Mary Livingstone
Encyclopedia
Mary Livingstone was an American
radio
comedienne and the wife and radio partner of comedy great Jack Benny
(né Benjamin Kubelsky). Enlisted almost entirely by accident to perform on her husband's popular program, she proved a talented comedienne. But she also proved one of the rare performers – Barbra Streisand
would prove to be another – to experience severe stage fright
years after her career was established — so much so that she retired from show business completely, after two decades in the public eye, almost three decades before her death, and at the height of her husband and partner's fame.
. She came from a respected show business family: relatives included her cousins the Marx Brothers
and Al Shean
of Gallagher and Shean
. Her last name Marrix was Anglicised to Marks when the family arrived in the United States. She met her future husband, Jack Benny, at a Passover
seder
at her family home when she was 14; Benny was invited by his friend and her cousin, Zeppo (b. Herbert) Marx
while Benny and the Marx Brothers were in town together to perform. Sadie developed a near-instant crush on the funny, somewhat shy man eleven years her senior. But when he inadvertently insulted her by excusing himself for the night in the midst of her violin
performance, she got her revenge the next night. She took three girlfriends to the theater where Benny performed, sitting in the front row and making sure not to laugh. Benny said later it drove him nuts that he couldn't get the four girls to laugh at anything.
with her family while Jack Benny was in the same town for a show. Still nursing a small crush on the comedian, Sadie went to the theater to re-introduce herself to him. As he approached her in a hallway, she smiled and said, "Hello, Mr. Benny, I'm..." But he curtly cut her off with a "Hello," and continued on his way down the hall without pausing; she learned much later that when Benny was deep in thought about his work, it was nearly impossible to get his attention otherwise.
They met again a few years later — while she was said to be working as a lingerie salesgirl at a May Department Stores
branch store in downtown Los Angeles
— and the couple finally began dating. Invited on a double-date by a friend who had married Sadie's sister, Babe, Benny brought Sadie along to keep him company. This time, the couple clicked: Jack was finally smitten with Sadie and asked her on another date. She turned him down at first — she was seeing another young man — but Benny persisted. He visited her at The May Company almost daily and was reputed to buy so much ladies' hosiery
from her he helped her set a sales record; he also called her several times a day when on the road.
At the same time, Benny seemed fearful of a committed relationship and Sadie Marks continued dating other men, even becoming engaged, which panicked the comedian enough to beg her to come to Chicago
, where he tried to convince her she was too young to marry. When the argument didn't convince her, Benny confessed he was in love with her and wanted to marry her himself. In a scene that could have been a later Jack Benny Program routine, she needled him about her being too young to marry. "You're not too young to marry me!" he retorted, his way of proposing. Sadie Marks broke her existing engagement and married Jack Benny in 1927. In her biography of her husband, she revealed she didn't tell him she was the little girl he'd once needled until after they'd dated awhile.
performances but never thought of herself as a full-time performer, seeming glad to be done with it when he moved to radio in 1932. Then came the day he called her at home and asked her to come to the studio quickly. An actress hired to play a part on the evening's show didn't show up and, instead of risking a hunt for a substitute, Benny thought his wife could handle the part: a character named "Mary Livingstone" scripted as Benny's biggest fan.
At first, it seemed like a brief role — she played the part on that night's and the following week's show before being written out of the scenario. But NBC
received so much fan mail that the character was revived into a regular feature on the Benny show, and the reluctant Sadie Marks became a radio star in her own right. Mary Livingstone underwent a change, too: from fan to tart secretary-foil; the character occasionally went on dates with Benny's character but they were rarely implied to be truly romantically involved otherwise. (The lone known exceptions: a fantasy sequence on both the radio and television versions of the show, as well as when NBC did a musical tribute to Jack, in which Mary admitted to being "Mrs. Benny.")
Mary Benny soon enough displayed her own sharp wit and pinpoint comic timing, often used to puncture Benny's on-air ego, and she became a major part of the show, enough so that, giving in when she was addressed as "Mary Livingstone" often enough when out in public, she ended up changing her name legally to Mary Livingstone. Years later, her husband admitted how strange it felt to call her Sadie even in private.
