Jack Benny was a multi-Emmy award-winning comedian of To Be or Not to Be, Charley's Aunt, George Washington Slept Here, TV's The Jack Benny Show (1950-65), and radio's The Jack Benny Program.

Full or original name at birth: Benjamin Kubelsky

Date, time and place of birth: February 14, 1894, at 4:04 a.m., Mercy Hospital, Chicago, Illinois*, U.S.A.

Date, time, place and cause of death: December 26, 1974, at 11:52 p.m., at 10231 Charing Cross Road, Holmby Hills, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. (Pancreatic cancer)

Marriage
Wife: Mary Livingstone (originally Sadie Marks)
(m. January 14, 1927 - December 26, 1974) (his death)
Wedding took place at the Clayton Hotel in Waukegan, Illinois, U.S.A.

Be aware that numerous sources erroneously report their marriage took place "January 24, 1927" and a few others erroneously state the 25th.

Child: Joan Naomi Benny (b. June 17, 1934) (adopted daughter)

Parents
Father: Meyer Kubelsky (Saloonkeeper/Haberdasher/Dry goods store proprietor)
Mother: Emma (Wagner) Kubelsky (died of breast cancer in November 1917)

Burial site: Hillside Memorial Park (a.k.a. Hillside Cemetery), Culver City, California, U.S.A.

* Jack Benny was raised in Waukegan, Illinois, but was most assuredly not born there. His birth certificate lists Waukegan at the request of his mother, but he was actually born at Mercy Hospital, Cook County, Chicago, Illinois.

A few sources erroneously report "Beverly Hills" as his place of death. In point of fact, he died in his final home a few blocks west of Beverly Hills, just south of Bel Air, in the Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles. He did not die at his old Beverly Hills home on North Roxbury.

The majority of the above biographical data was specifically addressed by Jack Benny himself, or his daughter, in Sunday Nights at Seven: The Jack Benny Story, posthumously published in 1990, with his daughter Joan as co-author, and of course, was carefully investigated and confirmed before its appearance here.


All of the following publications, in some past editions, have offered erroneous birth data on Jack Benny.

The Cambridge Biographical Encyclopedia

Compton's Encyclopedia

Daily Celebrity Almanac by Bob Barry

Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia

Grolier Encyclopedia

The Hammond Almanac

International Motion Picture Almanac

Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia

Time/Information Please Almanac
For many years the Information Please Almanac continued to report the incorrect birthplace, but thankfully recent editions have the correct data.

Who's Who in America

World Almanac and Book of Facts

The World Almanac Who's Who of Film


It is not our intent to denigrate these fine publications, but merely to point out the above inaccuracy to prevent further dissemination of the erroneous data.

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