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Paramount
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He smokes bigger cigars than Jack Benny and owns a sportier car — read the not-soprivate life of Sunday's big laughter-provoker
"^Sm^
IF A black cloud threatens the private and professional prestige of radio's number one playboy, Jack Benny — his name is Eddie Anderson, alias Rochester J. Syracuse, alias Rochester Van Jones, alias just Rochester.
He's small and he's dark and he's not a bit handsome. He's bug-eyed and getting shiny like a tan shoe at the temples. But he's got more steam than a calliope, more bounce than a golf ball.
Already Eddie Anderson has become such a lodestone for laughs on the Benny Jello show that if Jack were the jealous type he'd be pea green with envy by now. On the screen too, Eddie has buttled so bumptiously against the funny bones of the nation that he's being hailed as the greatest colored comic since Bert Williams. Theater owners hang
JANUARY, 1940
By KIRTLEY BASKETTE
his name right up along side that of his boss Jack in the bright lights. Critics call him a sure fire picture thief. He has more jobs in Hollywood than he can handle. He's the only member of the whole Benny troupe who made the picture of pictures, "Gone With the Wind."
But if Rochester is just beginning to rival Jack Benny in a show business way, on the personal side he left him panting in the shade long ago.
It's the private life of Rochester Van Jones that's handing Jack Benny an inferiority complex. And no wonder. Rochester is stepping out — high, wide, and handsome. Just exactly who's the butler and who's the bon vivant — Jack or Rochester — is strictly a matter of opinion. But here are the lurid facts:
Rochester smokes bigger cigars than Jack. He drives a sportier car and airs a much more splendiferous wardrobe. He pilots a plane, he sojourns at swank desert dude ranches. He canters his own saddle horse on the bon ton bridle paths; he races thoroughbreds under his silks at (Continued on page 49)
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