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. (Nov.The comedian grew up in Waukegan and went on the vaudeville stage in his early teens playing the violin. The daughter's sensibilities, at least as expressed here, contrast sharply with the father's big-hearted outlook on life. And although she professes love for her mother, Mary Livingston, she also criticizes her as pretentious, a spendthrift and generally mean-spirited. His daughter's contribution to the memoir offers interesting if repetitious recollections on growing up in Hollywood and vivid portraits of family friends Cary Grant, Ronald Colman, Lucille Ball and other famous folk. The secret of his tremendous appeal, he reveals-as though taking us into his confidence-was impeccable timing as a comedian and an ability to endear himself to people. But far more entertaining and moving is Jack Benny's related story, tracing how this one-time vaudeville trouper who left his native Waukegan, Ill., in his youth rose to stardom on radio, in TV and films. When Jack Benny died at age 80 in 1974, he left this unpublished autobiography, to which his daughter adds accounts of the family's home life. ``He was a nice man,'' writes George Burns in the foreword to this book by and about his friend of 50 years, a sentiment readers will resoundingly agree with.

Sunday Nights at Seven by Jack Benny