Jack and His Violin

[Yhtapmys]

Television And Radio
By HAL HUMPHREY
They Still Laugh When Benny Fiddles
[Syndicated, March 26, 1965]
"This is the only thing I really love to do," said Jack Benny, as he ran off a few scales on his $40,000 Stradivarlus violin. "It's too bad I couldn't have learned to do it for money."
Benny was in a dressing room at the new Los Angeles Center getting ready to rehearse with conductor Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic for "Premiere at the Pavilion," a special fund-raising concert for the orchestra last Sunday.
IT IS THE 40th such concert for Benny since April 28, 1956, when he and conductor Alfred Wallenstein appeared with the Oklahoma City Symphony and raised $66,000. Later that year Benny and Wallenstein made their team debut at Carnegie Hall in New York with critical acclaim from music critics and lovers of music and laughs.
"YOU KNOW," Benny recalled, "It was 11 years ago that I did a sketch on my TV show where a woman reporter asked me how it felt to be an important comedian, I told her I'd rather be a concert violinist, then picked up my fiddle and played.
"What was really funny was that I really played, and believe me it was the first time I'd done that in 47 years. But after that show, and the reception I got, I thought to myself, 'Gee, maybe I can give concert tours.'
"Then, of course, I had to rehearse like the dickens and have ever since. I practice about four or five hours a day now. I have to, just to keep from getting worse. But it's worth it. I get more screams than the Beatles."
SOON AFTER his Carnegie Hall concert Benny became so serious about his new career he turned in his $2,000 violin plus a check for an additional $20,000 for the Stradivarius he owns today, and estimates its value now at $40,000. The Stradivarius and an Italian Presenda valued at $5,000 are being willed by Benny to the Los Angeles Symphony.
His purchase in 1957 of the Stradivarius was kept a secret at the time for fear it might tarnish Benny's image as the comic tightwad.
"These concerts are a high-class background for a comedian, and I used to have the element of surprise working for me, because the audience didn't expect I could play at all. Now they think I purposely make mistakes," elaborated Benny, as pleased as a kid who has raided the cookie jar successfully.
AFTER BENNY'S April 16 TV show he will have no regular series on TV for the first time in 15 years. He insists this comes as no blow to him.
"I'm already busier than I was with the show every week, and I'm going to go on working any place I can — TV specials, night clubs, concerts. 1 don't think I'll miss the TV series at all. Really, I was getting a little bored the last three years," said Benny.
When CBS-TV and its now-departed president, James Aubrey, did not pick up Benny's option last year, the veteran comedian moved back to his first home on the air — NBC. On a new day and network the mercurial rating charts had Benny's show far down the list of viewer choices, hence he's not in the weekly schedules of NBC for next fall.
BENNY NEVER was a particular friend of Aubrey's. It was interesting to hear him say he once told CBS President Frank Stanton that he (Benny) would give Aubrey three more years as president of the TV network.
"And that was two years ago," reported Benny. "I don't want to say anything about Aubrey. He may be a smart man. I don't want him for president, though."
Although Benny looks fit and at least 10 years younger than his 71, he says, "I make the cameraman move back another foot each year."
Phil Silvers once did the complete summation of Benny when he said, "Jack is not a comedian, he's a way of life."

[Jhammes]

Jack Benny - Kubelsky The Great

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJdE0H9B_bE

[Mandolynn]

I was thinking about the Stradivarius violin the other day, and I wondered: how did Jack find one to buy? I mean, who deals in things like that? And where did he keep it? I imagine something like that had to be kept in a humidity-controlled cabinet. Did he keep it in his bedroom or display it in one of the rooms where he entertained guests?

I don't know, I guess it just boggles my mind to think of owning something like that. So old and so valuable. I'd be scared to breathe on it.

[scottp]

When Radio Was has been playing episodes of "The Answer Man" (Albert Mitchell.) Said to be from the late 1950s...
One Q is something like, "Is it true Jack Benny can play the violin well, when he wants to?"
A: "Yes, Jack Benny can play the violin well-- WHEN he wants to."

Very terse. You'd think there'd be one more sentence about benefit concerts, or something.

The show-- like Mitchell's voice-- is a bit grating. I have a feeling some of the questions (and questioners and hometowns) were made up to fit the facts already available. Who writes in to ask, "Doesn't a modern harp have about 30 strings?"
(A: "More than that-- a modern harp has 47 strings.")

Hearing the shows makes me realize Bob Elliot was copying the voice to some extent in some Bob & Ray routines (and why wouldn't he? But I hadn't heard any of the real shows until now.)

[Brad from Georgia]

I was thinking about the Stradivarius violin the other day, and I wondered: how did Jack find one to buy? I mean, who deals in things like that? And where did he keep it? I imagine something like that had to be kept in a humidity-controlled cabinet. Did he keep it in his bedroom or display it in one of the rooms where he entertained guests?

I don't know, I guess it just boggles my mind to think of owning something like that. So old and so valuable. I'd be scared to breathe on it.

He and Stradivarius grew up next door to each other in Waukegan. The violin Jack had was one of "Straddie's" practice efforts.....