"smug and condescending"

[scottp]

In a collection of clippings I obtained, there's a four-page photo-article from LOOK magazine of June 20, 1939.
Sh-hh-hh
You're Not Supposed to Know This!
Hollywood's well-paid publicity chiefs earn their money not only by getting certain things into print, but also by keeping certain other things out.
Here are some things that are not supposed to be printed about the movie stars. These observations are by a writer who has covered Hollywood for more than 10 years, acquiring at first hand his knowledge of the stars and letting the glamour fall where it may.
.............
Jack Benny (seen here at a party with his wife, Mary Livingstone) is smug and condescending, despite the impression you get of him on the radio.

[JohnM]

so he was human after all?

[Yhtapmys]

so he was human after all?

Observations of a writer = who knows how he reached his conclusions.

For all I can tell, the reporter could have decided Jack was smug based solely on something he saw across a restaurant on a bad day. "First-hand" doesn't say whether this man knew Jack intimately. We don't know when, where, why or how.

I was watching a DVD piece on Mel Blanc this morning, wherein Mel told how Jack visited him in the hospital every day after that horrible accident in the early 60s. Every day. For weeks.

Everything I've read tends to point to Jack being universally beloved (which is more than the same pieces say about his wife). I've found no reason to disagree with them.

Yhtapmys

[JohnM]

so he was human after all?

Observations of a writer = who knows how he reached his conclusions.

For all I can tell, the reporter could have decided Jack was smug based solely on something he saw across a restaurant on a bad day. "First-hand" doesn't say whether this man knew Jack intimately. We don't know when, where, why or how.

I was watching a DVD piece on Mel Blanc this morning, wherein Mel told how Jack visited him in the hospital every day after that horrible accident in the early 60s. Every day. For weeks.

Everything I've read tends to point to Jack being universally beloved (which is more than the same pieces say about his wife). I've found no reason to disagree with them.

Yhtapmys

I should have used a

But, even the best would be hard pressed to achive universal belovedness all throughout their lives.

[LLeff]

Maybe the writer was being a jerk to him, and Jack said something to get him to push off. In a recent Times article, Barbara recalled Jack being approached in the CBS parking lot by a man saying, "May I speak with you?" Jack's response was "No."

I think that level of celebrity opens you up to so many people who "want a piece of you" that you have to know how to draw your boundaries at the right times. And Jack's boundaries seem to have been a lot lower than most celebs.