Pendergast T., Pendergast S. St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. Volume 1: A-D
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Bench, Johnny (1947—)
Known as the popular catcher for the Cincinnati Reds during the
1970s, Johnny Bench set a standard of success as perhaps the finest at
his position in modern Major League baseball. Bench first gained
national attention by winning the National League MVP (Most
Valuable Player) award in 1970 and 1972, recording ten straight Gold
Gloves, and helping Cincinnati’s ‘‘Big Red Machine’’ to World
Series victories in 1975 and 1976. Bench revolutionized his position
by popularizing a one-handed catching method that gave him greater
mobility with his throwing arm. After retiring from baseball, Bench
remained in the public spotlight through television appearances, golf
outings, and broadcasting. He is President of Johnny Bench Enter-
prises and won an Emmy for a program called The Baseball Bunch.
His success and popularity led to his induction into the Baseball Hall
of Fame in 1989.
—Nathan R. Meyer
F
URTHER READING:
Bench, Johnny, with William Brashler. Catch You Later: The Autobi-
ography of Johnny Bench. New York, Harper and Row, 1979.
Benchley, Robert (1889-1945)
In his relatively short life Benchley managed to enjoy careers as
a humorist, theater critic, newspaper columnist, screenwriter, radio
performer and movie actor. His writing appeared in such magazines
as the old Life and The New Yorker and his pieces were collected in
several books with outlandish titles. Among the film directors he
worked with were Alfred Hitchcock, Rene Clair, and Billy Wilder.
Benchley won an Academy Award for one of the comedy shorts he
wrote and starred in. Benchley was also a member in good standing of
the Algonquin Circle in Manhattan and a longtime resident of the
Garden of Allah in Hollywood. Talent runs in the Benchley family—
his grandson wrote Jaws, and both his son, Nathaniel, and his
grandson, Peter, became writers.
A genuinely funny man, it was his wit and humor that allowed
Benchley to make his way through the world and assured him his
assorted jobs. He was born in Worcester, Massachusetts and attended
Harvard. His first humor was written for The Lampoon. Settling in
New York, he got a staff job on Vanity Fair where his co-workers
included Robert E. Sherwood and Dorothy Parker. Later in the 1920s
he was hired by Life, which was a humor magazine in those days. He
wrote a great many pieces and also did the theater column. He later
said that one of the things he liked best in the world was ‘‘that 10
minutes at the theater before the curtain goes up, I always feel the way
I did when I was a kid around Christmas time.’’
The 1920s was a busy decade on Broadway and Benchley was in
attendance on the opening nights of such shows as Funny Face, Show
Boat, Dracula, Strange Interlude, and What Price Glory? In May of
1922, Abie’s Irish Rose opened and Benchley dismissed Anne Nich-
ols’ play as the worst in town, saying that its obvious Irish and Jewish
jokes must have dated back to the 1890s. Much to his surprise, the
play was a massive hit and ran for five years. Each week for Life he
had to make up a Confidential Guide with a capsule review of every
play then on Broadway. That meant he had to write something about
Abie’s Irish Rose each and every week during its run of 2,327
performances. At first he would simply note ‘‘Something awful’’ or
‘‘Among the season’s worst,’’ but then he grew more inventive and
said such things as ‘‘People laugh at this every night, which explains
why democracy can never be a success,’’ ‘‘Come on, now! A joke’s a
joke,’’ and ‘‘No worse than a bad cold.’’
At the same time that he was reviewing plays, Benchley was also
collecting his humor pieces in books. The gifted Gluyas Williams, an
old school chum from Harvard, provided the illustrations. In addition
to parodies, spoofs, and out and out nonsense pieces, some in the vein
of his idol Stephen Leacock, he also wrote a great many small essays
about himself, taking a left-handed and slightly baffled approach to
life. Only on a shelf of books by Robert Benchley is it possible to find
such titles as My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew, No
Poems, or, Around the World Backwards and Sideways, and From
Bed To Worse, or, Comforting Thoughts About the Bison.
Benchley gradually drifted into the movies. He appeared in over
two dozen feature length films, including Foreign Correspondent (for
which he also wrote some of the dialogue), I Married A Witch, The
Major and the Minor (where he delivered the line about ‘‘getting out
of those wet clothes and into a dry martini’’), Take A Letter, Darling,
and The Road to Utopia. He also made nearly 50 short films. His first
one, The Treasurer’s Report, was done in 1928 for Fox. The shorts
most often took the form of deadpan lectures, giving advice on such
topics as how to read, how to take a vacation, and how to train a dog.
How To Sleep, done for Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer in the mid-1930s,
won him an Academy Award. Once in an ad in Variety he listed
himself as specializing in ‘‘Society Drunk’’ roles.
When he was working in Hollywood, Benchley most often
resided in a bungalow at the Garden of Allah, which was the favorite
lodging place of visiting actors, writers, and ‘‘hangers-on.’’ The
Garden was torn down decades ago to make way for a bank. At one
time the bank had a display of relics of the old hotel and among them
was one of Benchley’s liquor bills.
—Ron Goulart
F
URTHER READING:
Benchley, Nathaniel. Robert Benchley, A Biography. New York,
McGraw-Hill, 1955.
Trachtenberg, Stanley, editor. American Humorists, 1800-1950. De-
troit, Gale Research Company, 1982.
Ben-Hur
As a novel, a play, two silent films, and a wide screen spectacu-
lar, Lew Wallace’s Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ set the standard for
the religious epic, inaugurating an amazing series of firsts in Ameri-
can popular culture. Published in 1880, the novel tells the story of
Judah Ben-Hur, a young, aristocratic Jew, and his encounter with
Jesus of Nazareth. The book begins with the Messiah’s birth and then
moves ahead 30 years to Ben-Hur’s reunion with his boyhood friend,
Messala, now a Roman officer. The latter’s contempt for Jews,
however, ends their friendship. When the Roman governor’s life is
threatened, Messala blames Ben-Hur, unjustly condemning him to the
galleys and imprisoning Ben-Hur’s mother and sister. As pirates
attack Ben-Hur’s ship, he manages to escape. Returning to Judea, he
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Charlton Heston in the chariot race from the 1959 film Ben-Hur.
searches for his family and also raises a militia for the Messiah.
