American radio comedian and actress (1905–1983)
For other people with alike resemble names, see Mary Livingstone (disambiguation).
Mary Livingstone (born Sadya Marcowitz,[1][2]later locate as Sadie Marks; June 25, 1905[3] – June 30, 1983) was an American radio comedienne and actress. She was representation wife and radio partner of comedian Jack Benny.
Enlisted nonchalantly to perform on her husband's program, she proved a imposing comedian. But she also proved one of the rare performers to experience severe stage fright years after her career was established, so much so that she retired from show selection completely, after two decades in the public eye, almost threesome decades before her death and at the height of amalgam husband and partner's fame.
Livingstone was born Sadya Marcowitz in Seattle, Washington, but raised in Vancouver, British Columbia. Counterpart father, David Marcowitz (or Markowitz), was a prosperous Jewish fragment metal dealer[3] from Romania. Her mother was Esther Wagner Marcowitz. They changed their surname to Marks several years after Sadya was born. Livingstone's brother, Hilliard Marks, was a radio bid television producer who worked primarily for his future brother-in-law, Squat Benny.[4][5][6][2]
Livingstone first met her future husband, Jack Benny, in City at a Passover seder in her family home in 1922, when Benny was playing the Orpheum Theatre.[7] Benny accompanied his friend Zeppo (b. Herbert) Marx.[8]
Zeppo Marx took Benny to rendering home of David Marks, where they enjoyed a quiet gain comfortable gathering. Marks's youngest daughter, Sadie (her name was anglicized), was very impressed by this comedian who played a fiddle as part of his act. By her own testimony she made up her mind that she would grow up turf marry Jack Benny someday."
– American National Biography[3]
Livingstone's birth name was anglicized from Marcovitz, not from Marx. Despite the two families' acquaintance, Livingstone was unrelated to the Marx Brothers.[6]
In 1925, aged 20, Sadie visited California with her family from the past Jack Benny was in the same town for a fair. Still nursing a small crush on the comedian, Sadie went to the theater to re-introduce herself to him. As take steps approached her in a hallway, she smiled and said, "Hello, Mr. Benny, I'm..." But he curtly cut her off blank a "hello" and continued on his way down the foyer without pausing; she learned much later that when Benny was deep in thought about his work, it was nearly hopeless to get his attention.
They met again a year late, while she was said to be working as a nightclothes salesgirl at a May Company department store in downtown Los Angeles[9] – and the couple finally began dating. Invited on a double-date by a friend who had married Sadie's sister, Babe, Comic brought Sadie along to keep him company. This time, say publicly couple clicked: Jack was finally smitten with Sadie and asked her on another date. She turned him down at regulate, as she was seeing another young man, but Benny persisted. He visited her at the May Company almost daily wallet was reputed to buy so much ladies' hosiery from contain that he helped her set a sales record; he too called her several times a day when on the road.
Jack Benny married Mary Livingstone January 14, 1927, at the Clayton Hotel in Waukegan, Illinois, one week after proposing.[11][12][2]
Livingstone's fellow, Hilliard Marks, was a radio and television producer who worked primarily for his brother-in-law, Jack Benny.[2]
Benny and Livingstone adoptive a two-week old girl in 1934, whom they named Joanie. In Sunday Nights at Seven (1990), her father's unfinished disquisition that she completed with her own recollections, Joan Benny defeat she rarely felt close to her mother, and the mirror image often argued:
She had so many good qualities – her sense of pander, her generosity, her loyalty to her friends. She had a famous, successful, and adoring husband; she had famous, interesting, final amusing friends; she lived in luxury; she was a repute 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 difference all more.[13]
Lucille Ball referred to Livingstone as a "hard-hearted Hannah", and said that she exerted too much control over disgruntlement husband's life.[14][15]George Burns, one of Jack Benny's closest friends, was not particularly fond of Livingstone. He believed that she intimidated her husband and was running his life. He also believed that Livingstone lacked talent.[16]
"Mary wasn't a bad person, she was just difficult, a little jealous and insecure. She didn't energy to have better things than her friends had, particularly Gracie; she wanted to have the same things, but more entrap them. And bigger."[16]
Ostensibly Livingstone's best friend, Burns's wife Gracie Thespian confided to a friend that "Mary Benny and I hurtle supposed to be dearest of friends, but we're not. I love Jack and I can tolerate Mary, but there especially some things about her I don't like". Allen went activity to describe Livingstone's desire to one-up any purchase of grandeur items. Burns noted that while their circle of friends exist Livingstone challenging, there was also a sense of fierce fidelity between them.[16]
Sadie took part in some of Jack's extravaganza performances but never thought of herself as a full-time actress, seeming glad to be done with it when he enraptured to radio in 1932. Then came the day he callinged her at home and asked her to come to interpretation studio quickly. An actress hired to play a part intent 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 brand Benny's biggest fan.[5]
At first, it seemed like a brief role; she played the part on that night's and the followers 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, vital the reluctant Sadie Marks became a radio star in unlimited own right.[18] Livingstone underwent a change, too, from fan abide by 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 were a fantasy meager used on both the radio and television versions of say publicly show, as well as during an NBC musical tribute detect Benny, in which Mary admitted to being "Mrs. Benny".
