SHOPPING CART
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Eddie Anderson might have gone on bowing
and scraping together a living from the
kind of eye-rolling, afraid-of-his-shadow
lackey roles that were a black comic actor's stock in
trade. But then a one-off appearance as a Pullman
porter on the popular Jack Benny radio show struck
a chord with a national audience, and Benny made
him a regular. As Rochester Van Jones, Mr. Benny's
manservant, Anderson stormed into millions of
homes. His charisma was tangible, his pumice-like
orations undeniable, and the Central Avenue neighborhood
listened as one of its own made good....
Rochester was the first black character to have
a regular role on a national radio show. In basic ways
no new ground was broken—Rochester waited on
Benny's beck and call as chauffeur, dresser, cook
and housekeeper; he was practically an index of the
black domestic work force. But if the idea of
Rochester seems like a perfect stereotype, as played
by Anderson, the character was something new. He
routinely got the better of his boss. He served Benny
as a laborer, but Benny also served Rochester as a
comic foil. The focus of ridicule was usually Benny,
and Anderson's guilelessness, his ability to seem sly
and oblivious at the same moment, won over an
audience that easily might have resented him.
Within the confines of his servitude, Rochester was
a breath of fresh air. First of all simply because he really was a black man, and not, as were the whites
who mimicked blacks on "Amos and Andy," performers
putting on the burnt cork of minstrelsy and
offering up stereotypes....
Every small detail of Rochester's character was
scrutinized by the Central Avenue community; that
he called his employer not Sir but simply Boss, for
instance, was viewed as a step forward—one man
speaking more directly to another. When he mentioned
Central Avenue, which Rochester often did,
the neighborhood went wild. Guest star Orson
Welles asked Rochester to teach him "Central
Avenue shuffleboard," by which he meant shooting
craps. "On Central Avenue," Rochester explained
knowingly to Benny, "Father Time lingers till we get
rollin'.....
Rochester, it was clear, did not belong to his
white employer—he had his own life on the Avenue,
and he didn't "act white." If blackface was a mask,
the show made clear that so was the face Rochester
presented to the white world embodied by Benny. It
was when he went home to Central Avenue that he
became himself. |
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HARDCOVERISBN 978-1-58648-295-4 Pub date: 06/12/06 Price: $26.95/36.95 Canada 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 400 pages b/w photos thruout Carton Quantity: 24 Af-Am Studies, Popular Culture, Social History, Sociology Selling Territory: W Rights:
PAPERBACK
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