Meeting Messala again, Ben-Hur beats him in a dramatic chariot race
during which the Roman is crippled. Discovering that his mother and
sister are now lepers, Ben-Hur searches for Jesus, hoping for a
miraculous cure. They finally meet on the road to Calvary. Jesus
refuses his offer of military assistance, but cures his family. Convert-
ed to Christianity, Ben-Hur resolves to help fellow Christians in
Rome suffering persecution.
The book moved slowly at first, selling only some 2,800 copies
in its first seven months. Eventually, word of mouth spread across
America, particularly through schools and clubs. By 1889, 400,000
copies had been sold, outstripping Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but falling just
short of the Bible. Sales swelled to 1,000,000 by 1911, with transla-
tions appearing in German, French, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, and
Arabic, among other languages. A braille edition also was available.
For many Americans, Ben-Hur was an example of edifying reading,
the first work of fiction often allowed on their bookshelves. It was
also the first book featured in the Sears Catalogue.
Wallace, a retired Union general from Indiana and one-time
governor of the Territory of New Mexico, was quickly besieged with
offers to dramatize his work. In 1899 he settled on a production
adapted by William Young of Chicago, directed by Joseph Brooks,
and featuring later cowboy film star William S. Hart as Messala. Ben-
Hur ran on Broadway for 24 weeks and was, according to the New
York Clipper, a ‘‘triumphant success,’’ generating ‘‘enormous busi-
ness’’ and ‘‘record-breaking attendance.’’ It continued to tour nation-
ally and abroad for some 20 years, making it the first play seen by
many Americans. Ben-Hur set precedents both for an author’s control
over rights to his/her work (rejecting one offer, Wallace declared,
‘‘The savages who sell things of civilized value for glass beads live
further West than Indiana’’) and for control over the adaptation of
material. Wallace insisted, for example, that no actor would portray
Christ. Instead, the Messiah was represented by a 25,000-candle-
power shaft of light. Similarly spectacular effects—such as a wave
machine for the naval battle and, for the chariot race, actual horses and
chariots running on a treadmill before a moving panorama of the
arena—set the standard for later epic films.
A 1907 film version, produced two years after Wallace’s death
and without the copyright holders’ authorization, set a different kind
of precedent. The Wallace estate sued the film’s producers for breach
of copyright, receiving a $25,000 settlement. The case marked the
first recognition of an author’s rights in film adaptations.
In 1922, two years after the play’s last tour, the Goldwyn
company purchased the film rights to Ben-Hur. Shooting began in
Italy in 1923, inaugurating two years of difficulties, accidents, and
eventually—after the merger of Goldwyn into MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-
Meyer)—a move back to Hollywood. Additional recastings (includ-
ing Ramon Navarro as Ben-Hur) and a change of director helped
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221
skyrocket the production’s budget to $4,000,000. With its trials and
tribulations, then, this Ben-Hur helped set another pattern for later
epic films. More positively, on the other hand, its thrilling chariot race
changed the face of filmmaking. Following in the tracks of the stage
play, its considerable expenditure of money and horses made this
sequence a brilliant tour-de-force that established the lavish produc-
tion values now associated with the Hollywood epic. Although
audiences flocked to Ben-Hur after its premiere in 1925 and critics
praised the film (more for its ‘‘grandeur,’’ however, than its story),
MGM was unable to recoup its $4,000,000 investment. As a result,
the studio imposed the block booking system on its other productions,
another precedent. While not a financial success, however, the film
still proved so popular that MGM was able to release it again in 1931,
adding music and sound effects for the sound era.
In 1959, a decade that saw the resurgence of epic productions,
MGM remade Ben-Hur for the wide screen, using state of the art
Panavision techniques and stereophonic sound. Directed by William
Wyler and starring Charlton Heston as Ben-Hur, this film again
features a spectacular, thundering chariot race that took four months
to rehearse and three months to produce. The sequence nearly
overshadowed the rest of the movie, leading some to dub Ben-Hur
‘‘Christ and a horse-race.’’ The film was a box office and critical
success, earning $40,000,000 in its first year and garnering 11
Academy Awards. Enjoying tremendous popularity and continuing
Ben-Hur’s tradition of establishing precedents, it was broadcast uncut
on network television in 1971, earning the highest ratings at that time
for any film. It has been rebroadcast and re-released in theaters
several times since then.
Few works can claim to have made the same impact as has
Wallace’s Ben-Hur. As a novel and a play, it offered many people
their first entry into the worlds of fiction and drama. In its various film
adaptations, it elevated Hollywood’s production values and defined
the genre of the religious epic. It also established many legal prece-
dents for stage and screen adaptations. The key to its enduring
popularity, however, is that it provided audiences around the world
with an exciting spectacle that combined piety and faith.
—Scott W. Hoffman
F
URTHER READING:
Babington, Bruce, and Peter William Evans. Biblical Epics: Sacred
Narrative in the Hollywood Cinema. Manchester, Manchester
University Press, 1993.
Forshey, Gerald E. American Religious and Biblical Spectaculars.
Westport, Connecticut, Praeger, 1992.
Searles, Baird. Epic! History on the Big Screen. New York, Harry N.
Abrams, 1990.
Towne, Jackson E. “Lew Wallace’s Ben-Hur.” New Mexico Histori-
cal Review. Vol. 36, No. 1, December, 1961, 62-9.
