.
On a whim, I decided to flip through some newspaper clippings about Jack Benny in May 1945.
You could certainly get your fill of Benny then, on radio and on the big screen.
Jack’s last show before summer break was on the 27th, with Larry Adler as his special guest. The show also featured Prof. LeBlanc (Mel Blanc), a “typical American family” soap opera announcer (Bea Benaderet), Speedy Riggs’ mother (Elvia Allman), and a plug for Yhtapmys Soothing Syrup with Jack chuckling in the background over Frank Nelson’s delivery.
But he wasn’t through with radio yet. On the 29th, he and Keenan Wynn co-starred in “Please, Charley” on NBC’s This is My Best at 9:30 Eastern. It was based on Lawrence Riley’s humorous short story. Then the following night at 11:30 Eastern, he emceed the second half of a two-hour Seventh War Loan show on the network. His gang was there, as was Ronald Colman to lend some seriousness to the proceedings. On May 16, he appeared from Hollywood in a segment of the series for wounded servicemen, The Road Ahead, airing on the Blue network at 9 Eastern and hosted by Clifton Fadiman.
Among the clippings is a story by Tom Dammann in the May 11th edition of the San Luis Obispo Telegram-Tribune. We quote part of it:
SAN FRANCISCO, May 11.—No gathering of people is complete without funny incidents. The United Nations Conference is no exception. [...]
The other evening, to show you what we mean, we were standing with a large crowd just outside the Opera House to watch the delegates arrive for a plenary session. [...]
Where’s Rochester?
Finally a long black limousine drove up and the crowed quieted, awed, because here perhaps was a Molotov or Stettinius. Out stepped a handsomely dressed man and three well gowned women. The crowed craned its neck, including us. Here was obviously a delegate of importance, but who was he? He walked hurriedly up the steps, followed by the three women. He got just inside the door when a sailor in the crowd recognized him.
“JACK BENNY!” the sailor hollered.
And it was Jack Benny, with Mary Livingston [sic] and two friends. He turned and shouted “Hiya, folks,” and went on to watch the proceedings. The crowd laughed.
It seems others got to meet Jack in the flesh during his trip to the Bay area. His May 20th show came from San Francisco. Before and after the broadcast, the cast took part in an “I Am An American Day” show at the Civic Auditorium. As for the show, it made the May 19 edition of the Fulton Daily Sun-Gazette of Missouri.
Dudley Payne, Hospital Attendant 2-c at the U. S. Naval Hospital in Oakland, Calif., and son of Mr. and Mrs. Wallace Payne of Fulton, will play with a navy band on the Jack Benny radio program at 6 p. m. Sunday night.
Young Payne, who plays trombone, has written his family that he is a member of a band which has been judged the best at his base, and will make a guest appearance on the nation-wide radio show tomorrow night. In his letter he said, "If you hear an extra loud note on a trombone, that's me!"
He has been stationed in California almost two years and is movie projectionist and in charge of the sound equipment at the hospital. In this capacity, Payne has met and worked with many famous radio and motion picture stars and has written home often of his interesting and amusing experiences.
Jack stayed after the broadcast, as we learn from the Vallejo Times-Herald of May 22.
Comedian Jack Benny, accompanied by members of his radio troupe, entertained Mare Island Hospital patients at a program in the hospital garden yesterday. After the outdoor show, Benny toured wards to meet patients unable to leave their rooms.
Feature films and Benny didn’t mix, at least according to legend, but in May 1945 he could be seen in movie theatres across the country. Some theatres were playing It’s in the Bag, in which he had a cameo with Fred Allen. Others were advertising his appearance in Hollywood Canteen, released in late December the previous year.
And then there was The Horn Blows at Midnight.
Benny fans know he used this unusual film as a whipping boy, whipping up laughs on his radio show. At the time, it got mixed reviews, more so, I believe, than any other film he made in the ‘40s. The Oregonian’s Drama Editor wrote on May 16:
Benny Film Needs Help
Jack Benny came to the Orpheum screen Tuesday in “The Horn Blows at Midnight.” The film proves definitely that Mr. Benny should have stuck to his violin and “The Bee.”
However, died-in-the-wool Benny fans will pehaps gather joy from this production for it does hold a few laughs.
The story is one of those dream affairs with the comedian playing the role of a third-rate trumpet player on a radio program. He falls asleep as the program is about to go on the air. The picture is devoted from this point to the Benny dream.
The Louisville Courier-Journal of May 11 had a different take.
Not since the heyday of Harold Lloyd has a comedian created so much unalloyed hysteria in audiences as does Jack Benny in his roof-top escapades in “The Horn Blows at Midnight,” [...]
Mr. Benny, we might add, is very pleasantly cast in this film, playing with a droll sense of bewilderment and timidity.
Jack put his name to a column that was kind-of about the movie. The only version I can find is in the Charlotte News of May 26, 1945.
That There Benny Fellow Is A Card
(Editor's note: The following story by Jack Benny was apparently hidden away in an old show since the picture he refers to has long since been completed. Proceed at your own risk.)
By JACK BENNY
HOLLYWOOD — Oddly enough, my day starts in the morning. At 6 A. M., an alarm clock rings in my ear, so I take it out of my ear and go back to sleep. About half an hour later I hear a bell ringing again, but this time it's a telephone call from the Make-up Department of Warner Bros. Studio, urging me to hurry over — because putting enough make-up on my face so that I will look ten years younger, is equivalent to making a "Dogwood Sandwich". I would resent that if there weren't a clause in my contract telling me to "SHUT UP". So I inform them that I will rush over to the studio as soon as I comb my hair. But they tell me not to bother because they got it there and it’s combed already.
It is now 6:30 and still dark, so not wanting to wake up Mary or my daughter, Joanie, I tip-toe through the hall, slip out the front door, ease down the curb where my convertible is parked. Just as I open the car door, I hear a window being raised, and Mary's voice raised even higher yelling, "It's about time you got home." I would give her an argument but I recall that she had "that same certain clause" put in our marriage license: so I throw her a kiss and drive off.
COFFEE TIME
In no time I am at Schwab's Drug Store where I always stop in for my morning cup of coffee: 5 cents, plus doughnuts; 15 cents, plus sales tax $1.30. Finishing my breakfast, I jauntily flip a 10-cent tip on the counter. It comes down tails so I have to leave it there. This is the third time it's b[words missing] and I'm really becoming quite popular.
