![]() ![]() His unique star persona rarely found the right vehicles, and it was up to radio and later TV to showcase him properly. He was at his busiest in the 1930s and early 40s, and films ranging from "Chasing Rainbows" (1930) to "Broadway Melody of 1936" (1935), "Artists and Models" (1937), and "The Meanest Man in the World" (1943) all gave him some good one-liners and comic situations, but somehow Hollywood films never quite suited him. Among the loyal comic company he cultivated were announcer Don Wilson and singer Dennis Day, his real-life wife Mary Livingstone, and most memorable of all, Eddie Anderson as "Rochester," the valet with whom Benny shared a surprisingly intimate and complex relationship.īenny made very occasional films beginning with the coming of sound. ![]() (In real life Benny was actually a fairly accomplished violinist-hence his ability to butcher it so well.) Among many comic mannerisms Benny perfected were an effeminate walk and accompanying gestures a highly deliberate, leisurely paced line delivery and, best of all, a withering, long-suffering stare at the camera as he endured other characters' many intended or accidental insults. Benny's star persona was famous for its cynical, worrisome, almost mean nature its miserliness and for Benny's insistence on playing the violin (poorly) at social gatherings. ![]() Masterful, much-loved comedian and comic actor, an influential yet essentially inimitable staple of radio and later TV for half a century. ![]()
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