— the real-life wife of Benny's friend, fellow comedian, and longtime "feuding" rival Fred Allen
— played a squeaky friend who usually hied Allen off to "Allen's Alley" after a brief comic exchange.) But she was still prone to occasional flubbed lines on the show, and many became as legendary as the deliberately crafted "illogical logic" of Gracie Allen
or the cleverly scripted malapropisms of Jane Ace
and (as Molly in The Goldbergs
) Gertrude Berg
.
Livingstone's "chiss sweeze sandwich" order in a lunch counter sketch was referred to for several years afterwards. Another flubbed line was "How could you possibly hit a car when it was up on the grease rack?" Instead, she asked, "How could you possibly hit a car when it was up on the grass reek?" The following week, Benny devoted much of the show to poking fun at the tongue twister, chastising her for using the made up phrase "grass reek". But Jack got his comeuppance later in the show, when the show's guest, the real-life Beverly Hills police chief, was talking about the strange call the department got the night before: two skunks fighting on someone's lawn. "And let me tell you," he said, "when they were done, did that grass reek!" Mary then took great satisfaction out of making Jack admit to the millions of listeners that "grass reek" did exist ("...Boy did that grease rack!" "That's "grass wreak!"" "Well make up your mind!"). It was also mentioned in a later show when, while Christmas shopping, Mary notices a toy gas station and says that it "even has a grease rack". This was a typical example of Benny and Livingstone, and the show's writers' ability to mine classic comedy out of, apparently, nothing much.
Mary's trademark bit on the radio show (other than haranguing Benny) was to read letters from her mother (who lived in Plainfield, New Jersey), usually beginning with, My darling daughter Mary... and often including comical stories about Mary's (fictional) sister Babe (similar to Sadie's real sister Babe in name only), who was so masculine she played as a linebacker
for the Green Bay Packers
and worked in steel mills and coal mines; or, their ne'er do well father, who always seemed to be a half-step ahead of the law. Mother Livingstone, naturally enough, detested Jack Benny and was forever advising her daughter to quit his employ.
did the same in 1958.
revealed in his memoir Gracie: A Love Story (1988) that he and his wife/partner Gracie Allen
loved Jack Benny
, but merely tolerated Mary, whom they disliked. Lucille Ball
felt the same way, referring to Mary as a "hard-hearted Hannah".
Her relationship with their adopted daughter, Joan, was strained. In Sunday Nights at Seven (1990), her father's unfinished memoir that she completed with her own recollections, Joan Benny revealed she rarely felt close to her mother, and the two often argued:
for her contribution to radio — died from cardiovascular disease
at her home in Holmby Hills, California
on June 30, 1983, aged 78, hours after receiving a visit from then-First Lady Nancy Reagan
, as daughter Joan noted, where the two women enjoyed a private manicure appointment, and seven days after her 78th birthday. "The doctor said it was a heart attack", Joan wrote, "but I have always felt she just gradually faded out of life."
Mary Livingstone is interred beside her husband in the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery
in Culver City, California
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
comedienne and the wife and radio partner of comedy great Jack Benny
Jack Benny
Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...
(né Benjamin Kubelsky). Enlisted almost entirely by accident to perform on her husband's popular program, she proved a talented comedienne. But she also proved one of the rare performers – Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
would prove to be another – to experience severe stage fright
Stage fright
Stage fright or performance anxiety is the anxiety, fear, or persistent phobia which may be aroused in an individual by the requirement to perform in front of an audience, whether actually or potentially . In the context of public speaking, this fear is termed glossophobia, one of the most common...
years after her career was established — so much so that she retired from show business completely, after two decades in the public eye, almost three decades before her death, and at the height of her husband and partner's fame.
