Biography
Ben Blue (Benjamin Bernstein) (September 12, 1901 – March 7, 1975) was a Canadian actor and comedian.
Born to a Jewish family in Montreal, Quebec, Bernstein emigrated to the United States where he became a dance instructor, a dance school owner, and a nightclub proprietor. He began his motion picture career doing short films for Warner Brothers Studios in 1926, and later worked at the Hal Roach Studios, Paramount Studios and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He also, like his "The Big Broadcast of 1938" co-star Bob Hope, was a radio comedian. In 1950, he had his own TV series, The Ben Blue Show and was a regular on The Frank Sinatra Show.
In 1951, Blue began concentrating on managing and appearing in nightclubs in Hollywood and San Francisco. He made the cover of TV Guide's June 11, 1954 Special Issue along with Alan Young, headlining an edition featuring that season's summer replacement shows.
In 1958, he ran a significant short-running television program called Ben Blue's Brothers. The show didn't get picked upon a network, but the pilot was seen in 1965. In the comedic movie It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Ben got picked as the airplane pilot. Ben Blue started making cameos in comedy movies around the 1960s. One of his most-remembered films was as Luther Grilk in The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming. He especially had a part in Jerry Van Dyke's TV series Accidental Family in 1967. He worked his way until his final film appearance, Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?, in 1968. He made his last TV appearance in Land of the Giants in 1969.
Ben Blue died in Hollywood in 1975 and was interred in the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California. After his death, his career papers covering 1935 to 1955 were deposited in the Special Collections at the U.C.L.A Library.
