A New Book: Jack & Johnny-

A preview of the book detailing the friendship between Jack Benny and Johnny Carson

Jack & Johnny- Benny, Carson and a Friendship Made for Television. Available at Lulu.com

My new book is Jack & Johnny- Benny, Carson and a Friendship Made for Television. It’s a departure from my California series and other books that have been written over the past fifteen years.

As a fan of both comedians, I often felt other writers rarely expanded upon the story of their twenty-year friendship. I fill that void in a one-hundred, ninety-page exploration of their mentor/mentee relationship.

This book is not a biography of either man but rather a study into the multiple levels of friendship that the pair experienced from the mid-1950s through Benny’s death in 1974.  

Jack Benny and Johnny Carson exchanged appearances on each other’s television shows from 1955 to Benny’s death in 1974. Photo: NBC

Here’s a preview that begins in October 1962, one week after Carson became host of the Tonight Show late evening broadcast on the NBC network. His guest on that particular evening was his comedy idol Jack Benny:

One week after the debut of The Tonight Show, Johnny would welcome his comedy mentor to the broadcast.

Other guests that night were Jack’s daughter Joan, actor Sebastian Cabot and Mitch Miller the host of Sing Along with Mitch.

There’s no video from that episode. In keeping with the standard operating procedure at the time, NBC would erase episodes of most daily shows so that the expensive videotape could be used again. This practice went on until the early seventies when Carson negotiated ownership of the show. What remains of the first decade of Carson programs are private recordings generally made for guests of a particular program.

It’s likely the interview began with platitudes from Johnny to Jack, thanking him for his many years of entertainment. Jack would have likely thanked his young mentee, and after a self-depreciating remark or two, would go on to reaffirm what he said about Johnny on that 1955 appearance of the young fledging star. Something along the lines of, “You know Johnny, I said it before and I’ll say it again. You have everything it takes to be a big star.”

We’ll never know exactly what was said, unless an audio recording or even a brief video clip emerges from someone’s attic.

Jack Benny made a name for himself as a radio star from the 1930 through the mid 1950s. As a young man growing up in the 1930s and 1940s, Johnny Carson would listen to the Benny radio program from his parents’ living room in Nebraska. Photos: International Jack Benny Fan Club, WOWT TV.  

What is known about that night centers on the bond between Jack and Johnny. The friendship that started with Carson appearing on Benny’s show back in the mid-1950s was connected once again by that appearance.  

Jack would reciprocate the guest shot by inviting Johnny on his CBS series one year later. That episode aired on October 22, 1963.  

   It’s clear in the Benny episode that Johnny was now firmly in place as star of the Tonight Show. The comedy sketch centered on the concept that a host of a nightly talk show needed to be versatile. The Benny writers created a comedy bit designed to show that a successful talk show host had to know a little bit about many aspects in the entertainment business. The sketch featured Johnny playing the drums, performing card tricks, and doing a song and dance routine.

In contrast to Johnny’s appearance with Jack on the 1955 Benny program where he offered polite jabs at Jack’s persona, here Johnny is showing Jack and the audience that he could do just about anything. -

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

Jack & Johnny is available online at: Jack & Johnny (lulu.com) It can also be purchased from Bookish Modesto in the Roseburg Square Shopping Center in Modesto..

Steve’s California book series is available at the Merced County Courthouse Museum Gift Shop.

A Soldier’s Service-

Photograph Helps Tell a Story of World War II

Private First Class Charlie Dean in a photo believed to be from a liberated Italy at the end of World War II. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection

Here’s a picture of Private First Class Charles Woodrow Dean, my great uncle who served in World War II.  

We don’t know much about Charlie’s military service. He died in 1989.

His obituary only mentions his service at the end of a paragraph about where he went to school before the war.  

Like many who served in World War II, Charlie rarely mentioned his military service. He was like so many of the so-called greatest generation of soldiers who returned from the war, went back to work, and helped build our country up in the fifties, sixties, and seventies.

Charlie (left) with his younger brother Chet Dean. Both men went off to war. Chet died in a training accident a day after D-Day, June 8, 1944. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection

There are many reasons why Charlie’s story is worth the time and space to mention here. One of those reasons is that he lost his younger brother to the war.  

Chester Dean was killed in a training accident the day after D-Day in Wales. The two brothers were just a year apart in age.  

They were close. They likely saw their military service as something expected from men of that age during our nation’s history.

Charlie would serve in the European theater in Italy. He’s believed to be among the troops who helped liberate the country.  

Chet was part of a special unit developing a high powered lighting technology. His work was a government secret and we only found out about it in the years following the war.

He was promoted to Corporal and stayed with his unit (748th Tank Battalion, Medium) as they moved from training at Camp Bouse in Arizona to South Wales. 

Charlie fought the good fight and was there to help the citizens displaced by war to return to their homes.

We don’t have much to go on about his service other than this picture a family member had among many photos from Charlie’s generation.

We see him holding a little girl in his arms. She’s holding onto his neck. An older boy, likely the little girl’s brother, is seen looking on. 

We know nothing more than what we guess is happening in the photo. Everyone is smiling, so we surmise Charlie was part of the unit that helped restore normalcy to what had to have been a trying situation.

Charlie in 1970 with (L to R) his sister Mary, wife Rose, and sister Myrtle. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection

Chet did not come home, but Charlie did and lived with his wife, Rose, and a daughter. Rose died in the 1970s, and Charlie never remarried. He had two grandsons.

He never talked about his time in the war, and I know I never asked him about it. Things like military service never surfaced in the years I knew Charlie.

He was well-liked by his family. My dad looked up to him.  

Charlie grew up in the Great Depression.

They were a family with a share of pain and misery, some of it caused by the Depression. Being poor helps speed up one’s ambition.  

We honor him and all the soldiers from all the wars.

We remember their sacrifice and their likely struggles to return to life in an era before anyone ever heard the term post-traumatic stress.

Work was to be done, families to bring up, and lives to live.

The grave markers for Charlie and Chet Dean in the Port Leyden, NY Cemetery. Photos: Newvine Personal Collection

Some came back. Some did not. Some chose never to talk about it. Most of us never asked.

As we approach Veterans Day, we’ll remember them. When I think about my life growing up in a small town, I think about the smiles that Charlie could pull out of many of those around him. 

 I used to think his sisters took it easy on him because he was the only living brother after the oldest brother passed in the 1950s.

But now I’m coming around to see a man who did what was asked of his country and who was now going to make sure his family was in a good place.

We only have to return to that picture of Charlie holding that little girl in Italy. She looked up to him, and so should the rest of us.-

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

His new book Jack and Johnny- Benny, Carson and a friendship made for Television is now available at Jack & Johnny (lulu.com)

His California books are available at the Merced Courthouse Museum Gift Shop and Bookish Modesto in the Roseburg Square Shopping Center.