Eddie "Rochester" Anderson

Actor, entertainer, and radio personality

• Born: September 18, 1905
• Birthplace: Oakland, California
• Died: February 28, 1977
• Place of death: Los Angeles, California

Raspy-voiced and slick-witted comedian Anderson was best known for playing Jack Benny’s valet, Rochester Van Jones, on radio and television from 1937 to 1964. He earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 and was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2001.

Early Life

Eddie “Rochester” Anderson was born Edmund Lincoln Anderson in Oakland, California, on September 18, 1905. His father, “Big Ed” Anderson, was a minstrel and comedian; his mother, Ella Mae Anderson, an actor and circus tightrope walker whose career ended prematurely because of a fall. Both parents were the children of escaped slaves.

Anderson acquired his unique scratchy voice, which would become his trademark, when he was about twelve. Some accounts say that he became permanently hoarse while hawking newspapers on street corners; others say that he damaged his throat in an accident. At thirteen he won an amateur vaudeville talent contest in San Francisco. Soon thereafter he became a song and dance man in minstrel shows and all-black vaudeville circuits with his brother Cornelius (“Cornie”) and Lawrence “Flying” Ford as the Three Black Aces. He began appearing also in white vaudeville circuits, sometimes on the same bill as future film star Fred MacMurray. By the early 1920’s he was popular in Struttin’ Along, Steppin’ High, and other touring revues.

In 1927, Anderson moved to Los Angeles, where he landed his first film role in No Place to Go. In the next ten years, he appeared in about forty films, mostly with all-black casts. Among his nearly eighty film credits were You Can’t Take It with You (1938), Jezebel (1938), You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man (1939), Gone with the Wind (1939), and It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963). His most significant role was Noah in The Green Pastures (1936).

Life’s Work

Anderson’s big break came in 1937 when Jack Benny hired him for a one-time radio appearance as a Pullman porter. Anderson was so popular in the role that Benny created a regular character for him as his valet and dubbed him “Rochester Van Jones.” Even off-air and off-screen, Anderson became Rochester. He assimilated this character so completely that the public more easily identified him as Rochester than as Eddie Anderson.

For about the first twenty years of his role as Rochester, Anderson played into the stereotype of the black servant. Even during that time, however, he never portrayed Rochester as the shuffling fool that contemporary audiences typically expected black characters to be. On the contrary, Anderson’s radio character was smarter than Benny’s from the beginning, and he almost always got the better of Benny in their scripted repartee. Rochester’s sensible, down-to-Earth approach to everyday situations contrasted with his boss’s flighty or irrational approach and, in the chemistry between the two, created hilarious comedy.

As America became more conscious of endemic racial injustice in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, and as civil rights reform became a greater part of the American sociopolitical landscape, Anderson became more determined than ever to portray Rochester as a complete human being. Benny listened and agreed. Benny, who was Jewish, had suffered his share of discrimination, and as Anderson’s friend he was sensitive to these issues. Gradually they moved away from their old stock gags toward a more Bertie Wooster and Jeeves sort of arrangement, in which the servant was clearly superior to the master.

In 1939, Anderson married Mamie Sophie Wiggins and adopted her son, Willie. She died of cancer in 1954. In 1956, he married Eva Simon, with whom he had two daughters, Stephanie and Evangela, and a son, Edmund. They divorced in 1973.

Anderson, who was among the highest paid black actors in the 1940’s, invested well and became wealthy, despite some bad ventures in race horses, nightclubs, and other risky enterprises. A heart attack in 1958 forced him into semiretirement. He died of congestive heart disease on February 28, 1977, after two months in the Motion Picture and Television Hospital.

Significance

Anderson’s Rochester persona encouraged listeners to see African Americans as naturally endowed with dignity, intelligence, and grace. By combating nineteenth century stereotypes, Anderson implicitly urged the wider acceptance of racial equality. He thereby helped to pave the way for “radical” comedians like Dick Gregory, Richard Pryor, and Chris Rock; “serious” mainstream comedians like Bill Cosby, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Flip Wilson; and noncomedic actors like Sidney Poitier, James Earl Jones, and Morgan Freeman playing insightful, articulate, dignified black characters.

Bibliography

Benny, Jack. Sunday Nights at Seven. New York: Warner, 1990. As Anderson’s life and career were intimately linked to Benny’s, and as no full-length biographies of Anderson exist, the best sources of information about Anderson are biographies of Benny. This autobiography, amended by Benny’s daughter Joan and prefaced by George Burns, is not necessarily the most accurate, but is among the most entertaining and personal.

Bogle, Donald. “Man About Town.” In Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood. New York: Random House, 2005. Provides glimpses of Anderson’s private life, his business ventures, his status among black performers, and his relationships with his contemporaries.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. “Rochester: The Gentleman’s Gentleman.” In Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films. 4th ed. New York: Continuum, 2006. Contains details of Anderson’s film career before his association with Benny and an appraisal of his and Benny’s effects on each other.

Fein, Irving. Jack Benny: An Intimate Biography. New York: Putnam, 1976. Generally acclaimed as the best of the Benny biographies, written by Benny’s longtime publicist, manager, and producer.

Josefsberg, Milt. The Jack Benny Show. New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1977. Extensive memoir of all the cast members by one of Benny’s scriptwriters, with an entire chapter on Anderson.

Leannah, Michael, ed. Well! Reflections on the Life and Career of Jack Benny. Albany, Ga.: BearManor Media, 2007. Compilation of stories, many of which involve Anderson.

Livingstone, Mary, Hilliard Marks, and Marcia Borie. Jack Benny. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1978. Uneven collaboration of Benny’s widow, her brother, and a Hollywood columnist.