TV Radio Mirror (Jan - Jun 1955)

Get to feeling GOODAGAM JrmJLKci Seltzer BRAND for ACID INDIGESTION ALKA-SELTZER relieves over-acid stomach with instant alkalizing action, soothes and settles an upset stomach. Feel better FAST with refreshing ALKA-SELTZER! AT ALL DRUG COUNTERS MILES LABORATORIES, INC., ELKHART, IND. 00 IS YOURS EASILY For Selling Only lOO Boxes of Our Lovely FLORAL EVERYDAY GREETING CARDS Their beauty and value sell on sight the year 'round. Yon make 75c on each box. New 21-Card $1 Assortments, unusual Kodachrome, Lace, Tall Cards. New Gift Items, 100 fast-sellers. Cash profits to 150% plus S10-S25-S50 in Gift Bonuses. No experience needed. Get free Stationery Samples and 4 best-seller Assortments on approval. WRITE TODAY! CREATIVE CARD CO.. 4401 Cermak Rd. , Dept. 125 A. Chicago 23,111. LOOSE DENTAL PLATES RELINED AND TIGHTENED AT HOME $1.00 NEWLY IMPROVED DENDEX RELINER, a plastic, builds up (refits) loose upper and lower dentures. Really makes them fit as "they should without using powder. Easily -applied. No heating required. Brush it on and wear your plates while it sets. It adtheres to the plates only and makes a f comfortable, smooth and durable surface that can be washed and scrubbed. Each application lasts for months. Not a powder or wax. Contains no rubber or gum. Neutral pink color. Sold on MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE. Not told In stores. Proved by 15 years of Consumer Use. Send SI plus 10c handling charge (stamps or coin). Charges extra on C.O.D. orders. DENDEX COMPANY o°#."-z 2024 West Sixth Street • Los Angeles 5, Calif. BIGGEST MONEY MAKER EVER! $25»°$SO ,NJU5T ** "*WA FEW HOURS! NEW STYLE CRAZE BRINGS YOU QUICK CASH! ■ On-the-spot sales give up to $10 profit first time you show FLEXICL0GS! \ Over a million sold. Selling like ^^ wild-lire! Exciting hinged wood ll^^, en footweai Ilexes on loot, JBT\ sells entire family. Cushion ^T^ crepe soles, interchange ^^^^^ able straps, in 11 fashion colors, foam rubber insoles, or high heels. Close orders instantly. Matched accessories multiply profits. . . FREE! $5.50 Sample Kit For You! FIEXICLOGS, Box 755, New Holstein, Wis. Hurry I Ruih my samplo kit so I can start making I money now I Name. , ■ Address ■ 102 I City Slate. 40 cashmere jackets, some 100 sport shirts, 20-odd pairs of gray flannel slacks, a blue capeskin sports jacket (greeted by whistles from the entire personnel at CBS), and around 20 business suits, along with an array of tuxedos and full-dress suits for both professional and personal use. Another charge leveled at Jack Benny, the character, by Jack Benny, the man, is that he can't act. "The Horn Blows at Midnight," a Benny motion picture, has come in for much caustic comment from Jack. Truth is that "Horn" made Warner Brothers a nice piece of change. Jack's ability as an actor is so subtle that it often escapes notice, but — like air — if it were missing there would be obvious discomfort. All comedians suffer from a quaint human practice: The layman tells the doctor how to cure the common cold; he tells a professional musician about his uncle who played piccolo for Sousa; he explains his hatred of modern art to painters — and he tells jokes to comics. It is likely that Jack has now heard, in multiple versions, every joke perpetrated. But his laughter rings out in hearty enjoyment of any and every story, quip, pun or gag inflicted upon him. He. looks as if he enjoyed it, he laughs as if hearing it for the first time, he thanks the teller as though this gambit might save the Sunday show. Statistics about the number of Maxwells manufactured are clouded by time and unsteady reporting, but they must have rolled off the assembly line like doughnuts at Hallowe'en. Wherever Jack goes to make a personal appearance, someone has thought up the great gag of meeting him at airport or station with a vintage Maxwell. Without fail, this breaks Jack up. He examines the relic with tenderness and gives every indication of being grateful for the implied familiarity with his program. When he was on USO tour, wherever he went — no matter how mud-choked or artillery-raked the camp — Jack was greeted by a convulsing sign: "Welcome, Fred Allen." He never failed to make a big thing of this acknowledgment of his long-famous feud. He never failed to get in some mention of the sign in the show. Jack still owns and operates a pretty good head of hair, but no Christmas passes for which he doesn't receive a toupee from some local prankster. Such a gift is acknowledged with a correspondential merry-ha ha. I he "Jack Benny" of radio and TV characterization would seem to have no emotional nature beyond a tender regard for his own ego and the