Anyway, I jump in my car, drive through Laurel Canyon to Burbank, and there in spite of yesterday's rain, stands Warner Bros. Studio. As I pass through the main entrance, I wave a cheery hello to the gateman, who waves back and yells, "STOP." So I back up, show him my studio pass which has my picture on it. He seems quite interested, and shows me a picture of his wife and son; so I show him a picture of Mary and Joanie. At this point we are even. Then he shows me a picture of his dog, so I show him a picture of a girl I used to go with in Waukegan. The competition being too tough for him, he lets me through, and I park my car right between Barbara Stanwyck's and Ann 
Sheridan's which keeps my motor from getting cold.
And so to work making love to Alexis Smith and Dolores Moran in "The Horn Blows at Midnight."
Editor's second note: Ho. Hum. And unquote.
Here’s the oddest Benny connection I found in newspapers of May 1945. I don’t know the background behind these panel cartoons, if some Hollywood war bond campaign organisers asked the stars for captions. But several of them have Jack’s name on them. The ones below were found together in the May 30th issue of the Goldsboro News-Argus. Goldsboro, coincidentally, is where L.A. Speed Riggs of the Benny opening/closing commercials worked as a tobacco auctioneer.
Jack got into some of the changes in this feature interview in the St. Louis Star and Times published May 10, 1937. He also explained how he felt comedy had changed in the U.S.
The first phrase of the story isn’t accurate. And Jack vacillated about his place of birth. The How-I-Met-Mary story changed over the years, too (the “seder” meeting, a late addition to the tale, never happened).
The writer quotes dialogue from the April 25, 1937 broadcast. St. Louis listeners would have heard the East Coast broadcast. I’ve never liked this show. I can understand it when the cast gangs up on Jack when they catch him in a lie, and he keeps building on it instead of admitting he’s BSing. In this one, Jack makes an honest mistake (that isn’t his fault; it’s the board operator’s) and even apologises but they keep bashing him throughout the show. This is one time where he doesn’t deserve it. And the Block and Sully routine seems shoehorned in.
When Jack Benny Talks, 27,200,000 Listen
By HARRY T. BRUNDIDGE
HOLLYWOOD, May 10.—His name is Benjamin Kirselsky—Jack Benny to you—and he is the world's number one radio entertainer. His radio sponsors pay him $12,500 a week (not stage money) and out of this he has only to pay the men who write his programs. Paramount Pictures pay him $125,000 in a lump sum for his every production and his 1937 income will top $1,000,000.
Under the system of rating radio stars, now accepted as authentic, he is on the top spot with 34 points; each point represents 800,000 listeners and according to this system some 27,200,000 persons hear Benny every Sunday.
On a recent Sunday I went to the little theater in the NBC studio to watch him stage his program, which had been rehearsed for the first and only time an hour before. Benny hates rehearsals, says they take the punch out of a program. "My rehearsals are the worst in the world," he told me. "If they were good I'd be worried about the regular broadcast."
The little theater was packed to capacity. Tickets to broadcasts are not sold; all are given away to applicants, usually weeks in advance. (You apply in January and get a ticket for a May show.) Because tickets are hard to obtain, the visible audience is always one that is highly appreciative, ready to laugh at a joke they heard grandpa tell forty years ago. But the boys and girls on the stage at ALL broadcasts do NOT depend on the spontaneity of the audience. Someone on the stage at EVERY broadcast gives the audience the cue and laughter is turned on and off with a mere wave of the hand.
AS I settled down in the "wings," to watch the performance, Jack Benny, the star; Mary Livingston, his wife; Phil Harris, the orchestra leader; Don Wilson, the announcer, and others of the cast took their places on the stage. Michrophones [sic] were at strategic points. Each member of the cast has a copy of the script because nothing is memorized; everything is read from a script that has been prepared by professional writers, and approved by the advertising agency which represents the sponsor, and by officials of the broadcasting company. Now and then there is some extemporaneous joke or comment, but that is infrequent.
The stage manager, stop watch in hand, watches the seconds tick away. Then, with a long sweep of his arm he indicates that the program "is on the air." What follows — save for the scripts in the hands of the performers—looks exactly like a scene from a musical comedy.
Don Wilson, the announcer, introduces the program by naming it and saying it is starring Jack Benny, with Mary Livingstone and Phil Harris and his orchestra. The orchestra opens the program with "Hallelujah, Things Look Rosy Now."
The number is completed. Wilson steps close to the nearest mike.
WILSON: Spring's the time to wake up and live ... swing into the new tempo . . . go places and do things—"
As the announcement (or plug) is finished and the music fades, Benny reads from his script:
JACK: Hey, Mary, come here. Don't you love the way Phil wiggles around when he leads the orchestra? Look at him.
MARY: Yeah! If he could only see himself. (She giggles.) He sure is cute though, Isn't he?
JACK: Yes, but he doesn't have to show off so much. After all it isn't television.
WILSON: Jack, quiet, your microphone is open.
JACK: What?
WILSON: Everybody can hear you.
JACK: Oh, I'm sorry.
(MUSIC UP AND FINISH.)
CROWD: (Applause.)
THE foregoing is direct quotation from the script. Even the crowd's cue is written in! But why the applause at that point? Ask the script writers—I don't know!
With the broadcast at an end, there was a mad rush of musicians, spectators, electricians and others to gain the street; Benny, his secretary, Harry Baldwin, and I joined the milling mob, battled through the perennial autograph seekers and finally reached the seclusion of a booth in "The Grotto," next door to the Melrose avenue Studio.
"Maybe I ought to feel a little impressed with myself for within a few days—May 2—I will celebrate my fifth year on the air," Benny said. "But as a matter of truth I am far more impressed with radio than with myself. I've made some strides in those sixty months and may be a bit more polished on May 2 when I give my 287th broadcast, than I was on my first, but radio has moved ahead so rapidly that in the same period I feel my own progress has been that of a snail on a treadmill by comparison.
"In common with other so-called funny men on the radio five years ago, most of my stuff was made up as I went along. We didn't spend much time working over a script for we figured that if a joke was bad we could think of something on the spur of the moment that would make it a lot better.
