Yesterday here, I linked to a recording of Jack Benny speaking at U.C.L.A. in 1973. Later in the day, I received this message from my buddy, Steve Stoliar…
I was in that U.C.L.A. auditorium in 1973 when Jack Benny spoke. I had no idea anyone had recorded it. What a blast from my past! After he'd been speaking for quite a long time, the moderator said, "Well, I know Mr. Benny has to leave…" to which Benny replied, "I don't have to leave. I can stay, if you like," which was met with thunderous applause. Afterward, he even stayed to sign autographs. I hadn't thought to bring anything, so I pulled a dollar bill out of my wallet and he signed it. Only later did I realize how a propos it was, given his penny-pinching persona. Given his exuberance, no one would've guessed he'd be dead a year later.
I would imagine Mr. Benny was quite happy that so many young people had turned out for him and wanted to stay as long as he did.
A question I would have loved to have asked him is this. George Burns told me, and I've heard it from others, that Benny was the first major radio comedian to give meaningful credits to his writers. He said that before Jack did it, the only way a writer got credit was if the show was a mixture of different kinds of material such that a writing credit didn't necessarily mean that that person had written what the comedian said. Most comedians, he said, wanted to perpetuate the notion that they — not their writers — were funny.
If you had a variety show, a writing credit might mean that the writer stitched the show together or wrote introductions, but that the monologues and sketches still emanated from the brain of the comedian. But when you had a mostly-comedy show like Benny did, a writer credit suggested that the star wasn't making all that funny stuff up.
When Benny started doing this, Burns said, other comedians went to him and told him to stop. They knew that if Benny gave his writers credit, they'd eventually have to do likewise — and they didn't want to do likewise. The argument they advanced was that the public doesn't want to know that writers write what the comedian says just as they don't want to know that movie heroes use stuntmen. In other words, it's better for the audience if the writers don't get credited.
Benny didn't buy this. He went ahead and credited his writers and, of course, no one had a more successful career as a radio comedian or was more beloved. I'd be fascinated to know what went through Mr. Benny's mind when he made his decision. It was a good one and according to Burns, it pissed off a number of his friends. (George says he was not among the pissed-off…)