Radio mirror (Nov 1936-Apr 1937)

when Jack Benny laughs heartily, he falls down, rolls on the floor, and clicks his heels. He matches laugh for laugh, reveling in a joke with the same abandon whether he's on the giving or receiving end. tf^NE morning during a Winnipeg date, the Bennys' friend, Al Burns, telephoned from the hotel lobby that he was on his way up to their room. To give Al a laugh, Jack stood on one bed with a pitcher of water on his head and Mary stood on the other bed balancing a telephone book on her brow. At the knock on the door, Jack called "Come in!" and in walked the waiter with their breakfast. Jack doesn't go in for practical jokes. His idea of fun takes the milder form of telegrams and long distance phone calls. When "Big Boy" opened in San Francisco, Florence Moore, who was playing in the same city, received a telegram from Jack Benny and George Burns to this effect: "Jolson opens tonight. As we don't know Jolson, we are sending you a telegram. Congratulations." The night George Burns and Gracie Allen got married in Cleveland, Jack called up from Vancouver at 4:00 A. M. "Hello— this is Jack Benny!" he announced. George said, "Bring up two orders of bacon and eggs!" and hung up. While George was playing the Palace in New York, Jack sent him this wire from San Diego, "I think your act is sensational. You've got the cleverest routine, the funniest gags Broadway has ever heard. I think you're a genius — better than Chaplin!" He signed it "George Burns." Jack once wrote George a six-page letter. George was too busy to answer, so he switched the names in salutation and signature, and sent the letter back. Jack redoubled, and for a year and a half, that was the only letter that passed between them, but it passed frequently. After George's first program on the air, Jack wrote him a fan letter: "I listened to your program last night and I think it was swell. I would appreciate it very much if you would send me a picture of Tom Mix's horse." George dug up a picture of a jackass and inscribed it "To my very dear friend, Jack Benny." Jack acknowledged it with "Thank you for your picture." When Jack meets friends after the theater or in a restaurant, he can't refrain 36 P r. Did you ever suspect that Jaclc was a quitter? Or that Mary Livingstone left him the first year they were married? But read the story. Maurice Seymour from a cordial, "Come on up to the house — we'll have a lotta laughs." Sometimes he comes home with thirty people. But Jack will never make a good night owl. He habitually rises before nine o'clock every morning, in aggravatingly jubilant spirits. So about the time the impromptu guests dispose of their wraps, their host is asleep on the couch. He's never the life of the party. But whoever is the lifi of the party never had a better one-man audience than Jack Benny. He whoops at whatever strikes him funny Several comedians have risen from the minor ranks through his enthusiasm. He has sat in on radio auditions and used his compelling personality to persuade sponsors to contract comedy programs which would compete with his own, just because he wanted to help someone he used to know in vaudeville. He is probably the only actor on record without a spark of professional jealousy. When Jesse Block first teamed up with Eve Sully, Jack loaned the pair his best piece of gag material, a sure-fire bit that was getting his biggest laughs on the road. He figured it might do them a lot of good while bookers were catching their act in New York, and wouldn't do him any harm, since they would drop it a$ soon as they started on the road themselves. The bit was terrific. Block and Sully became sensations over night and were being held over in New York when Jack returned to play the Palace. After his first performance, people said he was doing a Block and Sully. He took the bit out of his own act and told his friends to keep it when they went on the road. Jack often gives a fair imitation of a lunatic on the loose. When he is not composing goofy telegrams, he is usually lost in a fog of concentration and petty worries. A sudden question will jar loose some words concerning the subject on his mind, making the most surprising answer. Sometimes he doesn't hear you at all, and other times he startles you with an answer fifteen minutes after you have forgotten what you asked. Four years ago, Jack committed a stupefying act which convinced all his friends of his insanity. Without a single other prospect in view, he quit cold a job that was bringing him $1400 a week. He asked for a release from his contract (Continued on page 79) /