THAT was a fallacy. Many times as we stood before the mike our brains wouldn't think up anything and many times the jokes we did think up were more feeble than those they replaced. That is one of the improvements comedians have made. Scripts are written by experts, far in advance of a program, read, revised, worked over and, usually, revised again after a rehearsal.
"Compare the picture of my first broadcast with the one we did this afternoon. In the first broadcast I had an audience of forty or fifty persons jammed into a small corner of a studio that wouldn't have held twenty in comfort—if everyone breathed right. Then I was in a glass cage, separated from the audience. While radio listeners could hear the suppressed giggles of my visible audience. I couldn't I had to watch the audience through the sheet of glass and wait until they closed their mouths so I could go ahead with the next joke. I got to be a great lip reader, but since I wanted to be a comedian and not an interpreter, I had the glass taken out and the sounds let in. When others found that this idea worked without blasting the microphone off its foundations, they did the same thing, and we haven't been bothered by glass partitions since."
"There were other odd little customs in broadcasting five years ago. The first time I stepped up to a mike I was told that if I so much as moved my head, the listeners would be unable to follow my words. I did a lot of broadcasts with my head glued to one spot in front of the microphone, and I suffered from chronic stiff neck. Today I can stroll all over the stage, virtually go out for a walk during a broadcast, and still be picked up by the small mikes now in use, for they have been made that flexible and sensitive. The NBC trademark letters would have to be made small enough to hang on a woman's charm bracelet to find the mikes we actually use today.
"My hope is that for the next five years radio will decide to amble along at the leisurely pace we comics have taken so that we comics can make the advances that radio has wide."
BENNY, five feet, eleven inches tall, well groomed, with blue eyes, brown hair, and weighing 160 pounds, has a far-away look in his eyes and goes off into day-dreaming trances. In one of these he elbowed me and returned to mere earth with, "I beg your pardon—what were you saying?"
WAUKEGAN, ILL., was my birthplace," said Benny," and the date was 1894. I was a St. Valentine's Day present. Father was a haberdasher in Waukegan and I grew up with a collar and shirt under one arm and a fiddle under the other. It's the same fiddle which Fred Allen has been discussing for weeks — discussing whether I can play it. Pop thought that as a haberdasher's clerk I would make a good fiddler, but orchestra leaders put that thought in reverse, so I decided to go into vaudeville with a monologue and a fiddle. Theater managers, listening to me, decided pop, the orchestra leaders and myself were all nuts because, as a monologist, I was a good fireman or deckhand on a boat.
"We got into the war and I left vaudeville flat and joined the navy. I thank the navy. Were it not for the sailor suit they gave me at Great Lakes I still wouldn't have the nerve to try to get away with what I have been getting away with ever since. That sailor suit gave me a lot of confidence because people respected wartime sailors; they were supposed to be hard guys.
"The war ended and I went back into vaudeville. More and more I cheated on fiddling and leaned heavily on nonchalant chatter. It got so I was being paid good money just for idling through fifteen minutes of monologue.
"Eventually I worked up to $2,500 a week and I'm frank to say I was making almost as much or more at $2,500 a week than I'm making now—and that goes for everything I'm making. I do not pay off the stage show out of my income; I pay only my writers. But Uncle Sam with his income tax law is the guy I'm really working for.
"I told you before the broadcast about writers—the important thing is that a writer should know what is bad. If he can select the good from the bad he's a genius. You can take my word for it. The bad material is what hurts.
MOST writers try to be ultra-sophisticated and in the attempt, forget that with the coming of the automobile, the radio, and the motion picture, city limits were all but wiped out. The line between the urban and the sub-urban today is so fine as to be almost indistinguishable. There's no such thing as a 'hick' any more and the 'small' town has vanished. The Missouri Ozarks farmer demands an ever higher grade of entertainment—and a newer joke—than the New York City broker, because the Ozark fellow spends more time at the radio, listening, than does his city cousin and knows all the answers.
"Comedians used to say 'It will be great for the hicks in the sticks but Broadway will give you the horse laugh.' Now the comics assert: 'Broadway and Hollywood will giggle but toss it out—it won't get by in the sticks.'
"No longer do the so-called horny-handed sons and daughters of the man with the hoe weep at such songs as ‘You Made Me What I Am Today;’ they're too busy singing Robin and Rainger love songs, and they're swinging about the barn to the tunes of Benny Goodman and Phil Harris and can't be bothered with 'Turkey in the Straw.'
I SHALL illustrate my point. We had a gag that laid them in the aisles in New York. Here it is:
“'Q. Who was the lady I seen you with last night?'
“'A. What were you doing in that part of town?'
"But you should have read the fan mail from the farms, villages, and small towns; letters that topped that gag in 100 different ways, and all old.
"The Burns and Allen program is one of the most popular on the air and it couldn't be that without the warm following of fans in the rural districts. I happen to know that their fan mail shows that one of their most rib-tickling gags was appreciated far more by their rural listeners, than by the so-called city folks. Here's the gag: Milton Watson was leaving the Burns and Allen program and after the usual build up, Gracie told Milton to kiss her goodby. There were a series of torrid kisses and then: GRACIE: Goodbye GEORGE. I'm going with Milty.
"Modern?
"To be successful on the air you have to write up to the small towns and rural districts, not down. The greatest mistake a comedian can make is underestimating the intelligence of the audience. Those who make that mistake don't last long. They're too lazy to dig up new material, or too dumb to understand that people in the 'sticks' also enjoy subtle humor."
MY BIGGEST thrill in radio was when a guy in the Ohio state penitentiary, about to be electrocuted, wrote and told me he was very much interested in my feud with Fred Allen, over the subject of whether I could really fiddle. He wrote that he wanted to know the outcome of that feud before sitting on the hot seat. Allen and I both wrote to him and told him how the feud would end. The next week the guy got a commutation of his sentence to life imprisonment and wrote us the Ohio prison inmates had a hearty laugh on the two of us because they knew all along that our feud was bound to end that way.
MY LIFE has been mostly work. I never did anything last night that the world was crazy about the next day. Nothing I ever said tonight was commented on tomorrow. It has just been a procession of programs. I've spent twenty-five years climbing up the greasiest ladder that was ever greased and believe me, you can slide down a damned sight faster than you can climb up.
