![]() ![]() Author tour.Ĭopyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. The daughter's sensibilities, at least as expressed here, contrast sharply with the father's big-hearted outlook on life. And although she professes love for her mother, Mary Livingston, she also criticizes her as pretentious, a spendthrift and generally mean-spirited. His daughter's contribution to the memoir offers interesting if repetitious recollections on growing up in Hollywood and vivid portraits of family friends Cary Grant, Ronald Colman, Lucille Ball and other famous folk. ![]() The secret of his tremendous appeal, he reveals-as though taking us into his confidence-was impeccable timing as a comedian and an ability to endear himself to people. ![]() ![]() But far more entertaining and moving is Jack Benny's related story, tracing how this one-time vaudeville trouper who left his native Waukegan, Ill., in his youth rose to stardom on radio, in TV and films. Eventually they let Jack team with a safe, motherly 40 year-old pianist named Cora Salisbury. He was offered a job as accompanist to the young Marx Brothers but his parents made him turn it down. When Jack Benny died at age 80 in 1974, he left this unpublished autobiography, to which his daughter adds accounts of the family's home life. Born in Chicago but raised in Waukegan, Jack studied the violin and in his late teens was an accompanist for a local vaudeville house. "He was a nice man," writes George Burns in the foreword to this book by and about his friend of 50 years, a sentiment readers will resoundingly agree with. ![]()
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