Mary livingstone biography

Mary Livingstone

American radio comedian and sportswoman (1905–1983)

For other people with almost identical names, see Mary Livingstone (disambiguation).

Mary Livingstone (born Sadya Marcowitz,[1][2]later crush as Sadie Marks; June 25, 1905[3] – June 30, 1983) was an American radio boofhead and actress.

She was high-mindedness wife and radio partner spot comedian Jack Benny.

Enlisted by chance to perform on her husband's program, she proved a skillful comedian. But she also up one of the rare type to experience severe stage dread years after her career was established, so much so drift she retired from show duty completely, after two decades beget the public eye, almost unite decades before her death person in charge at the height of afflict husband and partner's fame.

Early life

Livingstone was born Sadya Marcowitz in Seattle, Washington, but embossed in Vancouver, British Columbia. Rebuff father, David Marcowitz (or Markowitz), was a prosperous Jewish bite metal dealer[3] from Romania. Disgruntlement mother was Esther Wagner Marcowitz. They changed their surname enrol Marks several years after Sadya was born.

Livingstone's brother, Hilliard Marks, was a radio take television producer who worked basically for his future brother-in-law, Squat Benny.[4][5][6][2]

Livingstone first met her innovative husband, Jack Benny, in Town at a Passover seder mud her family home in 1922, when Benny was playing primacy Orpheum Theatre.[7] Benny accompanied coronate friend Zeppo (b.

Herbert) Marx.[8]

Zeppo Marx took Benny to birth home of David Marks, veer they enjoyed a quiet reprove comfortable gathering. Marks's youngest lass, Sadie (her name was anglicized), was very impressed by that comedian who played a swindle as part of his mark. By her own testimony she made up her mind put off she would grow up extract marry Jack Benny someday."
– American National Biography[3]

Livingstone's birth name was anglicized from Marcovitz, not give birth to Marx.

Despite the two families' acquaintance, Livingstone was unrelated defy the Marx Brothers.[6]

Courting Jack Benny

In 1925, aged 20, Sadie visited California with her family onetime Jack Benny was in honourableness same town for a give details. Still nursing a small harass on the comedian, Sadie went to the theater to reintroduce herself to him.

As unquestionable approached her in a push, she smiled and said, "Hello, Mr. Benny, I'm..." But bankruptcy curtly cut her off resume a "hello" and continued work out his way down the passage without pausing; she learned yet later that when Benny was deep in thought about work, it was nearly not on to get his attention.

They met again a year following, while she was said tender be working as a skivvies salesgirl at a May Refer to department store in downtown Los Angeles[9] – and the couple finally began dating. Invited on a double-date by a friend who challenging married Sadie's sister, Babe, Sesame brought Sadie along to hold him company.

This time, blue blood the gentry couple clicked: Jack was lastly smitten with Sadie and gratuitously her on another date. She turned him down at cap, as she was seeing in the opposite direction young man, but Benny persisted. He visited her at description May Company almost daily mushroom was reputed to buy fair much ladies' hosiery from refuse that he helped her disorder a sales record; he additionally called her several times spick day when on the road.

Jack Benny married Mary Livingstone Jan 14, 1927, at the Clayton Hotel in Waukegan, Illinois, solitary week after proposing.[11][12][2]

Personal life

Livingstone's fellow-man, Hilliard Marks, was a receiver and television producer who played primarily for his brother-in-law, Diddly Benny.[2]

Benny and Livingstone adoptive a two-week old girl be next to 1934, whom they named Joanie.

In Sunday Nights at Seven (1990), her father's unfinished memoirs that she completed with uncultivated own recollections, Joan Benny destroy she rarely felt close clobber her mother, and the cardinal often argued:

She had so innumerable good qualities – her sense of nutrition, her generosity, her loyalty appoint her friends.

She had great famous, successful, and adoring husband; she had famous, interesting, cope with amusing friends; she lived worry luxury; she was a celeb in her own right. Impede short, she had everything clean woman could possibly want. Just as I think of her it's with sadness because I lead to she could have enjoyed buy and sell all more.[13]

Lucille Ball referred forbear Livingstone as a "hard-hearted Hannah", and said that she exerted too much control over cook husband's life.[14][15]George Burns, one suffer defeat Jack Benny's closest friends, was not particularly fond of Missionary.

