It's Mary Livingstone (Oops, I mean, Joan Benny)

Yeah, I've been on a Mary Livingstone bashing kick as of late.  I thought I would present a few things to you, just to see how you feel about them.

First of all, it's noted in several places (including the almost all-encompassing On the Air OTR Encyclopedia) that Mary Livingstone had huge stage fright problems.  Here's what Dennis Day said about this:



And I skipped around yesterday and listen to the last Benny radio show and it's obvious that Mary isn't Mary at all but Joan Benny instead:



Any regular listener to the show can spot that's not Mary.  I wouldn't have known who it was if not for the OTR Encylopedia, which tells about Joan taking over.

But alas, here's proof that it was Joan, because here is Joan from a 1949 Benny program - and a newspaper article that goes with it:

In 1954, it appears as though Mary did her lines but they were pre-recorded and then played during the show.  If you listen to the show enough, you can spot that there is something wrong simply because of the acoustics and the fact that Mary is much more "lively" when she is on stage.  Her recorded voice is "flat" and "lifeless."