Benneton
Italy-based clothier Benneton is best known for its ‘‘shock’’
advertising campaigns, many of which have sparked significant
controversy in many regions of the globe. In their 1990s campaign,
‘‘Sufferings of Our Earth,’’ the fashion designer’s ads showed among
other things a dying AIDS victim, a dead Bosnian soldier, an oil
smeared sea bird, and an overcrowded refugee ship. A series of ads in
1998 featured autistic and Down’s syndrome kids modeling their
clothing. The company operates some 7,000 stores in over 120
countries and had $2 billion in revenues in 1997. In addition to
apparel, Benneton also markets a wide range of products from racing
cars to sunglasses and condoms.
—Abhijit Roy
F
URTHER READING:
‘‘Benneton Enters Condom Market.’’ Marketing. November 13, 1997.
Granatstein, Lisa. ‘‘Benetton’s Colors Dances with Mr.D.’’ Mediaweek.
February 23, 1998.
Rogers, Danny. ‘‘Benetton Plans to Show Down’s Syndrome Kids.’’
Marketing. August 13, 1998.
Bennett, Tony (1926—)
Through perseverance, professionalism, and impeccable musi-
cal taste, Tony Bennett has emerged in the era of MTV as the senior
statesman of the American popular song. Born Anthony Dominick
Tony Bennett
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Benedetto in Queens, New York, Bennett joined the Italian-American
bel canto tradition represented by such singers as Frank Sinatra and
Vic Damone. In fact, Sinatra often publicly referred to Bennett as his
favorite singer, a validation that undoubtedly means as much as a
handful of gold records and Grammy awards combined.
Bennett’s musical career started slowly. After serving in the
armed forces in the final months of World War II, he studied vocal
technique under the GI Bill and supported himself with a variety of
jobs, including, according to some sources, a stint as a singing waiter.
His first break occurred when he came in second to Rosemary
Clooney on the network television show Arthur Godfrey’s Talent
Scouts in 1950. This exposure led to an introduction to Bob Hope,
who helped Bennett to land an engagement in one of New York’s
premier clubs. Later that year, Mitch Miller signed Bennett as a
recording artist for Columbia Records, and in 1951 he was named
male vocalist of the year by Cashbox magazine.
Always attracted to jazz as well as pop styling, Bennett teamed
up with some of the top musicians of the day, which gave him the
freedom to choose songs that were more to his taste than the hit-
oriented recording business normally allowed. Numerous records
during the mid and late 1950s show Bennett at his best, singing jazz-
inflected standards like ‘‘These Foolish Things’’ and ‘‘Blues in
the Night.’’
Nevertheless, Bennett experienced a long hitless period in the
early 1960s. It was during this time that the singer and his longtime
arranger and accompanist Ralph Sharon played a gig at the Fairmont
Hotel in San Francisco, where Bennett sang a new song by little-
known writers George Cory and Douglass Cross for the first time.
That song, ‘‘I Left My Heart in San Francisco,’’ changed the course of
Bennett’s career, earning him a sustained place on the charts in both
the United States and Great Britain. It also brought Bennett two
Grammy awards, for record of the year and best male vocal performance.
With his new public image, Bennett moved from supper clubs to
the concert stage, giving a landmark recorded performance at Carne-
gie Hall. In the mid-1960s, he had hits with such singles as ‘‘The
Good Life,’’ ‘‘A Taste of Honey,’’ and ‘‘Fly Me to the Moon.’’ Soon
after that, however, Bennett, like other interpreters of American pop
standards by Arlen, Gershwin, and Porter, began to suffer from the
record companies’ stubborn commitment to rock and roll. Bennett
was not interested in singing songs he did not love, although he did
compromise on a 1970 album titled Tony Bennett Sings the Great Hits
of Today, which included such songs as ‘‘MacArthur Park,’’ ‘‘Elea-
nor Rigby,’’ and ‘‘Little Green Apples.’’ More to his taste were two
albums made on the Improv label with the great jazz pianist Bill
Evans in 1975 and 1977. Bennett also appeared with Evans at the
Newport Jazz Festival and at Carnegie Hall.
In 1979, Bennett’s son Danny, a former rock guitarist, took over
his management, with a combination of shrewd marketing and
musical acuity that helped his father bridge the gap between the old
and new pop scene. It was this teaming that eventually led to the MTV
video and album Tony Bennett Unplugged in 1994. In an era when
smooth and mellow lounge music was reborn and martinis were once
again the official cocktail, the album was a huge hit. Always generous
to his younger colleagues—just as another generation of entertainers
had been generous to him—Bennett gave high praise to k.d. lang, who
joined him for a duet of ‘‘Moonglow,’’ and to Elvis Costello, who
harmonized on ‘‘They Can’t Take That Away from Me.’’
In addition to his singing career, Bennett is a serious painter in
oils, watercolors, and pastels. His work has been exhibited widely,
and he claims David Hockney as a major influence. A graduate of
New York’s High School of Industrial Art, Bennett often paints
familiar New York scenes, such as yellow cabs racing down a broad
avenue and Sunday bicyclers in Central Park, capturing the milieu in
which he lived, sang, and observed.
—Sue Russell
F
URTHER READING:
Bennett, Tony, with Will Friedwald. The Good Life. New York,
Simon & Schuster, 1998.
Hemming, Roy, and David Hajdu. Discovering Great Singers of
Classic Pop. New York, Newmarket Press, 1991.