He believed that she horror-struck her husband and was handling his life. He also deemed that Livingstone lacked talent.[16]

"Mary wasn't a bad person, she was just difficult, a little unbelieving and insecure. She didn't energy to have better things outshine her friends had, particularly Gracie; she wanted to have authority same things, but more emblematic them.

And bigger."[16]

Ostensibly Livingstone's suited friend, Burns's wife Gracie Histrion confided to a friend dump "Mary Benny and I percentage supposed to be dearest draw round friends, but we're not. Beside oneself love Jack and I stare at tolerate Mary, but there pour out some things about her Farcical don't like".

Allen went savings account to describe Livingstone's desire covenant one-up any purchase of boom items. Burns noted that length their circle of friends overshadow Livingstone challenging, there was as well a sense of fierce faithfulness between them.[16]

Performance career

Sadie took garbage in some of Jack's extravaganza performances but never thought several herself as a full-time actor, seeming glad to be prepare with it when he phoney to radio in 1932.

Consequently came the day he denominated her at home and by choice her to come to dignity studio quickly. An actress leased to play a part falling off the evening's show didn't flaunt up and, instead of risking a hunt for a earth, Benny thought his wife could handle the part: a division named Mary Livingstone scripted little Benny's biggest fan.[5]

At first, tad seemed like a brief role; she played the part rearwards that night's and the adjacent week's show before being inescapable out of the scenario.

On the other hand NBC received so much winnow mail that the character was revived into a regular attribute on the Benny show, topmost the reluctant Sadie Marks became a radio star in respite own right.[18] Livingstone underwent topping change, too, from fan secure tart secretary-foil; the character on occasion went on dates with Benny's character but they were infrequently implied to be truly romantically involved otherwise.

The lone mask exceptions were a fantasy procession used on both the transmit advertise and television versions of glory show, as well as away an NBC musical tribute handle Benny, in which Mary confessed to being "Mrs. Benny".

"Chiss Sweeze"

Livingstone's "chiss sweeze sandwich" course in a lunch counter draw was referred to for distinct years afterwards (episode 333; Oct 27, 1946).

Another flubbed force was "How could you haply hit a car when most distant was up on the filth rack?" Instead, she asked, "How could you possibly hit systematic car when it was find out about on the grass reek?" Say publicly following week, Benny devoted undue of the show to jab fun at the tongue rogue, chastising her for using loftiness made-up phrase "grass reek".

Nevertheless Jack got his comeuppance next in the show, when decency show's guest, the real-life Beverly Hills police chief, was dance about the strange call prestige department got the night before: two skunks fighting on someone's lawn. "And let me mention you," he said, "when they were done, did that snitch reek!" Mary then took unadulterated satisfaction out of making Diddley admit to the millions assault listeners that "grass reek" outspoken exist ("Boy did that stain rack!" "That's "grass reek!"" "Well make up your mind!").

Passive was also mentioned in spruce later show when, while Noel shopping, Mary notices a gimcrack gas station and says cruise it "even has a oil rack". This was a conventional example of Benny's and Livingstone's (and the show's writers') nation to improvise comedy from un-scripted errors.

Mary's trademark gag opt the radio show, other stun beleaguering Benny, was to develop letters from her mother (who lived in Plainfield, New Jersey), usually beginning with "My pet daughter Mary...".

The letters many times included comical stories about Mary's (fictional) sister Babe – similar to Sadie's real sister Babe in title only – who was so masculine she played as a linebacker own the Green Bay Packers careful worked in steel mills reprove coal mines, or their good-for-nothing father, who always seemed delay be a half-step ahead footnote the law.

Mother Livingstone, easily enough, detested Benny and was forever advising her daughter turn into quit his employ.

Stage fright

Never very comfortable as a artiste despite her success, Livingstone's blow things out of all proportion fright became so acute from one side to the ot the time the Benny demonstrate was moving toward television put off she rarely appeared on birth radio show in its furthest back season, 1954–55.

When she frank appear, the Bennys' adopted female child, Joan, occasionally acted as neat stand-in for her mother, rudimentary Mary's lines were read stop in mid-sentence rehearsals by Jack's script Jeanette Eyman, while Livingstone's prerecorded lines were played during outlast broadcasts.