"My routine hasn't changed. I'm doing the same thing on the air today I did when I was a master of ceremonies at shows in the Orpheum Theater in St. Louis.
"My most exciting experience on the radio was the night of March 14, in New York. Fred Allen and I had been going after each other for three months and on that night we got together, threw away our scripts and went after each other, tonsil to tonsil."
BENNY, now making his eighth motion picture, was preparing to leave and I reminded him he had told me nothing of Mary Livingstone, his wife.
"Sorry," he said. "I met her in Los Angeles. She was a sales girl in a department store and was pinch hitting for a girl with whom an actor friend had made a date for me, but who failed to show. Mary kept the date and, although I didn't know it, I fell in love and that fact didn't dawn on me until I wrote to her sister and learned Mary was engaged to a guy in Vancouver, B. C. I suggested a trip to Chicago. Mary came to Chicago and I proposed and was accepted. We were married on Friday instead of Sunday because we both figured if we waited until Sunday the wedding probably would never take place.
"Would you believe it, we've been married ten years and six months and it only seems like ten years?"
The Jack Benny radio show didn’t just develop over the course of a season, with a Maxwell, and age 39 and trains leaving for Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga showing up in the dialogue. That took years, something a show on TV would never be given the time to accomplish.
Jack debuted in May 1932. There was a revolving door of NBC and CBS staff announcers assigned to the show. Any attempt by Benny to build a comedy character around them was pretty much impossible.
When Chevrolet picked up his show the following year, Jack started with Howard Claney, who was replaced with Alois Havrilla. The carmaker dropped his show in 1934 and Benny was forced to find another announcer when General Tire decided to sponsor it.
That’s when Don Wilson won an audition and began a lengthy association with the Benny show, taking the jump into television with Jack in 1950. He had started in radio in Denver as a singer, and ended up working at several radio stations in Los Angeles, and hosting a transcribed comedy/variety show called The Mirth Parade. He was best known for calling the Rose Bowl game. That got the attention of NBC executives in New York, who transferred him back east, ostensibly as a sports announcer.
Don continued doing what Claney and Havrilla had been doing—interrupting dialogue to shoehorn a word in about the sponsor. But Wilson had something else Benny could hang a comedy peg on—his size.
Some might call it fat-shaming today, but Wilson seemed to take it in stride and got his licks in at Benny in response.
When the show became televised, audiences could see Donsie was hefty but not obese. I’m no expert on the television version, but it seems things shifted and Wilson was called to do sillier things on camera (and, out of nowhere, was father to an adult son).
Here’s Don talking to one of the newspaper syndicates in a story published on March 4, 1962.
Don Wilson: Large Bones
By DONALD FREEMAN
Copley News Service
HOLLYWOOD—28 years with the Jack Benny troupe, Don Wilson’s size is certainly no state secret. Everyone knows that the cheerful announcer-actor with the mellifluous voice is —well, ample. His bulk, in fact, has proved one of the more durable props on the show.
"Actually, I am not fat at all," said Wilson, smiling broadly as he slid into a booth at an airport restaurant. "It is true that I have a large bone structure. But, if you want the truth of the matter, I only weigh. . . . .”
An airplane droned overhead at that moment, drowning out Wilson’s voice.
“What was that?” I cried, leaning forward. "What was that again?"
Weight A Comic Myth
"Let me put it another way," said Wilson, his expression bountiful. "My weight is one of those comic myths that take hold. But no one, down deep, believes the myths they laugh at.
"No one really believes that Jack Benny is so penurious, for instance no one really believes that he drives a Maxwell or has a butler named Rochester or that he keeps his money hidden in a vault."
"And your —er, size," I put it, that kind of a myth, too?"
"Absolutely," Wilson said, defiantly jutting out his chins. "But I couldn't be happier about it because it gives Jack a chance to make a lot of jokes and it's given me a pleasant living at my profession."
"How much," I asked, "did you say you weigh?"
Wilson raised a interruptive finger. "See those people over here," he said, "at that table by the window." A cluster of diners had spotted Wilson and several of them smiled by way of recognition, Wilson waved back, also smiling.
Wears A Triumphant Look
Now Wilson turned to me, a triumphant look on his good-natured face. "I'll tell you what they're saying over there right this minute," he said. "They're saying, 'My gosh, Don Wilson must have lost a lot of weight.' Wherever I go, that's what people say to me.
“I have to explain that I haven't lost any weight at all. Besides the fact that the TV camera adds a few pounds, with all the jokes they've heard about me on the Benny show, people assume that I must weigh at least 350 pounds."
Wilson laughed at the outrageousness of the thought, his chins dancing again. "And then it's a big surprise to these people when they see me in person."
"I suppose, that I have been the subject of more fat man jokes than anyone in show business. When I think that Jack's writers have used every fat man joke in the world, they come up with another one. I remember one line where I tell Jack that I had gone on a diet and taken off 25 pounds. Jack gave me that dying calf look of his and he said, 'You haven't lost weight, Don. Turn around. You've just misplaced it.' "
Scales Are Challenged
A few minutes later, we left the restaurant and Mr. Wilson approached a scale. "Now," he said, inserting a coin, "this should prove my point. Fat, indeed."
"What does it say?" I asked, but, as he turned, Wilson accidentally blocked my vision. He quickly stepped off the platform.
"When a scale is out of order," Wilson demanded, innocently, "wouldn't you think they'd at least put a sign?"
Don Wilson won all kinds of announcing awards, even though Bea Benaderet once remarked how a pool was conducted every Sunday, with actors guessing which line Don would blow first. Jack took one of the mistakes on TV and turned it into a running gag on both television and radio—Wilson twisted the Lucky Strike slogan “Be Happy, Go Lucky.” Wilson’s wife Lois, who was a fine radio actress, was hired to add to the situation.
When Benny ended his regular series in 1965, Wilson wasn’t hired to announce the specials. Veteran Bill Baldwin was brought in, while Wilson only made a few guest appearances. Somehow it didn’t seem right.
Have you read anyone defending laugh tracks?
You’re about to.
Anyone who watched filmed TV comedies in the 1960s (especially in daily reruns) came to recognise the same laughs over and over and over. Then there was the ridiculousness of laugh tracks on cartoons (ABC demanded one on The Flintstones over Hanna-Barbera’s objections).
