Bill Morrow

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Yesterday, I wrote a little piece on Jack's great writer Eddie Beloin who, with Bill Morrow, wrote for Jack from 1936 to 43. Today, I wanted to write about the other half of this great partnership, Bill Morrow.

Bill Morrow was born in 1907. Like Ed Beloin, Morrow had relatively little experience when he joined the Benny Show in 1936. It is not an exaggeration to say that the Murrow/Beloin partnership (with perhaps an initial assist from Al Boasberg who tragically died at an early age in 1936) reshaped the Benny Program into the basic format that we all recognize today. Most centrally, they molded Jack's character into the penny pinching, insecure, boastful, coward that made Jack into the icon he is today. While the pre-Morrow/Beloin show made fun of Jack's weaknesses, Morrow and Beloin took this to crazy heights with Jack's Maxwell, his selling tickets for visits to his home, placing ads for his movies on his front lawn, hiding his money in his socks and mattress, the begrudging dime tips, selling "Mother Benny's" chile, boasting of his close friendships with celebrity neighbors who couldn't stand him, dating women who worked in circus sideshows and the the would-be dates who hung up the phone when they heard who was calling, Jack's violin playing, his toupee, his false teeth, lying about his age, etc., etc. etc.

Morrow and Beloin also created Phil Harris's not so articulate, street smart, jive talking, happy-go-lucky, king of the party character and reshaped Mary's into a tougher saracastic foil to Jack. Morrow and Beloin also created Eddie Anderson's Rochester character (again, as LLeff notes, with a possible early assist from Al Boasberg). And the absurd and long-lasting Benny-Allen feud began during this period. It is fair to say that all of the ingredients that we recall so fondly today about the Benny Show were created by, or significantly molded by Bill Morrow and Ed Beloin.

Jack was extremely appreciative of the Morrow/Beloin partnership and they soon became some of the highest paid writers in Hollywood. While I can't claim to be any sort of expert on all of the radio programs of that era, Jack's crediting, at the end of each program, of his writers by name is unique among the shows I have heard. There is no question that Jack had great respect for his writers.

As LLeff pointed out in yesterday's thread, the Army's drafting of Bill Morrow in 1943 ended the Benny/Morrow/Beloin partnership. Interestingly, Morrow was 36 at the time he was drafted which reflects just how widespread and deep the draft went during World War II.

Like Ed Beloin, Bill Morrow had a very successful post-Benny career. The information on this is scarce but I surmise that Ed Beloin was instrumental in getting Morrow work with the Bing Crosby radio program since Beloin himself was doing a great deal of writing for Crosby and Bob Hope during this period. In any event, Morrow, unlike Beloin, did almost all of his post Benny writing on the radio (although he was one of the writers of the Hope/Crosby "Road to Bali" in 1952), principally for Bing Crosby.

I haven't listened to nearly as many of Crosby shows as Jack's (he's next up after I finish my Jack run) but, from what I have heard, the Crosby program was really outstanding. Bing had such a natural low key charm. His show was surprisingly fresh and spontaneous and I have to assume that Bill Morrow was a key reason for this. For nearly 20 years, Bill Morrow served as head writer and producer of Crosby's radio shows and later television specials. Crosby, Morrow, and Crosby's technical director Murdo McKenzie are credited with introducing the use of audiotape which allowed Crosby to tape his songs (and later his entire program) so that it could be broadcast at a later time. Until that time, radio programs were done live.

Bill Morrow retired from show business in the late 1960s and died in 1971 at the age of 63. Like Ed Beloin, he led a full life and was one of radio's and comedy's unknown giants.