The Benny Hill Show
English comic Benny Hill became an international celebrity with
his schoolboy brand of lecherous, burlesque humor. Bringing the
tradition of the British vaudeville to television in 1955, the pudgy Hill
hosted comedy series for the BBC and Thames Television over a
period of thirty-four years. Featuring slapstick and sight gags, The
Benny Hill Show always had a sexual energy, bursting with plenty of
double-entendres and leggy starlets. The show was edited for world-
wide syndication and became a cult phenomenon in the United States
beginning in 1979. American audiences quickly identified Red Skelton
as a main source of inspiration (Hill borrowed Skelton’s closing line,
‘‘Good night, God bless’’); but there was little sentimentality in the
ribaldry of Hill’s characters. Hill was always criticized for his sexist
obsessions, and his series in England was finally cancelled in 1989
because of complaints from the moral right and the politically correct
left. Hill died three years later, and, although English audiences voted
him ‘‘Funniest Man in the World’’ several times, he thought he never
received the critical recognition he deserved. But to many, Hill was a
genuine comic auteur, writing all his material and supervising every
randy shot for his show that was enjoyed in over one hundred countries.
—Ron Simon
F
URTHER READING:
Kingsley, Hilary, and Geoff Tibballs. Box of Delights. London,
MacMillan, 1989.
Robinson, J. ‘‘A Look at Benny Hill.’’ TV Guide. December 10,
1983, 34-36.
Smith, John. The Benny Hill Story. New York, St. Martin’s, 1989.
Benny, Jack (1894-1974)
Jack Benny is one of America’s most venerated entertainers of
the twentieth century. For over 50 years the nation identified with the
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223
Jack Benny
persona that Benny created on the vaudeville circuit, sustained on
radio, and successfully transferred to television. Few performers have
lasted so long without any significant drop in popularity.
The character that Benny created exemplified the foibles of the
American Everyman. Benny realized early on that ‘‘if you want the
laughs you have to put something in a ridiculous light, even your-
self.’’ Benny was not a gifted clown or a sparkling wit, so he and his
writers crafted a well-rounded persona with the weaknesses and
imperfections of his audience. The Benny alter ego was penny-
pinching, vain, anxious, and never willing to admit his true age (he
was always 39 years old). Endless jokes were woven around these
shortcomings, with Benny always the object of ridicule. Although the
character had no identifiable ethnic or religious heritage, Americans
had a deep affection for this insecure, sometimes petulant, creation.
The comedian was born Benjamin Kubelsky in Waukegan,
Illinois on February 14, 1894, and began performing in vaudeville as a
violinist. Still a teenager, he discovered the public responded to his
jokes and wrong notes. Achieving moderate success on the New York
stage, Benny first appeared on radio in 1929 and began a NBC radio
series in 1932. Two years later, he was one of the medium’s most
popular entertainers. In 1935 he moved operations to Hollywood, and
Jell-O became a trusted sponsor.
Benny found his character worked better as part of a group and
helped to pioneer ‘‘gang’’ comedy. His wife, Sadie Marks, appeared
as a sometimes girl friend, Mary Livingstone, and assumed the
character’s name as her own. Eddie Anderson portrayed Benny’s
personal valet, Rochester, and was hailed as radio’s first black star.
Although there were stereotypical elements to Rochester’s characteri-
zation, a genuine bond grew between Benny and his employee that
transcended race. Don Wilson as the rotund announcer, Phil Harris as
the boozy bandleader, and Dennis Day as the boy singer rounded out
the stable of regulars ‘‘playing themselves.’’
Radio listeners delighted in Benny’s recurring gags and show
business feuds as well as such catchphrases as ‘‘Well!’’ and ‘‘Now
cut that out!’’ Mel Blanc was popular as the voice of Carmichael, the
bear that lived in the basement; the exasperated violin teacher,
Professor LeBlanc; and the bellowing railroad announcer (‘‘Anaheim,
Azusa, and Cucamonga!’’). Frank Nelson returned again and again as
the unctuous clerk who harassed customers by squawking ‘‘Yeeeesss!’’
Benny is best remembered for his ‘‘Your money or your life?’’
routine, in which a burglar demands a difficult answer from the stingy
comedian. After a long pause with the laughter building, Benny
delivered his classic line, ‘‘I’m thinking it over.’’ To Benny, timing
was everything.
The cast frequently spoofed western serials with the skit ‘‘Buck
Benny Rides Again.’’ The parody was made into a movie in 1940.
Benny made his first film appearance in the Hollywood Revue of
1929, but his radio stardom paved the way for substantial roles.
Among his notable movie vehicles, Benny appeared as a vain actor in
Ernst Lubitsch’s classic, To Be or Not to Be (1942); a confirmed city-
dweller in George Washington Slept Here (1942); and an avenging
angel in Raoul Walsh’s comedy, The Horn Blows at Midnight (1945).
In 1948 Benny took greater control of his career. He formed a
production company to produce his radio series and generate more
money for himself. William Paley also lured him to the CBS network.
Although his vaudeville compatriots, Ed Wynn and Milton Berle, had
become television stars in the late 1940s, Benny warmed slowly to the
possibilities of the visual medium. Beginning with his first special,
performed live in October 1950, Benny tried to approximate the radio
series as closely as possible, retaining his cast and adapting appropri-
ate scripts. Benny was also careful not to overexpose himself. Until
1953, The Jack Benny Show was a series of irregular specials on CBS;
then, for seven years, it ran every other week on Sunday nights, his
regular evening on radio. Beginning in 1960, the program aired every
week, switching to Tuesday and Friday during its five year run.
Benny brought to television a defined, identifiable character
forged during his stage and radio years. His persona was perfectly
suited for the requirements of the small screen. Benny underlined his
characterization with subtle gestures and facial expressions. The
stare, which signaled Benny’s pained exasperation, became his visual
signature. Like the pause in radio, Benny’s stare allowed the audience
to participate in the joke.
