Mary Livingstone

 Mary Livingstone, born Sadie Marcowitz, later known as Sadye Marks (June 25, 1905 – June 30, 1983)

She was the wife and radio partner of comedian Jack Benny. Enlisted almost entirely by accident to perform on her husband's popular program, she proved a talented comedian. Mary's trademark bit on the radio show, other than beleaguering Benny, was to read letters from her mother (who lived in Plainfield, New Jersey), usually beginning with "My darling daughter Mary...". The letters often included comical stories about Mary's (fictional) sister Babe – similar to Sadie's real sister Babe in name only – who was so masculine she played as a linebacker for the Green Bay Packers and worked in steel mills and coal mines, or their ne'er-do-well father, who always seemed to be a half-step ahead of the law. However, Livingstone's has always suffered from stage freight, and it became so acute by the time the Benny show was moving toward television that she rarely appeared on the radio show in its final season, 1954-55. When she did appear, the Bennys' adopted daughter, Joan, occasionally acted as a stand-in for her mother, or Mary's lines were read in rehearsals by Jack's script secretary, Jeanette Eyman, while Livingstone's prerecorded lines were played during live broadcasts. Livingstone made few appearances on the television version – mostly in filmed episodes – and finally retired from show business after her close friend Gracie Allen did so in 1958.

After writing a biography of her husband, Mary Livingstone — whose surname is often misspelled without the 'e', as with her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to radio — died from heart disease at her home in Holmby Hills on June 30, 1983, aged 78, hours after receiving a visit from then-First Lady Nancy Reagan. She is interred with Jack at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City, CA.