This is the longest version I could find and it still seems like it's missing something at the end. But perhaps not. It's from 1937.
The one confusing thing for me about the column is the reference to Phil Harris "a couple of years earlier." Does anyone have background on that?
I've included a photo attached to one version of the story from a different service. It was also in a gallery of photos of Jack I spotted with another newspaper story around the same time.
Let’s All Shed Tears For Poor Jack Benny
Being No. 1 Man of Radio Is Such a Tough Job He’d Rather Be No. 6—Oh Yeah?
By ERNIE PYLE
Scripps-Howard Staff Writer
NEW YORK, April 1—Stop The Presses! Or whatever the equivalent of that would be in radio. Stop the presses or twist the dials or something. I’ve got Jack Benny in the bag.
Benny and I had a brief but very interesting chat. We shook hands and I said “I’m writing a column about you, but I’ve got a lot of dope already and so won’t have to take much of your time.” Whereupon Jack said “That’s swell,” and put the cigar back in his mouth and walked on.
Benny’s income runs around three-quarters of a million dollars a year, one of his men told me. Later, I figured out that it took near $5 worth of Benny’s time to say “That’s swell.” I shall always wear that pair of $2.50 words next to my heart.
Benny is the No. 1 man of radio. But he would rather not be No. 1. He would rather be No. 6 or something like that. The constant responsibility of maintaining the No. 1 position is just too tough.
I feel so sorry I could cry for these great public figures toiling under their load. Gable wishes he hadn’t done it. Lindbergh doesn’t like the attention that made him rich. Benny wishes he weren’t No. 1 man. Boo hoo! Boo hoo! Boo phooey!
* * *
Surrounded by Stooges
It was about three weeks ago that I saw Benny and his radio troupe. (Incidentally, I took a day and a half from my vacation just to round up this shining light. My No. 1 position has its drawbacks too, you see. Boo hoo!)
The boys are all back in Hollywood now. They came East purely for a little vacation trip. Seems that every so often the whole troupe gets the itch for New York, so they just bundle everyone onto a train and East they come.
Benny travels with quite a retinue. He has an agent, a business manager, a secretary and three script writers. I don’t see how he can ever think of anything funny with all that platoon around. And then there are always a few helpful souls from the advertising agency and the radio company.
The manager of Benny’s show took me to lunch at the Murray Hill and told me all about his prize number. (The manager paid for the lunch, so that makes $6 I owe them now.)
The manager says Jack is a swell fellow. I imagine he is, at that. He looks like he would be. He is good-looking; very straight and well set up. He wears horn rimmed glasses most of the time. He’s getting pretty gray along the sides. He smokes one cigar right after another.
* * *
Practiced ‘The Bee’
His real name isn’t Jack Benny. It’s Ben Kubelsky. He used to go by the stage name of Ben Benny. But that was too much like Ben Bernie, so they tossed to see who had to change his name, and Mr. Kubelsky lost, so now he’s Jack Benny.
He really did start his stage career as a violinist. But then he got to filling in with patter, and the patter was better than the fiddling, so he finally did nothing but get out on the stage and talk. But for years he always had the fiddle hidden in the footlight trough, in case he should get stuck with his patter.
Incidentally, when it was finally decided that Benny should actually play “The Bee” in his broadcast, he practiced on it two hours every night for three weeks.
Benny and Fred Allen are, of course, actually good friends, and have been for years. Everybody knows, I guess, that the feud was all in fun. But radio listeners are queer. You can’t tell how they’re going to talk things.
For instance, Benny had a similar trumped-up feud with band leader Phil Harris a couple of years ago. But the listeners took it seriously, and the Harris fans wrote nasty letters to Benny, and the Benny fans penned dirty tomes to Harris, and it got into such a mess they had to abandon the whole thing.
* * *
Pa’s Severest Critic
Benny in person isn’t as funny as Fred Allen. He isn’t so good at ad libbing, and quick extemporaneous repartee. But he isn’t so bad, either.
And despite the fact that he has three writers, he contributes a great deal to the script. I saw through the rehearsal a few hours before Benny and Allen put on their love-feast broadcast here in New York.
Benny was much like a director in the movies. He’d tell each player to emphasize his lines, and now and then he’d think of something better and tell everybody to change their script. It was surprising to me how funny even the players thought the show was.
Mary Livingstone (who’s on the Benny show too, you know) is Benny’s wife. She is medium tall and very thin, and she’s scared to death before every broadcast.
Benny’s father is still living and spends his winters in Florida. He never misses a broadcast, and never fails to telegraph his son right after the show. And he doesn’t always think it was good, either.
- Benny Ernie Pyle.PNG (98.26 KiB) Viewed 5641 times
transcribed by Yhtapmys