On live shows, adding laughs could ruin the comedy, as the people on stage had to figure out how long to wait for their next line as the reactions didn’t exist until added in production after the show.
But no less a comedian than Jack Benny thought there was a place for a laugh machine. He explained his feelings to one of newspaperdom’s favourite Benny quoters. This was found in the Camden Courier-Post on Dec. 7, 1959 and later in other papers.
Benny’s Success Secret—Timing
By EARL WILSON
NEW YORK—Jack Benny would like to confess right now that he used canned laughter recently —with no less a guest star than Harry Truman.
When all that furor about “honesty" and "realism" in TV was raging, CBS president Frank Staunton said canned laughter would have to go—but Jack figures there was a misunderstanding because nobody from the CBS brass asked him to drop it.
"When you film a show, you almost have to have it," Jack remarked a few days ago at the Sherry-Netherland while relaxing late in the afternoon in a dressing gown.
"We filmed the Truman interview in the library in Independence. He was saying some very funny things.
"For him to have said these things without any laugh response would have been deadly. Furthermore, I know that when Harry Truman says something funny, an audience is going to scream more at him than at a comedian."
Laughter Important
And so the canned laughter was inserted—with Jack personally doing the editing.
"Could this have been the canned laughter from some old Fred Allen show, the laughs being from people who are now dead?" I asked Jack.
"I don't know where we get them," Jack shrugged. "I just know that they're important."
"You have to know which joke is worth a tiny giggle, which one gets a shriek, and which one gets a roar that will lead to applause."
Probably Jack's attention to such details of laughter is responsible for his reputation for having such great timing.
"Nobody can explain timing," Jack said. Nevertheless, he has his ear carefully attuned to it during a show. And fearing that some guest star may not understand timing as thoroughly as he does, he will flash a cue to the guest. He'll tell the guest in advance, "Wait till the first laugh simmers down, and then when I look at you, but not until then, you read your next line."
Jack's "pauses," generally accepted as the secret of his timing, have had strange results. Playing the Palladium in London, he permitted Phil Harris to insult him onstage.
Phil had been pretty smart-alecky about his boss in the routine and had strutted off after saying, "I'll be back again, folks, because the old man needs me."
"I got a big laugh just standing there glaring at the audience," Jack said. "The audience could read my mind: 'I'm paying this so-and-so big money and all he does is insult me.' I could keep the laugh going as long as I wanted to. The laughing went on so long one night, that finally somebody up in the gallery yelled, 'For God's sake. Mr. Benny, say something!' That got the biggest laugh of all."
Jack thought of planting a spectator there to do it every night but decided against it because impromptu laughs generally are better than planned ones.
On radio, studio audiences provided the laughter. Fred Allen hated them because he felt they didn’t get the jokes, so there were no laughs and it screwed up his timing. Henry Morgan tried to do comedy without an audience for the same reason. The experiment lasted one show. Then there were Bob and Ray who never needed laughs on radio; they treated their show like a jock shift, not a studio comedy/variety.
Jack Benny, as you read above, had a fine sense of timing when it came to laughs. But changing to a transcribed radio show changed the laughs. Jack milked them. He waited until they died down before going on to the next line.
The transcribed shows are different. Some of the shows are overwritten so they tried to squeeze everything in by having dialogue jump in while the laughs are being heard (the show would have been mixed that way in production after recording). One bad example is the end of the “grass reek” show; Jack’s tail line has obviously been edited over top of the laughs.
Regardless, Jack got plenty of laughs from real people in real time over the years. It’s why his career lasted so long.
Jack Benny wasn’t tied down with a regular TV show any more in 1967, which enabled him to do some specials, as well as appear with symphony orchestras in charity drives and go on a tour over the summer.
The tours were set up like a vaudeville bill (well, without animal acts). There was comedy, singing, music and a novelty act.
One of Jack’s stops was in Duluth, Minnesota. It was page-one news. There was the usual press conference when he arrived, and then a warm review in the local paper.
Jack wasn’t the only celebrity in town, as we learn from the Duluth News-Tribune of Sept. 14, 1967. We’ve transcribed only the portion that involves Jack.
Duluthians Warmly Welcome Jack Benny, Martina Arroyo
By JAMES HEFFERNAN AND SHARON STAUFFER
Of The News-Tribune Staff
An eager crowd awaited outside the fogbound Duluth International Airport terminal Wednesday night as an airplane circled overhead.
In that plane were lack Benny, who needs no introduction, and Martina Arroyo, internationally known opera star.
The crowd was divided, a reception committee for Benny and a welcoming group for Miss Arroyo. For a while it appeared that the plane might have to land at Hibbing, but suddenly the fog lifted and the plane was on the runway.
Benny is here for the Duluth Arena-Auditorium First Anniversary Show at 8:30 p.m. Friday in the Arena. Miss Arroyo will be singing the role of Leonora in the Duluth Symphony Association's production of the Verdi Opera "Il Trovatore" next Thursday and the following Saturday in the Auditorium.
On hand to greet the famed comedian were Manley Goldfine, president of the Arena-Auditorium Administrative Board; Leonard Rudolph, publicity chairman for the event, Dan Hudson, assistant manager of the Duluth Chamber of Commerce and Lee Vann, a member of the Arena-Auditorium board.
Miss Arroyo was met by Dr. Dan Goldish, chairman of the Opera Committee, and Mrs. Goldish; and Ben Marsh, who is assisting with publicity for the opera.
Mayor Ben Boo was on hand to greet both artists.
Benny was besieged by autograph hunters as he strolled, as only Jack Benny can stroll, into the terminal building. Smiling, he complied with all requests, patting little children on the head with a benevolent smile.
Once inside, his greeters presented him with an Ambassadors' "Ducal Decree" making him an Ambassador Extraordinary of the Duchy of Duluth.
Upon receipt of the certificate and its accompanying medal Benny, a noted "cheapskate," turned to Mayor Bon, handed him the medal and asked "How would you like to buy this for a dollar thirty-nine."
It had been a long day for Benny. His day started in Topeka, Kan., where he had been entertaining at the Topeka Mid-America Fair. From that he went to Independence, Mo., where he called on his "old friend" Harry Truman. And then on to Duluth.