The Benny program combined elements of the variety show and
the situation comedy. As host, Benny, always in character, opened the
proceedings with a monologue before the curtain. The bulk of each
program was Benny performing with his regulars in a sketch that
further played off his all-too-human frailties. Guest stars were also
invited to play themselves in Benny’s fictional world. Since the
format was a known quantity, many movie stars made their television
comedy debut on the Benny program, including Barbara Stanwyck,
Marilyn Monroe, Gary Cooper, and James Stewart.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Benny’s writers kept his
persona fresh and vital to a new generation of viewers. They crafted
sketches around such television personalities as Dick Clark, Ernie
BERGEN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
224
Kovacs, and Jack Webb. Benny also stayed eternally young by
donning a wig and playing guitar on occasion. When his weekly series
ended in 1965, he returned to comedy specials. Whether playing
violin with Isaac Stern or impersonating a surfer in a routine with the
Beach Boys, Jack Benny was able to bridge audiences of different
ages and tastes.
Jack Benny was a comedian’s comedian. His sense of under-
stated style and exquisite delivery shaped a generation of entertainers
from Johnny Carson to Kelsey Grammer. He was also a national
institution. Although the public knew in reality that he was a kind and
generous person, they wanted to believe the worst. Jack Benny held
up a mirror to America’s failings and pretensions. As his friend Bob
Hope said in farewell after his death in 1974, ‘‘For Jack was more
than an escape from life. He was life—a life that enriched his
profession, his friends, his millions of fans, his family, his country.’’
—Ron Simon
F
URTHER READING:
Benny, Jack and Joan. Sunday Nights at Seven: The Jack Benny Story.
New York, Warner, 1990.
Fein, Irving. Jack Benny: An Intimate Biography. New York,
Putnam, 1976.
Josefberg, Milt. The Jack Benny Show. New Rochelle, New York,
Arlington House, 1977.
The Museum of Television & Radio. Jack Benny: The Radio and
Television Work (published in conjunction with an exhibition of
the same title). New York, Harper, 1971.
Bergen, Candice (1946—)
Candice Bergen may be the only female television star to be
known and loved as a curmudgeon. Most noted curmudgeons are
male, like Lou Grant of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Archie Bunker
of All in the Family, Homer Simpson from The Simpsons, and Oscar
the Grouch from Sesame Street. Bergen’s alter-ego, Murphy Brown,
on the other hand, is the queen of curmudgeons. Despite her manly
traits, Murphy has gone down in history as the only television
curmudgeon to be criticized by the vice president of the United States
and to be used as an argument in a national debate on family values.
Her willingness to challenge traditional female roles and issues
revolving around what is perceived as ‘‘decency,’’ have, willingly or
not, made her one of the twentieth century’s most political actresses.
Murphy Brown, created by Diane English, was a female reporter
who learned to operate in a man’s world. She adopted what are
generally considered male characteristics: intelligence, aggressive-
ness, ambitiousness, and perseverance. It has been suggested that
reporter Linda Ellerbee was the specific role model for Bergen’s
character, but only Bergen herself could have made Murphy Brown
so lovable through a decade of the weekly series of the same name,
covering almost every political topic with satiric wit.
Candice Bergen grew up in an elite section of Beverly Hills
playing with the children of Walt Disney, Judy Garland, Gloria
Candice Bergen
Swanson, Jimmy Stewart, and other Hollywood notables. Her beauty
was inherited from her mother, Frances Western, a former model who
received national attention as the Ipana girl from a toothpaste adver-
tisement. Her talent came from her father, ventriloquist Edgar Bergen. In
her autobiography, Knock Wood, Bergen tells of being jealous of her
father’s famous sidekick, marionette Charlie McCarthy, and of spending
years of her life trying to make her father proud.
Noted for her outstanding beauty, Candice Bergen was not
always taken seriously as an individual. Nonetheless, by the time she
accepted the role of Murphy Brown Bergen was well respected as an
international photojournalist and as a writer. She had also starred in a
number of high-profile films, most notably, Mary McCarthy’s The
Group, in which she played the distant and lovely lesbian Lakey.
Bergen also received critical acclaim as the ex-wife of Burt Reynolds
in the romantic comedy Starting Over.
At the age of 33 Bergen met the famed French director Louis
Malle. Friends say they were destined to meet and to fall in love. The
pair maintained a bi-continental marriage until his death in 1995,
leaving Bergen to raise their daughter Chloe. After Malle’s death,
Bergen devoted her time exclusively to Chloe and to her television
show. By all accounts, the cast of Murphy Brown was close and
Bergen said in interviews that Faith Ford (who played Corky Sher-
wood) had been particularly comforting during her mourning over the
BERGMANENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
225
death of her husband. This personal closeness gave the cast a
professional camaraderie that was evident to audiences.
In 1988, Murphy Brown introduced the cast of F.Y.I, a fictional
news show. Murphy Brown (Candice Bergen), Frank Fontana (Joe
Regalbuto), Jim Dial (Charles Kimbrough), and Corky Sherwood
(Faith Ford) shared anchor duties on air and traded wisecracks and
friendship off the air. They were joined by producer Miles Silverberg
(Grant Shaud), artist and handyman Eldin (Robert Pastorelli), and
barkeeper Phil (Pat Corley). In 1996, Lily Tomlin replaced Shaud as
the producer. Plot lines ranged from grocery shopping and conscious-
ness raising, to romance, divorce, and the White House cat, Socks.
The two most notable story lines involved unwed motherhood and
breast cancer. During its tenure, Murphy Brown won 18 Emmys, five
of them for its star. Bergen then withdrew her name from competition.
In 1992, Murphy Brown, a fictional character on a television
show, became pregnant. After much soul searching, she decided to
raise her baby without a father. In May of that election year, Vice
President Dan Quayle stated in a speech (allegedly against the advise
of his handlers): ‘‘It doesn’t help matters when prime time television
has Murphy Brown—a character who supposedly epitomizes today’s
intelligent, highly paid professional woman—mocking the impor-
tance of fathers by bearing a child alone and calling it just another
’lifestyle choice.’’’ The media was delighted, and the debate was on.
