Is there a "Lost" Benny Autobiography?

[shimp scrampi]

An extensive part of the David Frost interview (in the video library) with Jack Benny concerns Jack's thoughts on why, at the time, he had never published his memoirs. One of the great things about hearing the 'real' Jack in such a long format interview is you get a sense of how detail-oriented he was; in the course of 90 minutes they really cover very few topics, but what they do cover is thorough.

So Jack explains about his autobiography - and he talks about first working with a 'ghost writer' or an '...as told to' type book. Apparently that got to the manuscript stage, and Jack rejected it because it 'didn't sound like him' or didn't like it for other reasons.

He then goes on to explain that he figured the honest thing to do was to sit down and write the thing himself, and he did. When it was done, he showed it to Mary, Irving Fein, George Burns, Fred DeCordova and a few other close associates who he advised him that it just wasn't up to snuff, and he also shelved that project.

One of these manuscripts ended up forming a good chunk of Joan Benny's "Sunday Nights at Seven". But which was it? The earlier work with the ghost writer, or Jack's solo effort?

Now, I have no basis other than stylistic criteria to gauge this, but my impression of the "Jack" sections of SNAS are that they are pretty slick and seem more in the same 'tone' as most Hollywood 'as told to' works, there isn't evidence, to me, anyway, of the mediocre writing that turned off Jack's close friends and associates, so my educated guess is that SNAS includes the first version of the Benny autobiography with the collaborator.

So does the second version (whichever one it is) still exist? Did portions of the Jack solo draft get reworked in the Mary-Hickey-Marcia Borie book?

It would be interesting to get the original versions of these published someday. I really love Sunday Nights at Seven - but it does seem that if you subtract the Joan sections, the Jack portion has to be cut down from a longer manuscript - it would have been an awfully short book.

Many mysteries to consider!

As a side note, in the interview Jack says that he thought Joan might someday write a good book about him - but at the time he wanted Shana Alexander to do his biography. Interesting choice!

[LLeff]

One of these manuscripts ended up forming a good chunk of Joan Benny's "Sunday Nights at Seven". But which was it? The earlier work with the ghost writer, or Jack's solo effort?

Here's what I think probably happened. Maurice Zolotow was the co/ghost author of Jack's autobiography. I have a hard time believing that Jack would have written an entire manuscript by himself. It would have been fun if he did, though, because Jack's letter-writing style almost always creates a result that you can easily hear Jack in your head speaking the words. But I would bet that he took a shot at a few sections on his own, which then got worked into the Zolotow manuscript.

As I recall--and I may be wrong--I think that Jack was talking theoretically about the "as told to" manuscript, saying that he had considered the idea and that it wouldn't sound like him as opposed to it didn't sound like him. So he would have to take a stronger hand in the actual creation of the manuscript, which I believe he did with Zolotow.

Remember also that Jack was a performer, and there's plenty about the backstory of Mary's reaction to the manuscript that caused it not to be published (i.e., his relations with Nora Bayes and other women...pre-marital, of course). Of course, Jack doesn't go into that detail. So it's entirely possible that Jack's relating may be one that plays best without 100% meshing with fact.

As far as I know, none of Jack's manuscript was worked into the Marcie Borie book. That relied more heavily on interviews. Now THAT book doesn't sound like Mary! And there's a reason for that (i.e., pretty much everything outside the interviews is written by Borie).

[shimp scrampi]

Listening to the segment again, you're right LL, Jack is talking about his trepidation in doing an "as told to" book rather than a completed 'first draft'. Your version of events makes as always, eminent sense.

However, he's clearly not in 'chat show' performer/plugging mode where he's setting up punchlines - he talks for more than 12 mins straight about his issues about writing his autobiography, and Frost can hardly get a word in edgewise!

Still it seems like there were a couple of phases and false starts in getting Jack's autobio together. In the 'Marcia Borie' book, Mary's preface notes that it started as a fresh start with Hickey Marks working with Jack as his new 'ghost writer'. Did any material other than the Zolotow manuscript survive, say, in Jack's papers collections? And how well does SNAS represent the total Zolotow draft?

Curiously, Milt Josefsberg's book has an acknowledgement to Maurice Zolotow as well.

The 'Borie' book really is a curious jumble. It has some interesting aspects but is definitely jarring to read in a book supposedly by Mary, "Mary Livingstone remembers,"... Well, maybe it's not jarring if you're Bob Dole.