The entertainer reported that he found his former president friend in good spirits but a little feeble. "He wanted me to stay for an hour," Benny said, “but I only stayed for about 25 minutes."
Discussing the upcoming show in Duluth, Benny said "It’ll be a good one." He said the bill on his prior engagement at the Mid. America Fair included all of the entertainers who will be appearing with him here.
This week's earlier engagement was the first time Benny had worked with Skitch Henderson, famed personality pianist and music conductor. They will appear together at Friday night's show for the second time.
Also in the show are singers Mary Lou Collins and Bobby Vinton. Benny termed both singers “talented kids.”
Benny gave away his perpetual age of 39 in response to a question on how long it has been since he'd entertained in Duluth.
Placing his hand aside his chin he said, "Well, I've been married for 40 years and I know it was before that."
He goes into rehearsal for his Duluth show Friday morning. Today, he said, he hopes to "get in a little golf."
Miss Arroyo, pleased with her reception which included presentation of a red rose bouquet by Mrs. Coldish, smiled as she commented, “I thought the entire crowd was welcoming Benny.”
The review appeared on the front page of the same paper two days later. I rather doubt that in 1967 teenagers were Bobby Vinton’s target audience, especially doing an imitation of Eddie Cantor. Jack seems to have had a thing for singers with high voices, considering he had toured before this with Wayne Newton (columnists in the 1950s also noted Dennis Day’s voice was higher on radio than in real life).
By this time, Skitch Henderson had moved on from Tonight Show.
Jack Benny’s You-Name-It Provides a Heckuva Party
BY DAVIS HELBERG
Of The News-Tribune Staff
You just can't capture Jack Benny by battering out on a typewriter what he does with his hands, his facial expressions, his timing — all of those things that make up the complete Jack Benny.
It almost seems ridiculous to "review" a Jack Benny show. Do you seriously think he'd be bad? That he could be?
A large, near-capacity crowd gave the Benny show a responsive reception Friday night as area citizens and the Benny troupe celebrated the Arena-Auditorium's first anniversary.
It was a huckuva birthday party.
Benny, of course, and Sketch Henderson, brought them in from throughout the area—there were many Ontario license plates in the parking lot, too—but don't be too sure those who were there will be saying Bobby Who? any more.
Those old-timers past the age of 25 likely will recognize Bobby Vinton's last name the next time they see it or hear it.
Vinton's been big with the teen set for about five years, but even though he sings it "straight" for the most part he hasn't caught on that well with the older group.
Vinton likes to get the audience going — clapping hands, singing along, joining in. He didn't have them for the opening few minutes of his excellent performance, but by the end they gave him a long, boisterous ovation.
Sitting on the stage edge, roaming up and down the aisles, covering territory all over the stage, Vinton sang songs ranging from “If you knew Suzie” a la Eddie Cantor and "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy" to "Mr. Lonely," which he wrote when he was in the service. Take it from here, no one can sing "Mr. Lonely" after Vinton sings it.
He played the clarinet, the saxophone, the trumpet, and played them well. He learned how to play them in the suburban Pittsburgh, Pa., high school in which his father's the band director.
He told the crowd he's been "bombing” lately, but it’s difficult to understand why. If he was serious.
But there's only one Benny and this is by no means to say that Vinton stole the show. Such larceny hardLy would be possible with the old maestro [sic] himself on hand.
Benny observed he hadn't appeared in Duluth since 1929 and said, "I was such a big hit then that they brought me back now for a return engagement — 31 years later.
"It's fortunate that I've had some other work in between."
He said his physician didn't think he should come all the way to Duluth as this is the time of year when Benny usually vacations a little.
"He (the doctor) said, 'Surely you're not playing Duluth because of the money.’"
Benny paused that long pause and gave that look.
"The man is a brilliant surgeon," he said, "but the minute he takes off his rubber gloves he's an idiot."
Benny said Manley Goldfine, president of the Arena-Auditorium Administrative Board, told him if he's a success in Duluth he might be able to get work throughout this part of Minnesota.
"He said I probably could get two days in Hibbing," Benny said, "and a full week in Twig.
"All my life, there have been three cities in the world I wanted to see—London, Paris and Twig."
He continued along that way in his relaxed fashion, explaining that he doesn't tell jokes: "I just talk and sort of ramble along."
Talking and rambling along the way Benny does, he probably could have kept the audience until three o'clock this afternoon.
Benny also served as master of ceremonies, punctuating the performances of Vinton, singer Mary Lou Collins, the Rudenko Brothers juggling act, and getting involved in some humorous asides with Henderson.
Henderson's orchestra fit the Benny mood ideally. From a "Hooray for Hollywood" opening to the "Love in Bloom" Benny theme to some heckles from Vinton, the group kept things moving along with order and with fun.
Benny took up his violin after the intermission and delighted the crowd with gags involving "my fiddle."
He admitted to being a frustrated violinist, but proved there are more reasons than his popularity for his demand on the concert circuit where he gives benefit performances regularly.
Included in several numbers he played was "The Bee" by Schubert, a brief but extremely difficult piece. It was "The Bee," Benny said, which led to famous, 30-year “feud” with the late Fred Allen.
Allen had a child prodigy play the number on his radio show about 40 years ago, Benny said. Following the youngster's performance, Allen made some "derogatory" comments regarding Benny's ability with the violin.
An avid listener to his show, Benny replied to the remarks on his own program and the feud was on. It was all in good fun, Benny pointed out, and he termed Allen "a great, great comedian."
For a change of pace, Mary Lou Collins indicated why her star has been climbing steadily in the last two years. Excellently packaged, she also showed she knows how to use her sultry voice as she covered a gamut of singing styles.
A piano rendition of "Autumn Leaves" by Henderson added more diversion and a great deal otherwise to the folksy program.
If there was a letdown, it was that old story about the show starting half an hour late. And it took a little speech-making to get the thing off the ground, but everyone survived.
Henderson, who followed U.S. Rep. John Blatnik and Jeno Paulucci, among others, announced as he strolled out: "I don't know what the hell I'm doing here — I'm a Republican."
It was party time from that point on.
