Saturdays with the Stars: Jack Benny

Each month of 2022 we will be taking a look at one-time film actors who became foundational figures in the early days of television, stretching from the early 1950's into the mid-1960's.  Last month, we focused on the quintessential "failed movie star, TV success" actress Lucille Ball, who would dominate the early medium of television in a way virtually no one else could.  This month, we are going to finally have our first (after over three years) male star of the month, and we will be focusing on a man who inspired Ball's decision to get into radio & television, someone who entered into television even earlier than Ball did, and enjoyed success he could've never dreamt of when he was making movies.  This month's star is Jack Benny.

Benny grew up the son of Jewish immigrants in the Chicago suburb of Waukegan.  A violin prodigy at a young age, after being expelled from school he entered the vaudeville circuit in his younger years, where he would become friends with Zeppo Marx (one of the famed Marx Brothers) through whom he met his wife Mary, whom Benny would remain with for nearly fifty years.  In 1929, Benny tried to get into movies, signing a contract with MGM, but after a solid success in The Hollywood Revue of 1929, he couldn't cut it as a leading man, and was dropped from his contract.

This led to what would become Benny's principle vehicle to fame: radio.  Benny's program would run on radio from 1932-1955, and was one of the highest-rated programs in the country.  Benny would use his public persona as an "untalented musician" & miser to be the butt of a grand series of jokes, and would have a large troupe of actors including Eddie Anderson, Dennis Day, & Mary Livingstone (his wife) in the cast.  The radio show was such a big hit that it eventually made the transfer into television, and The Jack Benny Show would air on CBS from 1950-64 (followed by one season on NBC before it ended in 1965), being one of the first true hit shows in the medium.  Benny during this time became one of the most famous figures in America, on par with figures like Ed Sullivan & Bob Hope.

Benny, though, made movies throughout this time, albeit quite sporadically.  I'm very familiar with Benny from his television show and his many appearances on programs like What's My Line during the era, but I know very little about what he's like when he's not, well, playing Jack Benny.  During the 1940's he appeared in one classic movie (Ernst Lubitsch's sparkling To Be or Not To Be), but that's the only one of his leading man movies I've seen.  So this month, we're going to take a look at Benny's career in pictures, a "side hustle" that still resulted in some major studio work, hopefully learning why Benny was able to have such success in radio & television, but like Lucille Ball, simply couldn't cut it as a film star.