Benny had shed his Jewish identity along with his Jewish name on his way from vaudeville to radio. "Human" is a key word, for the Benny persona defied sub-categorization. The interaction between this protagonist and his fellow cast members turned the Jack Benny Show into a forum for human absurdity and human affection.
They knew that "Jack" was never violent and never intentionally cruel-and that he wanted nothing (not even money) so much as love. His myriad shortcomings were mercilessly exposed every week by his supporting cast, yet those characters always forgave him. He possessed a vulnerability and a flexibility few male fictional characters have achieved. Despite his conceit and braggadocio, however, Jack Benny's video persona was uniquely endearing and even in many ways admirable. The Jack Benny with whom viewers were familiar was a cheap, vain, insecure, untalented braggart who would never willingly enter his fifth decade. The main point of these interactions was to show off Benny's onscreen character. Until her retirement in 1958, Benny's wife, Mary Livingstone, portrayed what her husband termed in his memoirs "a kind of heckler-secretary," a wise-cracking friend of the family and the television program.
Although each week's episode usually had a theme or starting premise, the actual playing out of that premise often devolved into a loose collection of skits.īenny played a fictional version of himself, Jack Benny the television star, and the program often revolved around preparation for the next week's show-involving interactions between Benny and a regular stable of characters that included the program's announcer, Don Wilson, and its resident crooner, Dennis Day. The format of The Jack Benny Show was flexible. Benny made only four television shows in his first season. In 1948, the entertainer, who had just signed a deal with the Music Corporation of American (MCA) that allowed him to form a company to produce the program and thereby make more money on it, was lured to CBS, where he stayed through the remainder of his radio career and most of his television years. Most of his films capitalized on his radio fame (e.g., The Big Broadcast of 1937), although a couple of pictures, Charley's Aunt (1941) and To Be or Not to Be (1942) showed that he could play more than one character.īenny's radio program spent most of its run on NBC. He starred in a regular radio program from 1932 to 1955, establishing the format and personality he would transfer almost intact to television. Benny's first major success was on the radio. The instrument quickly turned into a mere prop, and his lack of musicianship became one of the staples of his act.
The comedian grew up in Waukegan and went on the vaudeville stage in his early teens playing the violin.
0 kommentar(er)