Early life
Born in Seattle, but raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, Livingstone's father was a Jewish immigrant from RomaniaRomania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
. She came from a respected show business family: relatives included her cousins the Marx Brothers
Marx Brothers
The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act, originally from New York City, that enjoyed success in Vaudeville, Broadway, and motion pictures from the early 1900s to around 1950...
and Al Shean
Al Shean
Al Shean was the stage name for comedian Abraham Elieser Adolph Schönberg, although other sources give his birth name variously as Adolf Schönberg, Albert Schönberg, or Alfred Schönberg. He is most remembered for being half of the vaudeville team Gallagher and Shean, and as the uncle of the Marx...
of Gallagher and Shean
Gallagher and Shean
Gallagher & Shean was a highly successful double act on vaudeville and Broadway in the 1910s and 1920s, consisting of Edward Gallagher and Al Shean .-Career:...
. Her last name Marrix was Anglicised to Marks when the family arrived in the United States. She met her future husband, Jack Benny, at a Passover
Passover
Passover is a Jewish holiday and festival. It commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt...
seder
Passover Seder
The Passover Seder is a Jewish ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover. It is conducted on the evenings of the 14th day of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, and on the 15th by traditionally observant Jews living outside Israel. This corresponds to late March or April in...
at her family home when she was 14; Benny was invited by his friend and her cousin, Zeppo (b. Herbert) Marx
Zeppo Marx
Herbert Manfred "Zeppo" Marx was an American film star, musician, engineer, theatrical agent and businessman. He was the youngest of the five Marx Brothers. He appeared in the first five Marx Brothers feature films, from 1929 to 1933, but then left the act to start his second career as an...
while Benny and the Marx Brothers were in town together to perform. Sadie developed a near-instant crush on the funny, somewhat shy man eleven years her senior. But when he inadvertently insulted her by excusing himself for the night in the midst of her violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
performance, she got her revenge the next night. She took three girlfriends to the theater where Benny performed, sitting in the front row and making sure not to laugh. Benny said later it drove him nuts that he couldn't get the four girls to laugh at anything.
Courting Jack Benny
Three years later, aged 17, Sadie visited CaliforniaCalifornia
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
with her family while Jack Benny was in the same town for a show. Still nursing a small crush on the comedian, Sadie went to the theater to re-introduce herself to him. As he approached her in a hallway, she smiled and said, "Hello, Mr. Benny, I'm..." But he curtly cut her off with a "Hello," and continued on his way down the hall without pausing; she learned much later that when Benny was deep in thought about his work, it was nearly impossible to get his attention otherwise.
They met again a few years later — while she was said to be working as a lingerie salesgirl at a May Department Stores
May Department Stores
The May Department Stores Company was a national department store chain in the United States, founded in 1877 by David May. The company ceased to exist in 2005 when it was merged with Federated Department Stores, Inc . Prior to the merger it was headquartered in Downtown St. Louis, Missouri...
branch store in downtown Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
— and the couple finally began dating. Invited on a double-date by a friend who had married Sadie's sister, Babe, Benny brought Sadie along to keep him company. This time, the couple clicked: Jack was finally smitten with Sadie and asked her on another date. She turned him down at first — she was seeing another young man — but Benny persisted. He visited her at The May Company almost daily and was reputed to buy so much ladies' hosiery
Hosiery
Hosiery, also referred to as legwear, describes garments worn directly on the feet and legs. The term originated as the collective term for products of which a maker or seller is termed a hosier; and those products are also known generically as hose...
from her he helped her set a sales record; he also called her several times a day when on the road.
At the same time, Benny seemed fearful of a committed relationship and Sadie Marks continued dating other men, even becoming engaged, which panicked the comedian enough to beg her to come to Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, where he tried to convince her she was too young to marry. When the argument didn't convince her, Benny confessed he was in love with her and wanted to marry her himself. In a scene that could have been a later Jack Benny Program routine, she needled him about her being too young to marry. "You're not too young to marry me!" he retorted, his way of proposing. Sadie Marks broke her existing engagement and married Jack Benny in 1927. In her biography of her husband, she revealed she didn't tell him she was the little girl he'd once needled until after they'd dated awhile.
Goodbye Sadie, Hello Mary
Sadie took part in some of Jack's vaudevilleVaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
performances but never thought of herself as a full-time performer, seeming glad to be done with it when he moved to radio in 1932. Then came the day he called her at home and asked her to come to the studio quickly. An actress hired to play a part on the evening's show didn't show up and, instead of risking a hunt for a substitute, Benny thought his wife could handle the part: a character named "Mary Livingstone" scripted as Benny's biggest fan.
