There are funny jokes and there are Jack Benny jokes.
- Fred Allen
Jack was a rare blend of simplicity and complexity.
He was an aristocrat of the spirit. He was sophisticated.
-Gregory Peck
Jack Benny was born "Benjamin Kubelsky," on February 14,1894. His father, Meyer Kubelsky, had immigrated to America from Lithuania in 1889. He met Emma Sachs with the help of a matchmaker from Chicago; her family also immigrated from Lithuania, and she was considered to be a beauty. They married in early 1893 and ten months later they had a son. The Kubelsky's settled down in Waukegan, Illinois. Jack was very attached to his hometown and was later honored by Waukegan with parades and ceremonies.
Around Benny's sixth birthday he received a violin from his father. In just a short while, Benny became so proficient on the violin that he was sent to the Chicago School of Music. Two years later, the civic fathers of Waukegan decided to provide the funding for Benny to attend a fine European conservatory in order to perfect his craft. Benny's parents were overjoyed, but he refused to go. He stayed at home and practiced dutifully, but he preferred to roam and dream. This caused his parents a great deal of disappointment.
In 1910, at the age of sixteen, Benny was expelled from high school because of his grades and frequent absences. After being fired by his father and failing the Waukegan Business College, Benny went to work at the Barrison Theater playing the violin in the pit. It was there that he met Cora Salisbury, a pianist, who would later become his partner on the vaudeville circuit.
The Barrison Theater closed in 1911 and Benny was again out of a job. However, that didn't last long. Benny and Cora Salisbury formed a team, and debuted their act at the Majestic Theater in Gary, Indiana. Only three weeks after their debut, Benny was in trouble. Jan Kubelik, an already established violinist, noticed the similarity between his own name and Benny's, who was going by his real name at the time - Benjamin Kubelsky. Kubelik's attorney demanded that Benny change his name.
Now going by Ben K. Benny, he and Salisbury began playing theaters all across the Midwest. After playing for an entire year, Cora was forced to break up the act. Her mother, in Waukegan, had become seriously ill and she had to return home. Benny headed for Chicago to look for someone to team up with.
In Chicago, Benny hooked up with Lyman woods. The act became "Bennie and Woods: 'From Grand Opera to Ragtime'." In a short time, the young pair began playing nicer theaters and hitting bigger towns. Then, in 1917, almost five years after they started playing together, Bennie and Woods got their big chance. They played the Palace - and bombed. A short time later, they dissolved their relationship because Benny's mother was sick. In November, 1917 his mother died at the age of forty seven. Jack was a mere twenty-three years old.
While in Waukegan, the posters and fliers with pictures of Uncle Sam caught Benny's eye, so he joined the navy. It was during this time that Benny teamed up with a fellow serviceman and began doing shows for the men they served with. One night, Benny played "The Rosary" and the crowd went wild - with disdain. One of Benny's pals walked onto the stage and whispered something in his ear. Thereafter, Benny stopped playing and ad-libbed a joke, which resulted in a great deal of laughter. He eventually became the star of a comedy show that some of the guys had put together. From that point, there was no stopping Jack Benny.
Millie M. Crews
Copyright © 2001 by University of North Texas.
All rights reserved.
Revised: 27 Aug 2001 10:34:56 -0500
Jack had that rare magic -- that indefinable something
called genius. Picasso had it. Gershwin had it. And Jack was blessed
with it. He didn't just stand on a stage . . . he owned it.
-Hilliard Marks, Jack's Producer
and brother-in-law
It is a
cliché to say that in times of darkness, Jack Benny brought light with his gift of
laughter, making us forget our troubles. He was life -- a life
that enriched his profession, his friends, his millions of fans, his family, his country.
Perhaps what made Jack Benny such a great laugh-maker was that he himself loved to laugh.
Digital Bibliography
Return to Jack
Benny Index