By the way, Benny did not appear in Duluth in 1929. It was much earlier. He was at the Orpheum
the week of February 1, 1920. The News Tribune wrote of his act: “In that category of favoured ones [with the audience] comes Benny, who fiddles and fuma-diddles his way through 14 minutes of banning the blues, an effort in which he is eminently successful.”
Garth Johnson has accomplished an enormous task of documenting Jack's vaudeville career, complete with reviews and ads. It takes a while to load, but you can find it by clicking here.
Back in the network radio days, word when around that Jack Benny was dependent on his writers. Jack joked about it. Harry Conn actually believed it.
But you’ll find a number of newspaper articles in the Golden Age that spoke of the collaborative nature of the writing on the show. While Jack didn’t do the writing, he sat in with the writers as they dissected the script. He was his show’s script editor and approved every word, even those the writers talked him into that he didn’t particularly like.
This story appeared in the Springfield Sunday Union and Republican, July 3, 1938. There is no byline.
Jack Benny Goes to Town In Sustained Popularity
Radio's Ace Comedian Leans On His ‘Gag’ Writers But Not So Completely as Do Bing Crosby and the ‘Good News’ Performers—Sets Own Pace for Writers and Cast Alike
Radio's consistent No 1 feature—the Jack Benny show—left the air waves last Sunday night but will be back in its accustomed spot on the same network 13 weeks hence, or on October 2. The comedian, voted for three years running as tops in his field, and his wife, Mary Livingstone. and the rest of their troupe take this leave of the radio audience annually to enjoy a well-deserved vacation—more than often a vacation fraught with even more intensive movie and other work.
But they're off the air for the summer, now, so there can be no press agentry suspected in a postlude devoted to a diagnosis of their success on the radio. Recently this column accredited the writer of Bing Crosby's show and the writers and producers of "Good News of 1938," which precedes it every Thursday night on the Red network, with a fairer share of the success of the show than the "big name" performers themselves contributed. Does the same hold true for Benny's performances?
Probably not. Jack Benny's program hasn't the pace of Bing Crosby's nor the variety of "Good News of 1938." But it has a peculiarly individualistic style of humor and presentation that is Jack Benny's—and his alone. It succeeded when Harry Conn, the noted gag writer, was doing his scripts; it succeeded just as well in the recent months when Bill Morrow and Ed Beloin were writing his gags.
Individual Style
The reason simply is—Jack Benny. He knows precisely what he wants in the way of program structure; he personally sets the pace for the whole show; he is perfectly willing to be ribbed unmercifully by his cast (something few other star comedians will stand for), and he has a peculiar style of humor that is debonair New York and Hollywood and at the same time naive Waukegan, Ill.
Assuredly the former fiddler-trouper from Waukegan has come a long way in radio and the films, thanks to a peculiar popular appeal that must set him to wondering himself how long it can last. That he was just another comedian and master-of-ceremonies before he struck the responsive chord on the wave lengths three or four years ago, everyone along the Rialto recalls.
One of the little known facts about the Benny shows, which have lately been staged chiefly in Hollywood because of his new domicile there, is that even his orchestra does not hear the script rehearsal. Thus the sallies of laughter from the audience get a spontaneous spark from the cast itself. More than that, everyone in the cast likes working with Jack Benny, though he is as serious in preparation and rehearsal as he in funny in actual performance. Every line is studied intensively for the right build-up; every situation gauged for the proper reaction. Jack and his scripters work the full week to prepare for each week's end performance; while in New York at least, they spent the whole of Sunday afternoon in rehearsal.
All of this is not to detract from Jack Benny's writers, two extremely well paid young men to whom he is perfectly willing to give credit and kudos. That the writers are less the mainsprings in the Benny show than they are in the Crosby and "Good News" shows is no reflection on the talents of Messrs Morrow and Beloin.
Bill Morrow is a 29-year-old Chicagoan, not many years out of Northwestern university. He became a press agent upon graduation, traveling the circuits with many shows. While at this work he submitted suggestions for material to Jack Benny, Phil Baker and others. In March, 1938, after Harry Conn had left him, Benny needed a gag writer badly and invited Morrow to join him in Hollywood. There he teamed Morrow up with Ed Beloin, a 27-year-old graduate of Columbia university, who had been a humor magazine writer while in college.
Beloin's hookup with Benny was fortuitous. He had submitted a script to Fred Allen, who couldn't use it at the time. Fred, being an intimate friend of Jack Benny, sent Beloin and his script over to Benny. The comedian didn't call upon Beloin until some months later when he sent him a hurry call to join him in Detroit. Thence they went on to Hollywood together.
The Morrow-Beloin team now has a three-year contract through 1940 to write for Jack Benny, doing the dialog for his pictures as well as his radio shows. Together they conceive the situations, write the gags, see the shows through rehearsals. But always at their side is the indefatigable Benny himself, with probably the keenest sense of radio audience appeal and the shrewdest ability to edit and present "copy" of any comedian in the business.
Morrow and Beloin did more than come up with gags. Jack’s on-air “gang” was changing and they had to invent new characters for each of them. Phil Harris, Rochester and Dennis Day joined the show. Andy Devine was used frequently for a couple of years. There was Carmichael the polar bear (other animals were short-lived) and Mr. Billingsley the boarder. They all added something to the programme, thanks to their acting abilities, the writers and, through his oversight, Jack himself.
Publicity departments churned out all kinds of material in the days of yore.
In radio, networks or agencies or producers would bash out copy and send them with photos to newspapers hoping to get some free ink.
I suspect that’s what happened in 1952 when the Ogden Standard-Examiner printed a life story of Jack Benny in a special TV edition on Nov. 12, 1952. The article was unbylined, so it likely didn’t come from a newspaper staff writer, and specifically mentions CBS TV stations, so it likely came from the network P.R. department. At the time, Benny's TV show aired on KSL-TV on Sundays at 5:30 p.m. Mountain.
As a biography, there are a few things you could quibble about when it comes to accuracy, but it’s a good summary. I find it remarkable that among Jack’s movie accomplishments there is no mention of To Be or Not to Be, arguably his finest picture, and one he was proud of. It should be noted “The Bee” programme of Fred Allen’s in December 1936 was not a take-off. Allen actually conducted an amateur show on the second half hour of his weekly broadcasts for several seasons. I half-expected a joke about Jack's age next to the mention of Aristophanes but we all know Aristophanes is ridiculous.