At first, it seemed like a brief role — she played the part on that night's and the following week's show before being written out of the scenario. But NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
received so much fan mail that the character was revived into a regular feature on the Benny show, and the reluctant Sadie Marks became a radio star in her own right. Mary Livingstone underwent a change, too: from fan to tart secretary-foil; the character occasionally went on dates with Benny's character but they were rarely implied to be truly romantically involved otherwise. (The lone known exceptions: a fantasy sequence on both the radio and television versions of the show, as well as when NBC did a musical tribute to Jack, in which Mary admitted to being "Mrs. Benny.")
Mary Benny soon enough displayed her own sharp wit and pinpoint comic timing, often used to puncture Benny's on-air ego, and she became a major part of the show, enough so that, giving in when she was addressed as "Mary Livingstone" often enough when out in public, she ended up changing her name legally to Mary Livingstone. Years later, her husband admitted how strange it felt to call her Sadie even in private.
"Chiss Sweeze"
Livingstone's honest, wisecracking style proved a perfect lancing of Benny's on-air persona as a vain skinflint. (By contrast, Portland HoffaPortland Hoffa
Portland Hoffa was an American comedienne, actor, and dancer...
— the real-life wife of Benny's friend, fellow comedian, and longtime "feuding" rival Fred Allen
Fred Allen
Fred Allen was an American comedian whose absurdist, topically pointed radio show made him one of the most popular and forward-looking humorists in the so-called classic era of American radio.His best-remembered gag was his long-running mock feud with friend and fellow comedian Jack Benny, but it...
— played a squeaky friend who usually hied Allen off to "Allen's Alley" after a brief comic exchange.) But she was still prone to occasional flubbed lines on the show, and many became as legendary as the deliberately crafted "illogical logic" of Gracie Allen
Gracie Allen
Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen , known as Gracie Allen, was an American comedian who became internationally famous as the zany partner and comic foil of husband George Burns...
or the cleverly scripted malapropisms of Jane Ace
Jane Ace
Jane Ace was the high-voiced, malaprop-mastering wife on legendary, low-keyed American radio comedy Easy Aces...
and (as Molly in The Goldbergs
The Goldbergs
The Goldbergs is a comedy-drama broadcast from 1929 to 1946 on American radio, and from 1949 to 1956 on American television. It was adapted into a 1948 play, Me and Molly, and a 1973 Broadway musical, Molly.-Radio:...
) Gertrude Berg
Gertrude Berg
Gertrude Berg was an American actress and screenwriter. A pioneer of classic radio, she was one of the first women to create, write, produce and star in a long-running hit when she premiered her serial comedy-drama The Rise of the Goldbergs , later known as The Goldbergs.-Career:Berg was born...
.
Livingstone's "chiss sweeze sandwich" order in a lunch counter sketch was referred to for several years afterwards. Another flubbed line was "How could you possibly hit a car when it was up on the grease rack?" Instead, she asked, "How could you possibly hit a car when it was up on the grass reek?" The following week, Benny devoted much of the show to poking fun at the tongue twister, chastising her for using the made up phrase "grass reek". But Jack got his comeuppance later in the show, when the show's guest, the real-life Beverly Hills police chief, was talking about the strange call the department got the night before: two skunks fighting on someone's lawn. "And let me tell you," he said, "when they were done, did that grass reek!" Mary then took great satisfaction out of making Jack admit to the millions of listeners that "grass reek" did exist ("...Boy did that grease rack!" "That's "grass wreak!"" "Well make up your mind!"). It was also mentioned in a later show when, while Christmas shopping, Mary notices a toy gas station and says that it "even has a grease rack". This was a typical example of Benny and Livingstone, and the show's writers' ability to mine classic comedy out of, apparently, nothing much.
