Vital Viewing (Passionate Pauses Edition)

 

Radio and television comedian Jack Benny was born on St. Valentines Day in 1894 (he died the day after Christmas in 1974.) Since this is the holiday that celebrates romantic love, I thought it best to include the love of Benny's life, Mary Livingstone, whom he married in 1927. Mary was a fixture on Benny's radio show (where she played not his wife but his secretary), but with the switch to television in the 1950s, she developed a crippling case of stage fright, and her TV appearances were sporadic. Here's one of those sporadic appearances, her stage fright quite unnoticeable:

Romantic comedy with some women's gymnastics thrown in.

From 1955 to 1970, Mary Livingstone didn't appear on TV at all, but Benny finally managed to convince her to appear on this Nixon Administration-era special:

Lucille Ball's appearance toward the end of that clip reminds me that she was a Beverly Hills neighbor of the Bennys for a number of years. Lucy did not like Mary Livingstone, once referring to her as a "hard-hearted Hannah" and complaining that she kept Jack on a "short leash". In fact, there doesn't seem to have been much fondness for Mary among Benny's immediate circle of friends. Benny's best friend, fellow comedian George Burns, tried putting it in context: "Mary wasn't a bad person, she was just difficult, a little jealous and insecure. She didn't want to have better things than her friends had, particularly Gracie [Allen, Burn's wife and comedy partner]; she wanted to have the same things, but more of them. And bigger." Gracie herself once confided, "Mary Benny and I are supposed to be the dearest of friends, but we're not. I love Jack and I can tolerate Mary, but there are some things about her I don't like."  The Benny's adopted daughter Joan wished her mother "could have enjoyed life more." None of this says much for Mary, huh? As always, there's a wrinkle. Outside that immediate circle of friends, things were said about the husband. The fey mannerisms that so superbly abetted Benny's almost supernatural comic timing led to some speculation--David Niven and Paul Lynde were among the speculators--that when he wasn't performing, he wasn't...performing. At least not his husbandly duties. The bedroom joke in the above video may have been no joke, certainly not to Mary. Denials on Benny's part notwithstanding, his interests were rumored to lie elsewhere, and given the mores of the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, that could have been potentially career-damning if found out. Was this, then, a marriage of convenience? Was Mary Jack's beard? Well (to borrow a Bennyism), all that can be said for sure is that people often lead complicated lives, even celebrities. Especially celebrities.

 

 Whatever did or didn't go on in that bedroom, and whether or not the couple had some sort of agreement or understanding, Jack Benny seems to have had a genuine affection for Mary. He may even have loved her.  Shortly after his death, Mary wrote this in the then-popualr woman's magazine McCall's: 

Every day since Jack has gone the florist has delivered one long-stemmed red rose to my home. I learned Jack actually had included a provision for the flowers in his will. One red rose to be delivered to me every day for the rest of my life. 

Mary Livingstone survived her husband by nine years, dying in 1983 at the age of 78. Do the math and that's just over 3200 long-stemed roses. Perhaps it helped make up for any compromising that may have led to the hard-heartedness.

 

Quips and Quotations (A Star is Born Edition)

 It didn't help our marriage when I became known as Barbra Streisand's husband. When we met, I was the leading man; she was the newcomer.


--Elliott Gould

Quips and Quotations (Post Office Edition)

 I am married to a fine actor named Rip Torn....The mail carriers are used to our mail box, which reads Torn Page.


--Geraldine Page