Mastering the “Benny Effect”

Everything I hear suggests that radio, screen and television legend Jack Benny was a wonderful guy all around. I didn’t exactly “meet” him, but did interact with him once in the 70’s when I worked at CBS. I was an usher/tourguide, back stage at a show he was appearing on. Maybe Sonny and Cher. Anyway, I saw this old guy standing behind the curtain. Somebody said: “who is that?” and someone else said: “Jack Benny”. I couldn’t believe it. He looked so tired and past it. He must have heard, and known our reaction, because he turned to us and winked. His theme music ‘Love in Bloom” began to play. And…something happened. He straightened up, his face smoothed of wrinkles, and there stood JACK BENNY, eternally 39. It was amazing, and we all applauded as he strutted onstage.

Several readers related similar situations:

Jerry Thomas Meredith Back in the mid-70’s I was a bartender at Harrah’s in Stateline, Nevada. I sometimes worked the South Shore room, where all the Big Stars played. One night I watched a bit of Sammy Davis’ late show. When he came off stage two big guys caught him under his arms and carried him like an empty suit through the kitchen and out the back. A couple of minutes earlier, he was singing, dancing, laughing. Afterwards, he was a limp husk, completely drained, with sunken eyes.

Marc Wielage My old pal Mike Clark got us into a Bob Hope NBC special he worked on around 1990, and we were (very briefly) introduced to Hope, who was very old and very frail, barely getting around, not the guy you see on…