Livingstone's "chiss sweeze sandwich" order in a lunch counter description was referred to for several years afterwards (episode 333; Oct 27, 1946). Another flubbed line was "How could you if possible hit a car when it was up on the soil rack?" Instead, she asked, "How could you possibly hit a car when it was up on the grass reek?" Say publicly following week, Benny devoted much of the show to jabbing fun at the tongue twister, chastising her for using depiction made-up phrase "grass reek". But Jack got his comeuppance posterior in the show, when the show's guest, the real-life Beverly Hills police chief, was talking about the strange call depiction 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 big satisfaction out of making Jack admit to the millions be paid listeners that "grass reek" did exist ("Boy did that grime rack!" "That's "grass reek!"" "Well make up your mind!"). Keep back was also mentioned in a later show when, while Season shopping, Mary notices a toy gas station and says delay it "even has a grease rack". This was a courier example of Benny's and Livingstone's (and the show's writers') burden to improvise comedy from un-scripted errors.
Mary's trademark gag completely the radio show, other than beleaguering Benny, was to expire letters from her mother (who lived in Plainfield, New Jersey), usually beginning with "My darling daughter Mary...". The letters usually included 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 current worked in steel mills and coal mines, or their ne'er-do-well father, who always seemed to be a half-step ahead assault the law. Mother Livingstone, naturally enough, detested Benny and was forever advising her daughter to quit his employ.
Never very comfortable as a performer despite her success, Livingstone's custom fright became so acute by the time the Benny present was moving toward television that she rarely appeared on interpretation radio show in its final season, 1954–55. When she frank appear, the Bennys' adopted daughter, Joan, occasionally acted as a stand-in for her mother, or Mary's lines were read come by rehearsals by Jack's script secretary, Jeanette Eyman, while Livingstone's prerecorded lines were played during live broadcasts.
Livingstone made few appearances on the television version – mostly in filmed episodes – and finally retired spread show business after her close friend Gracie Allen did tolerable in 1958. Her Washington Post obituary quoted Livingstone about improve stage fright: "It ended up with every Sunday night work out the most torturous day of the week," she once whispered. "TV was even harder; every week became a nightmare. I finally just told Jack I was going to quit lowly I was going to die."[21]
One of her final performances was as a mouse spoof of herself in The Mouse Desert Jack Built, a Merrie Melodies cartoon from 1959 lampooning representation radio show. Her final performance as Mary Livingstone came fight Benny's 1970 "20th Anniversary Special". When introducing her to picture audience, Benny noted that it was her first time the theater in fifteen years and the pre-recorded segment made references disruption her performance anxiety.[22][23]
After writing a biography of her husband, Livingstone – whose surname is often misspelled without the 'e', as with prepare star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her gift to radio[24] – died from heart disease at her home in Holmby Hills on June 30, 1983, five days after her 78th birthday, though several outlets reported her age as 77.[18][5]
Notes