Incidentally I've been thinking about the ghost writer issue since I just got a beautiful copy of George Burns' 1950s autobio "I Love Her, That's Why" where he works with a clearly credited collaborator, Cynthia Hobart Lindsey. Jack writes the prologue, and uses a cute little literarcy conceit where whenever he would pause and stare into the audience if he were speaking the text, there's a little inserted Jack-head graphic from the Bouche caricature in the paragraph.

Jack Benny, pioneer of stage, screen, radio, television, and emoticons!

[LLeff]

Still it seems like there were a couple of phases and false starts in getting Jack's autobio together. In the 'Marcia Borie' book, Mary's preface notes that it started as a fresh start with Hickey Marks working with Jack as his new 'ghost writer'. Did any material other than the Zolotow manuscript survive, say, in Jack's papers collections? And how well does SNAS represent the total Zolotow draft?

I'll have to recheck the preface of Mary's book, but I'd be surprised if Hickey could have served as a ghost writer for a Benny biography (or any book). Hickey was working as one of Jack's comedy writers by the 1970s, so it's possible that the idea may have been tossed around, but my gut tells me that it probably wouldn't have gotten very far. Considering the extensive factual errors in his interview sections in the Borie book, that's definitely a good thing!

I certainly have not gone through ALL of Jack's papers (some day, some day). However, I haven't found anything re a biographical sketch in the papers from 1968+ that I've seen. Joan told me (back in 1987, just shortly after she'd found it) that she found the manuscript in a closet after Mary's death. Joan also said that the entire manuscript was used in the book, and the size discrepancy was because the manuscript was triple-spaced (probably to accommodate hand-written edits). I do have a partial copy of the manuscript, but doing a side-by-side comparison with SNAS hasn't yet gotten into my daily 24 hours yet. What little I have checked, though, does match.

[shimp scrampi]

That's interesting. I wonder if the 'real' reason - of course there are probably a number of factors - as to why Jack shelved "I Always Had Shoes" is that the manuscript came back and was thin and not substantial enough. As Joan notes in the intro to SNAS, the whole "Mary wouldn't let it go out because Jack talked about his early love life" story doesn't make sense, that could have been cut easily.

But a quick thumb through Sunday Nights at Seven gives me a rough estimate of about 1/3 Jack and 2/3 Joan give or take. It's a three-hundred page book.

Jack had a wildly successful, 50-plus year career. He supposedly worked with Zolotow for two years on this and what he got back was a draft for a 100 page book? I'd be disappointed too. Even though the writing is good, there just might not have been enough of it. It probably looked, in that form, like a drugstore quickie paperback.

Here's the quotage from Mary's book preface (p. ix), by the way, I'll save you the trip to the bookshelf:

Over the years...numerous publishers wanted Jack's autobiography. They were anxious to print a book which would zero in on the essence of Benny.

Finally, some years ago, Jack agreed. He hired a writer, accepted a publisher's advance, and set about to work on his life story. However, when the writer brought a draft of the book for his approval, Jack was disappointed. The manuscript did not please him. He felt it did not reflect his life as he knew it to be.

The publisher's advance was returned. The writer was paid for what he had written. What happened was that Jack purchased his own life story - and packed it away on a closet shelf!

Then, in 1974, when Jack decided to write his autobiography again, he selected as his collaborator someone who knew him intimately - someone he loved and trusted - my brother, Hilliard. (...)

When they began to work, there was a spontaneous outpouring on Jack's part. Sometimes they would write. Other times they would just sit and talk, dredging up anecdotes, reminiscences, memories (...)

It was in this manner that the over-all pattern for the book was conceived

[LLeff]

When they began to work, there was a spontaneous outpouring on Jack's part. Sometimes they would write. Other times they would just sit and talk, dredging up anecdotes, reminiscences, memories (...)

Hmmm. Now the question in my mind is...if there are notes from that, would they be in Hickey's papers (and probably thrown out at his death), or might Marcia Borie have gotten them? Hmmmm.

[shimp scrampi]

Though Marcia Borie has passed away as well, (as has Zolotow) I doubt either has an archived paper collection, but I don't know.

[krledu]

I just finished reading the biographies on Jack Benny. I thought the best one had to be the one by his writer (Milt Josefsberg?). It was honest and gave a lot of background about his perfessional life. I didn't like the one that Joan Benny wrote though. I thought it was not enough about Jack. But anyway, reading each biography gave me a well rounded point of view on Jack's life. Very interesting stuff!