FREE ESSAY ON REVIEW OF JACK BENNY'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

REVIEW OF JACK BENNY'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

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SUNDAY NIGHTS AT SEVEN
The Jack Benny Story
by Jack Benny with Joan Benny
Warner, $19.95, 302 pages
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The late Jack Benny wrote an autobiography that was known 
to almost no one. So few, in fact, that his only daughter Joan 
was surprised to find the finished manuscript among her mother's 
files after her death in 1983. Joan Benny has augmented her 
father's words with her own memories and some interviews 
accomplished expressly for the book. It is very good.
As one might expect from the most popular comedian of the 
age of radio, Jack Benny's memoirs are fast-paced, lively, and 
entertaining. His recollections are positive, and he says almost 
nothing negative about anyone. He traces back to his humble 
beginnings as Benjamin Kubelsky in Waukegan, Ill., and reveals 
many intriguing facts about his early life and entry into show 
business. He was a high school dropout (although, as he notes 
with irony, Waukegan eventually built a junior high school in his 
honor) and took to serious study of the violin only after 
flunking out of the family haberdashery business. (Do we have 
to know their names? he asked his father after an unknown 
customer left an account payment with him.) Over his mother's 
objections, he eventually found employment as a violinist with a 
local touring singer. After a while, he began to talk, which 
grew into a comedy monologue. Jan Kubelik, a concert violinist, 
forced Benny Kubelsky to change his name in 1912. He next became 
Ben Benny, and became fairly well known as a violin-and-comedy 
performer. After serving in the Navy in World War I, a similar 
entertainer named Ben Bernie forced him to change his name again, 
and he chose the name Jack, by which all sailors in the war were 
informally known to each other. 
Some of the stories have been told before, but get a much-
deserved retelling from the horse's mouth here. Jack met his 
wife, Sadie Marks (she later changed her name to Mary 
Livingstone, the name of the character she played on the radio 
show) when he was 27 and she 14 at her family's Passover 
celebration in Vancouver. She was related to the Marx brothers, 
and Zeppo Marx (then Marks) had brought his colleague to the home 
for the occasion. Mary insisted that Jack listen to her violin 
playing. He found it horrible and he and Zeppo made a quick 
exit. Several years later, they met again and married in 1927 
after a brief courtship. It was only after they were married 
that Mary reminded Jack of their first meeting. 
Jack continued his successful career in vaudeville, and when 
his partner took ill, he persuaded Mary to fill in. She was a 
hit. Eventually he found himself on Broadway and then in the 
movies. He vacillated for a time before deciding that going into 
radio would be worthwhile. 
While they were living in New York, they adopted Joan. She 
learned in writing the book that Mary Benny had planned to take 
her only to nurse her to health while they awaited an arranged 
baby. (Jack opposed this idea.) Naturally, they found they 
couldn't part with Joan. 
Much of the book consists of Joan's writing. She seems to 
be in a different book from her father. It would be a major help 
if she used a writing style that conformed more closely to that 
set by her father in the early chapters. Her short, simple 
sentences slow the pace in a sudden manner. She provides 
extreme levels of detail about her early life, homes, and the 
trappings of being a celebrity daughter. While this matter is 
interesting to a Benny buff, one hopes that none of the venerable 
comedian's material was subjugated to make room for it. It 
would be far more relevant if Joan Benny were a celebrity in her 
own right. But this is the fall of 1990 and such things are to
be expected of celebrity offspring. George Bush is our president
and no doubt he approves.
Some of Joan Benny's passages are curious. Obviously, had 
her father wanted details of his premarital womanizing in his 
book, he would have put them there himself. Her life is very 
well detailed up to about 1965, but she says almost nothing of 
her activities for the past quarter century. 
Joan Benny pulls no punches in discussing her mother. The 
two had what would mildly be described as an adversarial 
relationship. Mary Livingstone Benny (who always introduced 
herself as Mrs. Jack Benny) is portrayed as a vain, insecure 
spendthrift. She allegedly was most interested in being with and 
accepted by the Hollywood elite. Studio moguls, that is, not the 
entertainers that her husband called friends. Jack Benny 
attended Friar's dinners and the like alone. Mary Livingstone 
Benny may have played the role of Mrs. Jack Benny to the hilt to 
gain social standing, but Joan Benny's words must be taken with a 
teaspoon of salt (or a more healthful sodium-free substitute) in 
light of the obvious delight she displays on every page at being 
Jack Benny's daughter. 
Jack Benny tells a good many anecdotes that have not been 
printed before. Obviously, none of the three Benny intimates who 
wrote biographies had access to this material. He tells how he 
learned from others' mistakes in developing his radio style. 
(Other comics used visual material for their studio audience, 
which left home listeners in the dark about what was so funny.) 
There is a certain paradox in the greatest radio comedian also 
being the greatest user of facial expressions and body language. 
Perhaps, as Jack suggests, his secret wasn't those mannerisms but 
his timing. Jack acknowledges that he was but a mediocre 
violinist. Nevertheless, he won the respect of some of the 
world's greatest violinists. These stories are a treasure. 
Isaac Stern called him the most fortunate concert artist because 
he didn't have to live with the pressure of having to be perfect. 
The book is must reading, but the reader can't help but 
agonize over how much better it would be had Joan Benny published 
the autobiography verbatim (Jack wanted to title it I Always Had 
Shoes, a reaction to comedians who claimed to have risen from 
abject poverty) or more successfully integrated her words into 
it. With any luck, the book will spark a renewed interest in the 
legendary comedian. His television show could stand to be 
revived by one of the cable networks, and a TV movie about him is 
a possibility. Joan Benny selected dozens of family photos for 
the book; they are a contribution. The most striking thing about 
the book is how fresh Jack Benny's words sound, even though they 
were written almost twenty years ago. It's almost like having 
him back.