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Jack Benny, 1894-1974
One of the stalwarts of the American comedy throughout much of the twentieth century, Jack Benny started his career at age seventeen, playing a violin in vaudeville theaters for $7.50 a week. Later he became a national presence with his own radio show, "The Jack Benny Program," which ran on NBC from 1932 to 1948 and on CBS from 1949 to 1955. Benny crafted what would become a unique and endearing comic persona of a penny-pinching miser who prided himself on playing the violin badly and whose perennial age was always thirty-nine. He was a master of comic timing and could garner laughs from "either a pregnant pause or a single expression, such as his signature exasperated 'Well!' " He was supported by a loyal cast of comic cohorts, including his devoted wife, Mary Livingston. Benny successfully made the transition to television in 1950 and enjoyed a fifteen-year run.
Clarence Sinclair Bull, 1936 |