In the fall of 1992, Bergen and Diane English (who had offered
to debate Quayle on the issue) had their say when Murphy responded
to the vice president on F.Y.I. by gently reminding him that families
come in all shapes and sizes. She then chided Quayle by agreeing that
there were serious problems in American society and suggested that
the vice president could blame the media, Congress, or an administra-
tion that had been in power for 12 years . . . or, he could blame her.
The episode ended with the dumping of 1,000 pounds of potatoes in
Quayle’s driveway, a reference to an occasion when Quayle mis-
spelled the word as a judge in an elementary speech contest. The
episode won the Emmy for Best Comedy of 1992.
The final season of Murphy Brown (1997-1998) ended on a more
solemn note. Murphy discovered that she had breast cancer. Through-
out the season, real cancer survivors and medical advisors helped to
deliver the message that cancer was serious business and that there
was hope for recovery. An episode devoted to the medicinal use of
marijuana demonstrated the strong bond among the cast and proved
that the show could still arouse controversy. The final episode of the
season was filled with emotional farewells and celebrated guest stars,
including Bette Midler as the last in a long line of Murphy’s
secretaries, Julia Roberts, and George Clooney. God, in the person of
Alan King, also made an appearance, as did Robert Pastorelli (Eldin)
and Pat Corley (Phil), both of whom had left the series years before to
pursue other interests.
Various media reports have indicated that Candice Bergen may
become a commentator for 60 Minutes. With her experience as a
photojournalist and with her ten years on F.Y.I., Bergen is imminently
qualified to engage in a serious debate of national issues.
—Elizabeth Purdy
F
URTHER READING:
Bergen, Candice. Knock Wood. Boston, G. K. Hall & Compa-
ny, 1984.
Morrow, Lance. ‘‘But Seriously Folks.’’ Time. June 1, 1992, 10-12.
Bergen, Edgar (1903-1978)
Chicago-born Edgar Bergen put himself through college as a
part-time ventriloquist with a doll he had acquired while in high
school. It was to his relationship with this doll, the cheeky, monocled
toff Charlie McCarthy, that Edgar Bergen owed his fame and a special
Oscar. Edgar and Charlie played the vaudeville circuit, then became
popular radio performers in the medium’s hey-day. They made
several appearances in movies, beginning with The Goldwyn Follies
(1938) and including Charlie McCarthy Detective (1939), while
television further increased their visibility. They periodically had
other puppets in tow, most famously Mortimer (‘‘How did you get to
be so dumb?’’) Snerd. The father of actress Candice Bergen, Edgar,
sans Charlie, played a few minor roles in films, but it is for his
influence on the art of puppetry that he is remembered. Muppet
creator Jim Henson acknowledged his debt to Bergen’s skills, and it
was in The Muppet Movie (1979) that he made his last appearance.
Bergen bequeathed Charlie McCarthy to the Smithsonian Institute.
—Robyn Karney
F
URTHER READING:
Katz, Ephraim. The International Film Encyclopedia. New York,
HarperCollins, 1994.
Press, Skip. Candice & Edgar Bergen. Persippany, New Jersey,
Crestwood House, 1995.
Bergman, Ingmar (1918—)
Swedish director Ingmar Bergman’s name is virtually synony-
mous with the sort of intellectual European films that most critics love
to praise—but that many moviegoers love to hate. His complex
explorations of sweeping topics like loneliness, spiritual faith, love,
and death have been closely imitated, but also parodied for their overt
reliance on symbol and metaphor, for their philosophical dialogue,
and for their arguably opaque dreamlike qualities. Famous Bergman
images reappear throughout the spectrum of popular culture, images
like that of Death, scythe in hand, leading a line of dancing victims
through an open field, the figures silhouetted against the sky. Bergman
began his prolific career in Stockholm during the 1930s. He directed
theater and eventually radio and television dramas. His catalogue of
over fifty films includes classics like The Seventh Seal (1956), Wild
Strawberries (1957), Through a Glass Darkly (1960), and Fanny and
Alexander (1983).
—John Tomasic
F
URTHER READING:
Bergman, Ingmar. The Magic Lantern: An Autobiography. New
York, Viking, 1988.
BERGMAN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
226
Cohen, Hubert. Ingmar Bergman: The Art of Confession. New York,
Twayne, 1993.
Steene, Birgitta. Ingmar Bergman: A Guide to References and
Resources. Boston, G.K. Hall, 1987.
Bergman, Ingrid (1915-1982)
A star in Swedish, French, German, Italian, and British films
before emigrating to the United States to star in Intermezzo in 1939,
Ingrid Bergman, with her Nordic freshness and vitality, coupled with
her beauty and intelligence, quickly became the ideal of American
womanhood and one of Hollywood’s most popular stars. A love affair
with Italian director Roberto Rossellini during the filming of Stromboli
in 1950 created a scandal that forced her to return to Europe, but she
made a successful Hollywood comeback in 1956, winning her second
Academy Award for the title role in Anastasia.
Born in Stockholm to a tragedy-prone family, she suffered at age
two the death of her mother. Her father died when she was twelve, a
few months before the spinster aunt who had raised her also died. She
was sent to live with her uncle and later used her inheritance to study
acting at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. With the encour-
agement of her friend Dr. Peter Lindstrom, who became her first
husband in 1937, she turned to the cinema, playing a hotel maid in her
Ingrid Bergman
debut film Monkbrogreven (1934). The turning point in her career
came in 1937, when the Swedish director Gustaf Molander chose her
as the lead in the romantic drama Intermezzo, about a famous violinist
who has an adulterous affair with a young pianist.
