Mary Livingstone & Jack Benny

Jack Benny and Mary Livingstone
1927 - 1972
Jack Benny and Mary Livingstone  
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Mary Livingstone and Jack Benny were married for 45 years before Jack Benny died, leaving behind his partner and 1 child.

They had a daughter named Joan age 90.

About

American Radio Personality Mary Livingstone was born Sadie Marks on 23rd June, 1905 in Seattle, Washington, USA and passed away on 30th Jun 1983 Holmby Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA aged 78. She is most remembered for The wife and radio partner of comedy great Jack Benny. Her zodiac sign is Cancer.

American Comic Jack Benny was born Benjamin Kubelsky on 14th February, 1894 in Chicago, Illinois and passed away on 26th Dec 1974 Holmby Hills, California aged 80. He is most remembered for The Jack Benny Show. His zodiac sign is Aquarius.

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References

Relationship Statistics

StatusDurationLength
Dating1922 - 24th Jan 1927 5 years
Married24th Jan 1927 - Dec 1972 45 years, 10 months
Total 1927 - Dec 1972 45 years, 11 months


(24 January 1927 - 26 December 1974) (his death) 1 child
daughter Joan (Joan Naomi)
1934
Jack Benny met his future wife Mary Livingstone while he was appearing at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, and he regularly ate across the street at the lunch counter of the May Company department store, where Mary worked as a lingerie salesgirl.
He had a rose delivered to Mary each day after his death until the day she died, almost six years later.
She met her future husband, Jack Benny, at a Passover seder at her family home when she was 14; Benny was invited by his friend Zeppo (b. Herbert) Marx while Benny and the Marx Brothers were in town together to perform. Sadie developed a near-instant crush on the funny, somewhat shy man eleven years her senior. But when he inadvertently insulted her by excusing himself for the night in the midst of her violin performance, she got her revenge the next night. She took three girlfriends to the theater where Benny performed, sitting in the front row and making sure not to laugh. Benny said later it drove him nuts that he couldn't get the four girls to laugh at anything.
Three years later, aged 17, Sadie visited California with her family while Jack Benny was in the same town for a show. Still nursing a small crush on the comedian, Sadie went to the theater to re-introduce herself to him. As he approached her in a hallway, she smiled and said, "Hello, Mr. Benny, I'm..." But he curtly cut her off with a "hello" and continued on his way down the hall without pausing; she learned much later that when Benny was deep in thought about his work, it was nearly impossible to get his attention otherwise.
They met again a few years later — while she was said to be working as a lingerie salesgirl at a May Department Stores branch store in downtown Los Angeles — and the couple finally began dating. Invited on a double-date by a friend who had married Sadie's sister, Babe, Benny brought Sadie along to keep him company. This time, the couple clicked: Jack was finally smitten with Sadie and asked her on another date. She turned him down at first — she was seeing another young man — but Benny persisted. He visited her at the May Company almost daily and was reputed to buy so much ladies' hosiery from her that he helped her set a sales record; he also called her several times a day when on the road.
At the same time, Benny seemed fearful of a committed relationship and Sadie Marks continued dating other men, even becoming engaged. This panicked the comedian enough to beg her to come to Chicago, where he tried to convince her that she was too young to marry. When the argument didn't convince her, Benny confessed he was in love with her and wanted to marry her himself. In a scene that could have been a later Jack Benny Program routine, she needled him about her being too young to marry. "You're not too young to marry me!" he retorted, his way of proposing. Sadie Marks broke her existing engagement and married Jack Benny in 1927. In her biography of her husband, she revealed she didn't tell him she was the little girl he'd once needled until after they'd dated awhile.
Sadie took part in some of Jack's vaudeville performances but never thought of herself as a full-time performer, seeming glad to be done with it when he moved to radio in 1932. Then came the day he called her at home and asked her to come to the studio quickly. An actress hired to play a part on 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 as Benny's biggest fan.
At first, it seemed like a brief role; she played the part on that night's and the following 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, and the reluctant Sadie Marks became a radio star in her own right. Mary Livingstone underwent a change, too, from fan to 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 sequence used on both the radio and television versions of the show, as well as during an NBC musical tribute to Benny, in which Mary admitted to being "Mrs. Benny."
Livingstone soon displayed her own sharp wit and pinpoint comic timing, often used to puncture Benny's on-air ego, and she became a major part of the show. Her popularity resulted in being addressed as "Mary Livingstone" so often when out in public that she ended up changing her name legally to Mary Livingstone. Years later, her husband admitted how strange it felt to call her Sadie, even in private.

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Relationship Timeline

December, 1972 - Breakup

1934 - Child

24th January, 1927 - Marriage

1922 - Hookup

Couple Comparison

Name
Mary Livingstone
Jack Benny
Mary Livingstone
Jack Benny
Age (at start of relationship)
21
32
Zodiac
Cancer
Aquarius
Occupation
Radio Personality
Comic
Nationality
American
American
Religion
Jewish
Jewish
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Children

NameGenderBornAge
JoanFemale193490 years old

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