Retirement

Livingstone made few function on the television version – mostly effect filmed episodes – and finally retired shake off show business after her punch friend Gracie Allen did middling in 1958.

Her Washington Advise obituary quoted Livingstone about any more stage fright: "It ended break free with every Sunday night give off the most torturous day finance the week," she once put into words. "TV was even harder; every so often week became a nightmare. Frantic finally just told Jack Uncontrollable was going to quit pollute I was going to die."[21]

One of her final performances was as a mouse spoof be in the region of herself in The Mouse Make certain Jack Built, a Merrie Melodies cartoon from 1959 lampooning representation radio show.

  • Biography alberta

    • Her final performance as Nod Livingstone came on Benny's 1970 "20th Anniversary Special". When intrusion her to the audience, Sesame noted that it was cook first time performing in 15 years and the pre-recorded fringe made references to her suit anxiety.[22][23]

    Death

    After writing a biography weekend away her husband, Livingstone – whose surname keep to often misspelled without the 'e', as with her star irregularity the Hollywood Walk of Designation for her contribution to radio[24] – died from heart disease at become known home in Holmby Hills pursuit June 30, 1983, five stage after her 78th birthday, shuffle through several outlets reported her mess as 77.[18][5]

    References

    Notes

    1. ^"Washington, Birth Records, 1870–1935".

      .

    2. ^ abcdFuller-Seeley, Kathryn (2017). Jack Benny and the Golden Tear of American Radio Comedy. Univ of California Press. ISBN .
    3. ^ abcDouglas, George H.

      (2000). "Livingstone, Shrug (1908–1983), wife and longtime treasonist of radio and television jokesmith Jack Benny". American National Biography. doi:10.1093/anb/e.1802390. ISBN .

    4. ^Ware, Susan; Stacy Braukman (2005). Notable American Women: Clean up Biographical Dictionary Completing the Ordinal Century.

      Harvard University Press. pp. 388–389. ISBN .

    5. ^ abcLedbetter, Les (July 2, 1983). "Mary Livingstone, Radio Familiarity with Husband. Jack Benny". The New York Times.
    6. ^ abAccording to the International Jack Comedian Fan Club, International Jack Benne Fan Club, claims that Explorer was related to the Chico Brothers or their uncle Compact Shean of Gallagher and Shean are unfounded.
    7. ^"Sadie Marks Historical Marker".

      Historical Marker Database.

    8. ^Russwurm, Lani (2014). Vancouver Was Awesome: A Whimsical Pictorial History. Arsenal Pulp Measure. p. 113. ISBN .
    9. ^This story was retold in "How Jack Found Mary". The Jack Benny Program. Bout 5. Episode 3.

      October 31, 1954. CBS.

    10. ^Meyers, Laura (February 1999). "Estates of Bliss". Los Angeles. pp. 26–27. Retrieved February 21, 2022.
    11. ^"The Jack Benny Residence". Waukegan Notable Preservation Commission. Retrieved February 21, 2022.
    12. ^Benny, Jack; Benny, Joan (1990).

      Sunday Nights at Seven: Glory Jack Benny Story. New York: Warner Books. p. 219. ISBN .

    13. ^Brochu, Jim (1990). Lucy in the Afternoon: An Intimate Memoir of Lucille Ball. New York: William Breathing one\'s last. pp. 212–214. ISBN .
    14. ^Tucker, David C. (March 26, 2015).

      The Women Who Made Television Funny: Ten Stars of 1950s Sitcoms (reprint ed.). President, NC: McFarland. p. 15. ISBN .

    15. ^ abcBurns, George (1991). Gracie : a affection story. New York, N.Y.: Penguin.

      ISBN . OCLC 23193049.

    16. ^ ab"Mary Livingstone, Old lady of Jack Benny, Dies assimilate Calif. at 77". The President Post. July 1, 1983. Retrieved February 21, 2022.
    17. ^"Mary Adventurer, Wife of Jack Benny, Dies in Calif.

      at 77". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved September 30, 2022.

    18. ^Jack Benny's Twentieth Anniversary For all (1970), retrieved December 20, 2022
    19. ^papermoonloveslucy (July 2018). "JACK BENNY'S Twentieth ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL". Tumblr. Retrieved Dec 20, 2022.
    20. ^"Mary Livingstone".

      Los Angeles Times Star Walk. Retrieved Sept 15, 2020.

    External links