There was a nice caricature of Jack, his violin and Rochester that was printed with this article but I can’t fix the lousy scan to make it look decent.
He Started at Full Speed
Believe It or Not, Jack Benny Was a Child Prodigy on the Violin
Jack Benny, who for 18 years on radio had created solely through his voice one of the greatest of comedy characters, entered America's living rooms "in the flesh" when he made his debut on the CBS Television Network Oct. 28, 1950.
And the millions of delighted fans who saw him on television for the first time found he fitted exactly the penny-pinching, frustrated, lovable laughmaker they had so vividly imagined him to be.
Jack Benny made four broadcasts from New York during the 1950-51 season. He launched his second season Nov. 4, 1951, in a transcontinental broadcast originating from the CBS-TV outlet, KNXT, in Hollywood.
Benny was one of the first of the major comedians to make the changeover from vaudeville to radio, in 1932. Vaudeville was going out, bigtime radio coming in. Benny bumped into columnist Ed Sullivan one night in a Broadway restaurant. Sullivan asked him, that night in 1932, to guest on his radio program the following evening. "But I don't know anything about radio," Jack protested. "Nobody does," Sullivan replied.
Gave It A Whirl
Benny offered to give it a whirl, gratis, and on this first broadcast of his life introduced, himself with an immortal line: "This is Jack Benny talking. Now there will be a brief pause for everyone to say, 'Who cares?' "
Millions did care, as Benny soon found out. The same year, 1932, he had a sponsor and a network program. He was a sensation from the start.
Benny on television, as on radio, is the central figure in what historians of comedy call the classic insult method, which goes back to Aristophanes.
His knack of building unknown personalities into stars in their own right is well known. Dennis Day, Eddie Anderson, who plays Rochester, and Phil Harris are notable examples.
Benny's sense of timing and spontaneity of delivery have been underscored by critics and fellow comics alike, qualities which contrast strangely with the dither he works himself into in preparing his scripts. He sweats out the lines which appear to flow effortlessly and merrily over the air. Although a battery of top gagsters whip together the raw material, Benny does the final editing, unifying and polishing.
To keep the lines fresh, he cuts rehearsals to the minimum. And during the broadcast he rarely ad libs, but stops the show and howls with unrestrained laughter when others put over an unscheduled nifty.
From Waukegan
Waukegan, Benny's home town, is a suburb of Chicago. His father, a haberdasher, insisted that his son take violin lessons at an early age, and he was considered a child prodigy on the fiddle in Waukegan. One of Jack's early triumphs was playing "The Bee," a short violin piece that has been the butt of Benny jokes on the air for a decade. "The Bee" sparked his famous radio feud with Fred Allen. A moppet in an Allen skit which was a take-off on amateur programs played the song and Fred commented afterward that it was Benny's old vaudeville specialty.
"Only eight and you already can play 'the Bee'," Allen joked. "Why Jack Benny ought to be ashamed of himself."
The next week Benny on his own show, indignantly declared he could produce four persons who would attest that he had played "The Bee" at the age of six. And the feud was on. "The Bee," by the way is not "Flight of the Bumble Bee," but a piece composed by a Franz Schubert —but not the Franz Schubert. Seems confusion is the word for Benny.
At 13, Jack was a fiddler in Waukegan's leading dance orchestra and also a regular of the Barrison Theater orchestra, a lone knickerbockered figure surrounded by grownups. Since his teachers recall him more vividly for his wisecracks, it wasn't surprising that Jack quit school before he was 17 to team up with a vaudeville pianist named Cora Salisbury.
Jack billed himself as Benny K. Benny and at $15 a week he toured Midwest theaters with his partner. He didn't tell jokes, but he managed to draw laughs by sawing away on his violin, with the little finger of the bow hand affectedly extended while his eyes followed its movement in mock curiosity.
Benny Joins Navy
Afterward, Jack joined another pianist named Lyman Woods, and their tours took them, at the outbreak of World War I, to London's famous Palladium. They broke up and Jack joined the Navy. In a Navy revue, he played the fiddle without much success, until one night he paused to make a few wisecracks.
The crowd roared, Jack Benny the comic was born and "The Bee"-playing violinist was no more. Thereafter, Jack was pencilled into the show as "Issy There, the Admiral's Disorderly," and for the duration he convulsed both the Navy and the public with his ingratiating patter.
Upon his discharge, Benny returned to vaudeville. To avoid confusion with another fiddling comic, Ben Bernie, he adopted the "Jack Benny" tag. As a topflight funnyman. Benny worked with the greats in the heyday of the two-a-day, and went on to further success in Earl Carroll and Shubert shows on Broadway.
His movie debut was as auspicious as his radio bow. A talent scout spotted him in a Los Angeles theater in 1929. Benny got the lead in “The Hollywood Revue,” clicked big, and has been starred in a number of pictures since, including "Charley's Aunt," "The Horn Blows at Midnight" and "George Washington Slept Here."
Benny and his wife, Mary Livingstone, have been stage and broadcasting partners for 20 years. She was Sadye Marks, a salesgirl in a Los Angeles department store when they were married in 1927. She recalls that he practically had to drag her on stage to make an actress out of her. But it was not long before she became an invaluable ingredient is the Benny fun formula.
The Bennys have a beautiful home in Beverly Hills, Calif., and their home life has been a happy one. Their daughter, Joan Naomi, adopted at the age of four months and now 17 years old, is the joy of their lives. As practically every Benny fan knows, Jack is the exact opposite in private life to the penurious, protesting character he plays on the air. He is notorious for his over-tipping. His genial manner and friendliness have made him one of the most popular figures in Hollywood.
Benny gets little time off to play, what with television schedule, weekly radio show and business interests, but when he has an hour or so to loaf he's usually out on the golf links.
Sponsor of the "Jack Benny Program" is American Tobacco Co.
It’s no surprise Dennis Day came across in real life as a family man.
On weekdays Dennis generally gets home fairly late, just in time to try to calm the children with a quick story before their bedtime. He and Peggy like a quiet dinner together and spend most evenings watching television. Sunday, however, is family day. Dennis leads the entire brood off to church, after which the four Indians rule the roost and keep their father stepping.