When David Selznick saw a print of Bergman in the Swedish
film, he was unimpressed, but he was persuaded by Katharine Brown,
his story-buyer, that the proposed American remake of Intermezzo
would only be successful with Ingrid in the role of the pianist. He
signed her to a contract for the one film, with an option for seven
years. When Intermezzo, A Love Story, also starring Leslie Howard,
was released in 1939, Hollywood saw an actress who was completely
natural in style as well as lack of makeup. Film critic James Agee
wrote that ‘‘Miss Bergman not only bears a startling resemblance to
an imaginable human being; she really knows how to act, in a blend of
poetic grace with quiet realism.’’ Selznick exercised his option for the
extended contract and recalled her from Sweden.
While waiting for Selznick to develop roles for her, Bergman
played on Broadway in Liliom and was loaned out to MGM for two
dramatic roles, as the governess in love with Warner Baxter in Adam
Had Four Sons (1941) and as Robert Montgomery’s ill-fated wife in
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941). MGM offered her the role of the
ingenue in the latter film, but Bergman, always willing to take
chances, begged for the role of the floozy and exchanged parts with
Lana Turner. Theodore Strauss, writing in the New York Times,
praised Bergman’s ‘‘shining talent’’ in making something of a small
part. He added that Turner and the rest of the cast moved ‘‘like well-
behaved puppets.’’
In 1942 Warner Brothers, desperate for a continental heroine
after being turned down by Hedy Lamarr, borrowed Bergman from
Selznick to play opposite Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca (1942).
The role made Bergman a surefire box-office star and led to her
appearing opposite Gary Cooper the following year in Hemingway’s
For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943). Selznick’s Swedish import was now
in demand for major roles by several studios, and in 1944 MGM
signed her for her Academy Award winning role as the manipulated
wife in Gaslight. Her talent and popularity attracted Alfred Hitch-
cock, who gave her leads in two of his finest suspense thrillers,
Spellbound (1945) and Notorious (1946). Then occurred a succession
of ill-chosen parts, along with a shocking scandal, and the film
Notorious became her last successful film for a decade.
Her affair with Roberto Rossellini, which erupted during the
shooting of Stromboli on location in Italy in 1950, resulted in the birth
of a daughter and a barrage of international criticism. Although she
married Rossellini as soon as possible after her divorce, her fans, and
particularly those in America, were unwilling to forgive her. Stromboli
was boycotted by most of the movie-going public. Rossellini directed
her in Europa ‘51 in 1952, with the same dismal response.
In 1957 the Fox studios offered her $200,000 for the title role in
Anastasia. She agreed to the terms, the film was shot in Britain, and it
became a world-wide hit, earning Ingrid her second Oscar as well as
the forgiveness of her fans. In 1958 two more films shot in Britain
were released with great success: Indiscreet, with Cary Grant, and
The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, based on the true story of a missionary
in China. She continued to make films in Europe, but most of them
received no bookings in the United States. Columbia lured her back to
Hollywood for a two-picture deal, however, and she made the popular
Cactus Flower (1969), co-starring Walter Matthau, and A Walk in the
BERKELEYENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
227
Spring Rain (1970) with Anthony Quinn. Her last role was that of
Golda Meir, the Israeli prime minister, in a drama made for television,
A Woman Called Golda (1981). She made her home in France for the
last 32 years of her life and died in London on August 29, 1982.
—Benjamin Griffith
F
URTHER READING:
Bergman, Ingrid, and Alan Burgess. Ingrid Bergman: My Story. New
York, Delacorte, 1980.
Leamer, Laurence. As Time Goes By: The Life of Ingrid Bergman.
New York, Harper & Row, 1986.
Quirk, Lawrence J. The Complete Films of Ingrid Bergman. New
York, Carol Communications, 1989.
Spoto, Donald. Notorious: The Life of Ingrid Bergman. New York,
HarperCollins, 1997.
Taylor, John Russell. Ingrid Bergman. New York, St. Martin’s
Press, 1983.
Berkeley, Busby (1895-1976)
The premier dance director of 1930s Hollywood musicals,
Busby Berkeley created outrageously fantastical production numbers
Busby Berkeley with actress Connie Russell.
featuring synchronized hordes of beautiful women moving in kalei-
doscopic patterns that took audiences on surreal journeys away from
the blues of their Depression-era realities. Berkeley took the spectacle
traditions of popular American stage entertainments and the pulchri-
tudinous aesthetic of the Ziegfeld Follies and extended them through
cinematic techniques. His groundbreaking dance sequences revolu-
tionized the way musicals were filmed by demonstrating how the
camera could be used to liberate the directorial imagination from the
constraints of theatrical realism. The distinctive look of his dancing
screen geometries influenced the visual aesthetic of films, animation,
television commercials, and music videos throughout the twentieth
century. The term ‘‘busby berkeley’’ appears in the American The-
saurus of Slang, defined as ‘‘any elaborate dance number.’’
Born William Berkeley Enos on November 29, 1895, to a
theatrical family in Los Angeles, Berkeley began choreographing
while serving in the army. Stationed in France in 1917, Berkeley
designed complex parade drills for his battalion, honing his abilities
to move multitudes of bodies rhythmically through cunning configu-
rations. After the war, Berkeley worked as an actor and, by 1921, had
begun directing plays and musicals. Though he had no dance training,
Berkeley soon became known for staging innovative, well-ordered
movement sequences for Broadway revues and musicals, including
the 1927 hit A Connecticut Yankee.
In 1930, Samuel Goldwyn brought Berkeley to Hollywood.
Before embarking on his first assignment, directing the dance num-
bers for the film musical Whoopee!, Berkeley visited neighboring sets
to learn how the camera was used. The pre-Berkeley approach to
filming musicals was akin to documenting a theatrical production.