Mary's trademark bit on the radio show (other than haranguing Benny) was to read letters from her mother (who lived in Plainfield, New Jersey), usually beginning with, My darling daughter Mary... and often including comical stories about Mary's (fictional) sister Babe (similar to Sadie's real sister Babe in name only), who was so masculine she played as a linebacker
Linebacker
A linebacker is a position in American football that was invented by football coach Fielding H. Yost of the University of Michigan. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up approximately three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage, behind the defensive linemen...
for the Green Bay Packers
Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers are an American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The Packers are the current NFL champions...
and worked in steel mills and coal mines; or, their ne'er do well father, who always seemed to be a half-step ahead of the law. Mother Livingstone, naturally enough, detested Jack Benny and was forever advising her daughter to quit his employ.
Stage fright
Never all that comfortable as a performer despite her success, Livingstone's stage fright became so acute by the time the Benny show was moving toward television that she rarely appeared on the radio show in its final season, 1954-'55. When she did appear, the Bennys' adopted daughter, Joan, occasionally acted as a stand-in for her mother (more often, Mary's lines were initially rehearsed to the audience by Jack's script secretary, Jeanette Eyman) while Livingstone's pre-recorded lines were played during live broadcasts. Livingstone made few appearances on the television version (mostly in filmed episodes) and finally retired from show business after her close friend Gracie AllenGracie Allen
Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen , known as Gracie Allen, was an American comedian who became internationally famous as the zany partner and comic foil of husband George Burns...
did the same in 1958.
Personal life
George BurnsGeorge Burns
George Burns , born Nathan Birnbaum, was an American comedian, actor, and writer.He was one of the few entertainers whose career successfully spanned vaudeville, film, radio, television and movies, with and without his wife, Gracie Allen. His arched eyebrow and cigar smoke punctuation became...
revealed in his memoir Gracie: A Love Story (1988) that he and his wife/partner Gracie Allen
Gracie Allen
Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen , known as Gracie Allen, was an American comedian who became internationally famous as the zany partner and comic foil of husband George Burns...
loved Jack Benny
Jack Benny
Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...
, but merely tolerated Mary, whom they disliked. Lucille Ball
Lucille Ball
Lucille Désirée Ball was an American comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy...
felt the same way, referring to Mary as a "hard-hearted Hannah".
Her relationship with their adopted daughter, Joan, was strained. In Sunday Nights at Seven (1990), her father's unfinished memoir that she completed with her own recollections, Joan Benny revealed she rarely felt close to her mother, and the two often argued:
"She had so many good qualities — her sense of humor, her generosity, her loyalty to her friends. She had a famous, successful, and adoring husband; she had famous, interesting, and amusing friends; she lived in luxury; she was a celebrity in her own right. In short, she had everything a woman could possibly want. When I think of her it's with sadness because I wish she could have enjoyed it all more."
Death
After writing a biography of her husband, Mary Livingstone — whose surname is often misspelled without the 'e', as with her star on the Hollywood Walk of FameHollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
for her contribution to radio — died from cardiovascular disease
Cardiovascular disease
Heart disease or cardiovascular disease are the class of diseases that involve the heart or blood vessels . While the term technically refers to any disease that affects the cardiovascular system , it is usually used to refer to those related to atherosclerosis...
at her home in Holmby Hills, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
on June 30, 1983, aged 78, hours after receiving a visit from then-First Lady Nancy Reagan
Nancy Reagan
Nancy Davis Reagan is the widow of former United States President Ronald Reagan and was First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989....
, as daughter Joan noted, where the two women enjoyed a private manicure appointment, and seven days after her 78th birthday. "The doctor said it was a heart attack", Joan wrote, "but I have always felt she just gradually faded out of life."
Mary Livingstone is interred beside her husband in the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery
Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery
The Hillside Memorial Park and Mortuary is a Jewish cemetery located at 6001 West Centinela Avenue, in Culver City, California, USA. Many Jewish people from the entertainment industry are buried here.-Notable interments:*Irving Aaronson, composer...
in Culver City, California
Culver City, California
Culver City is a city in western Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 38,883, up from 38,816 at the 2000 census. It is mostly surrounded by the city of Los Angeles, but also shares a border with unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County. Culver...
.