welfare of his wallet, but the man behind the mountebank is — in every sense — a gentle-man. In speaking of the people connected with his show, Jack always refers to them as "those who work with me" — not "for me." When meeting times are being set for discussion of the next show, Jack never mentions an hour and adheres to it arbitrarily. He says, "What time would be good for you?" He and Mary Livingstone were married in Waukegan, at the Hotel Clayton, on Jannary 14, 1927. (She fainted at the end of the ceremony, a fact that has troubled Jack ever since.) When Jack is away from Mary, he writes every day, telephones whenever possible. In Korea, he lined up with the GIs in order to send flowers to Mary, just as the other men were doing for their wives. Sometimes he tells Mary, "For your birthday, go buy something you really want," but usually he plots her gift for weeks in advance, presents it with a small boy's heart-filled grin. Perhaps the unkindest dig of all is the charge sometimes made that Jack Benny, outside his radio personality, is not an amusing man. There has been an assumption that his admittedly tremendous abilities reside in situations built up to a pay off. Such phrases as "flawless timing," "masterful inflection," "an uncanny ear for the inner rhythm of laughter," have been tossed off to explain audience guffaws at Benny. One colleague once observed: "The only operator to get more out of a 'Well . . .' than Benny is the state of Texas." Now would seem to be the time to give you a happy few minutes with Jack Benny, the man who doesn't need his writers to tickle your ribs. Having been interviewed by Cleveland Amory, author of The Proper Bostonian, Mr. Benny made good use of the time from the standpoint of both publicity and putting a show together. The following Sunday, a comic situation found Jack annoyed with Rochester and seeking reasons to rebuke him. "What is this copy of The Proper Bostonian doing next to the Kinsey Report?" he wanted to know. Eddie Cantor, in an affectionate moment, allowed as how he'd give Jack the shirt off his back any old time. Benny's instant response, delivered in a tone of solemn dedication, was: "And do you know what I'd do for you, Eddie? I'd wash it, iron it, and charge you only thirty-five cents." Jack still likes to report the advice he received from Jimmy Durante when Jimmy heard that Jack was going into TV. "Jimmy sounded a real warning: He said, 'When youse is in television, youse is gotta speak distinkly.' " Benny said of his great and good friend George Burns, "He's the world's loosest man with an insult." Returning from an appearance in Vancouver, one raw spring day, Jack was happily playing gin rummy with Don Wilson when the plane began to struggle like a Mexican jumping bean. The pilot came back to ask for instructions, saying that dead ahead loomed Mount Rainier: The plane was icing up and they were losing altitude and something had gone wrong with the radio — he thought they were off the beam. Would it be all right if he set down at Corvallis? Many spine-chilling moments later, the pilot made a perfect landing at Corvallis, once again came back into the cabin to ask if there was anything more he could do for Mr. Benny. Very softly, Jack said, "Yes. Please get me a room in a nice onestory hotel." During one of Jack's USO tours, he and two other members of the troupe were being jeeped back to their lodgings. An MP ordered the jeep to stop unexpectedly — calling from a dark corner — and when the driver didn't comply as fast as the MP thought he should, a fusillade of bullets whizzed over the heads of the jeepsters. Once all were identified and the difficulty straightened out, the shaken quartet climbed back into the jeep just as a black cat strolled across the street in front of the whitened travelers. "Now he tells us," snorted Jack. When he was asked by an interviewer if he were a handy man about the house, Jack admitted sorrowfully that he "couldn't push a thumb tack into a bulletin board without consulting a carpenter." Well aware of the fact that he isn't supposed to be a quipster, Benny sometimes uses this misapprehension to his own advantage. He said wistfully, one day, "I really envy ad-libbers like Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. They're so well coordinated. I've been playing golf as long as they have, but I still haven't been able to break 80." The tag line must be awarded to Fred Allen, erstwhile airwaves enemy of the Waukegan Wonder. Fred doesn't often speak the straight lines, so he is doubly impressive when he does so. Said Mr. Allen, in his book, Treadmill to Oblivion, "Jack Benny is the best-liked man in show business." And funny, too.