Four stationary cameras were positioned to capture the performance
from a variety of angles. The various shots were creatively combined
during the editing process. Berkeley chose, instead, to use only one
camera, which he moved around the set, thereby allowing his filming,
rather than the editing, to dictate the flow of his numbers. Though a
few attempts had been made earlier to film dance sequences from
points of view other than that of a proscenium stage, it was Berkeley
who fully and most inventively exploited the variety of possible
camera placements and movements. Berkeley’s work is characterized
by plenty of panning and high overhead shots that sometimes necessi-
tated cutting a hole in the studio ceiling and eventually resulted in his
building a monorail for his camera’s travels.
In 1932 Berkeley began a seven-year affiliation with Warner
Bros. where he created the bulk of his most remarkable dance
sequences for films such as Gold Diggers of 1933 and Dames (1934).
His first film there, 42nd Street (1933), rescued the studio from
bankruptcy and rejuvenated the film musical at a time when the
genre’s popularity had waned.
Berkeley’s numbers had little to do with the text or story line of
the films. His dances were often voyeuristic and contained undeniable
sexual symbolism. Censors were hard-pressed to challenge their
naughtiness, however, because the eroticism was in abstract forms—
shapes that resembled giant zippers unzipping, long straight bodies
diving into circles of women swimming below, or a row of huge rising
bananas. No individual dancer ever did anything that could be
interpreted as a sexual act.
In Berkeley’s dance numbers there is very little actual dancing. It
is the camera that executes the most interesting choreography. Berke-
ley was unconcerned with dance as physical expression and preferred
BERLE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
228
to focus his creative efforts on cinematic tricks. The simple moves
and tap dancing in Berkeley’s routines were taught to the dancers by
his assistants. Berkeley was not interested in the talents of so-
lo dancers, but in how he could use numerous bodies to form
magnificent designs.
In 1939, when Warner Bros. lost interest in producing big
musicals, Berkeley went to MGM where he continued to create his
signature-style dance sequences for films such as Lady Be Good
(1941). He was also given the opportunity to both choreograph and
direct three Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland vehicles, Babes in Arms
(1939), Strike Up the Band (1940), and Babes on Broadway (1941).
By the mid-1940s, Berkeley-esque movie musicals—those with
flimsy plots interrupted by abstract movement sequences—were on
their way out in favor of musicals in which the songs and dances were
integrated with the drama. The demand for Berkeley’s work gradually
diminished. He retired in 1954 but returned to create numbers for the
1962 circus extravaganza, Jumbo.
By 1970, though the public had long tired of gigantic film
musicals, there developed a resurgence of interest in Berkeley’s work,
seen as camp yet appreciated within the period’s wave of 1930s
nostalgia. Berkeley was interviewed extensively during this period,
while his films were shown on late-night television and in numerous
retrospectives. The 1971 revival of No, No, Nanette reintroduced
Broadway audiences to old-style, large-scale, tap-dance routines
reminiscent of Berkeley’s heyday. Though he made no artistic
contribution to this production, he was hired as an advisor, as it was
thought Berkeley’s name would boost ticket sales.
While Berkeley’s work was light entertainment, his personality
had a dark side, evidence of which can be found in aspects of his films
as well as in his unsuccessful suicide attempts, his inability to
maintain relationships (having been married six times), and his
excessive drinking: in 1935 Berkeley was tried for the murders of
three victims of his intoxicated driving. Some of Berkeley’s dances
indicate an obsession with the death of young women, including his
favorite sequence—‘‘Lullaby of Broadway’’ from Gold Diggers of
1935—which ends with a woman jumping to her death from atop
a skyscraper.
On March 14, 1976, Berkeley died at his home in California.
Though his oeuvre is an indelible part of the popular entertainment
culture of the 1930s—as he so brilliantly satisfied Americans’ escap-
ist needs during one of the country’s bleakest eras—his bewitching,
dream-like realms peopled by abstract forms made of objectified
women intrigue and influence each generation of spectators and
visual artists that revisits his films.
—Lisa Jo Sagolla
F
URTHER READING:
Delamater, Jerome. Dance in the Hollywood Musical. Ann Arbor,
Michigan, UMI Research Press, 1981.
Pike, Bob, and Dave Martin. The Genius of Busby Berkeley. Reseda,
California, Creative Film Society, 1973.
Rubin, Martin. Showstoppers: Busby Berkeley and the Tradition of
Spectacle. New York, Columbia University Press, 1993.
Thomas, Tony, and Jim Terry with Busby Berkeley. The Busby
Berkeley Book. Greenwich, Connecticut, New York Graphic
Society, 1973.
Berle, Milton (1908—)
Milton Berle, a former vaudevillian, film actor, and radio
comedian, was television’s first real star. Credited with selling over a
million television sets during his first years hosting the weekly
Tuesday night NBC program Texaco Star Theatre, Berle became post
war America’s beloved ‘‘Uncle Miltie.’’ Since Texaco Star Theatre
first aired in 1948, only a year after the three major networks first
began broadcasting programming on the new medium, much of
Berle’s urban audience was watching television in communal envi-
rons—in neighbors’ homes, in taverns, and in community centers. A
1949 editorial in Variety magazine heralded the performer for his
impact on the lives of city viewers: ‘‘When, single handedly, you can
drive the taxis off the streets of New York between 8 and 9 on a
Tuesday night; reconstruct neighborhood patterns so that stores shut
down Tuesday nights instead of Wednesdays, and inject a showman-
ship in programming so that video could compete favorably with the
more established show biz media—then you rate the accolade of
‘Mr. Television.’’’
Yet, the brash, aggressive, ethnic, and urban vaudeville style that
made him such a incredible phenomenon during television’s early
years were, ironically, the very traits that lead to his professional
decline in the mid-1950s. As television disseminated into suburban
and rural areas, forever altering audience demographics, viewers
turned away from Berle’s broad and bawdy antics and towards the
middle-class sensibilities of domestic sitcoms such as I Love Lucy and
Milton Berle