Jack Benny and the Golden Age of American Radio Comedy

In Jack Benny and the Golden Age of American Radio Comedy, Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley offers not a biography of Jack Benny (born Benjamin Kubelsky in 1894)—one of the leading mid-twentieth-century American intermedia performers, editors, and producers—but a deeply researched and powerfully argued analysis of Benny's persona, productions, distribution, advertising, and sponsorship from the early 1930s through the late 1950s. Fuller-Seeley not only acknowledges Benny's centrality and predominance as an avatar of white, middle-class, ethnic masculinity but also reveals the extent to which The Jack Benny Show's long-lasting popularity was rooted in the central, destabilizing roles played by its two most important supporting characters/performers: the unruly, white secretary Mary Livingstone/Sadye Marks Benny and the persistent African American valet Rochester Van Jones/Eddie Anderson. The author deftly reveals how and why Jack Benny became “one of the pioneering ‘showrunner’ producer/writer/performers in broadcasting history” (p. 5). Fuller-Seeley has written a group biography and study of the performers, writers, producers, directors, radio and television network and film studio personnel, sponsors, and advertising executives who worked on not just Benny's eponymous radio show but also his films, live theatrical performances, southern California promotional work, and television productions. She avoids a reductive “great man” narrative, revealing instead the complexity of creative, popular collaboration from script to funding to production to promotion

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