page_title: Eddie "Rochester" Anderson
section_title: Progression of race relations
hierarchical_section_title: Eddie "Rochester" Anderson / Career / The Jack Benny Program / Progression of race relations
caption_attribution_description: English: Publicity photo from Bachelor Father. Pictured are Rochester (Eddie Anderson) and Bentley Gregg (John Forsythe). In this episode, Bentley borrows Rochester from Jack Benny, hoping to learn how Benny can be so thrifty.
context_page_description: Edmund Lincoln Anderson was an American comedian and actor. To a generation of early radio and television comedy he was known as "Rochester".
  Anderson got his start in show business as a teenager on the vaudeville circuit. In the early 1930s, he transitioned into films and radio. In 1937, he began his most famous role of Rochester van Jones, usually known simply as "Rochester", the valet of Jack Benny, on his NBC radio show The Jack Benny Program. Anderson became the first African American to have a regular role on a nationwide radio program. When the series moved to CBS television in 1950, Anderson continued in the role until the series' end in 1965.
  After the series ended, Anderson remained active with guest starring roles on television and voice work in animated series. He was also an avid horse-racing fan who owned several race horses and worked as a horse trainer at the Hollywood Park Racetrack.
  Anderson was married twice and had four children. He died of heart disease in February 1977 at the age of 71.
context_section_description: Anderson's role as a servant was common for black leads in the popular media of that era, such as Ethel Waters in Beulah. The stereotyping of black characters was a standard practice in the entertainment business for generations, referencing minstrel shows, where white actors in blackface reinforced low stereotypes of laziness, ignorance, illiteracy, weakness for drinking, gambling, and carousing, and general unfitness for any position of responsibility. Jack Benny's broadcast on November 1, 1936, was entitled Doc Benny's Minstrel Show, in which the entire cast performed a minstrel show in a "black" dialect. They redid Doc Benny's Minstrel Show on March 3, 1942; the subsequent performance demonstrates the progression of race relations.
  According to Jack Benny's posthumous autobiography, Sunday Nights at Seven, the tone of racial humor surrounding Rochester declined following World War II, once the enormity of The Holocaust was revealed. After the war, Benny and his writers made a conscious effort to remove all stereotypical aspects from the Rochester character. The changing times became very apparent in 1948, when a 1941 script was re-used on The Jack Benny Program. The script including several African-American stereotypes — for example, a reference to Rochester carrying a razor — and prompted some listeners, who were unaware the script was reused, to send in angry letters protesting the stereotypes. Thereafter, Benny insisted that his writers guarantee that no racial jokes or references should be heard on his show. Benny often gave key guest-star appearances to African-American performers such as Louis Armstrong and The Ink Spots, and Benny himself made numerous personal appeals on his show, asking listeners to reject racism in favor of fraternity and peaceful relations between all races of the world.
  The relationship between Rochester and Benny became more complex and familiar as the popularity of Rochester's character grew, with Rochester's role becoming both less stereotypical (in early episodes he carried a switchblade) and less subservient (though he remained a butler). As a butler he was subservient to the entire cast and was addressed as Rochester, but addressed the other characters as Mr. and Miss. Although Dennis Day's character is much younger and an idiot, Rochester respectfully addressed him as Mr. Day. Rochester often outwitted Benny, by getting Benny to mop the floor, for example.
  The "Rochester" character retained many of the stereotypes (lazy, gambler, drinker), but they became a part of his character, disassociated from his race. Even though some of the humor was stereotypical, it was always done so that the racial element of the joke came from Anderson and no one else. When they get to Yosemite to go skiing, Jack says "Don't wander off now, you're not used to being in the woods, you'll get lost in all the snow." Rochester replies, "Who me?" In the same episode, Rochester complains that Jack wants him to make up for the lack of a radio in their car by singing. "And at 8:00 he wants me to do 'Amos and Andy'," said Anderson. He pauses at this point as the audience bursts into laughter, then continues: "and I ain't no good at that blackface stuff!" — and the laughter escalates.
  Benny was often protective of Anderson, and this led to conflict. For instance, in World War II, Benny toured with his show, but Rochester did not, because discrimination in the armed forces would have required separate living quarters. However, during performances of the radio program staged before armed forces audiences at bases and military hospitals, the appearance of Rochester routinely drew enthusiastic applause that arguably often outstripped that received by other members of the cast, more so than in civilian audiences.  Also referenced in Benny's posthumous autobiography, Sunday Nights at Seven, was an episode at the conclusion of a broadcast originating at a military base which featured Rochester.  Benny was reportedly at a table mingling with soldiers, when one serviceman told Benny how he thought Rochester was really fun
caption: Anderson, as Rochester, demonstrates to John Forsythe how Benny pinches a penny on Bachelor Father, 1962
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