Early Life and Career
Benaderet's father Samuel was a Turkish Jewish emigrant, and her mother, Margaret (née O'Keefe) was Irish-American. Their daughter first received notice for her radio work in the 1940s playing Millicent Carstairs on Fibber McGee & Molly, telephone operator Gertrude Gearshift (and many other roles) on The Jack Benny Program, school principal Eve Goodwin on The Great Gildersleeve, and appeared on the occasional Amos 'n Andy radio show, usually as a store clerk attempting to assist Andy and Kingfish in a purchase. She was active in Orson Well's Mercury Theater and appeared in the 1938 "A Christmas Carol". During this period, Benaderet had two children, Jack and Maggie, from her marriage to actor Jim Bannon.
Benaderet played Blanche Morton, the next-door neighbor to George Burns and Gracie Allen, on both the radio and television incarnations of The George Burns & Gracie Allen Show. She also held down a regular role in the series A Day in the Life of Dennis Day as Mrs. Anderson, Day's landlady, who was also the mother of Day's girlfriend on the program. She voiced widow Clara Longnecker on The Mel Blanc Show, wherein she often fended off the money-mad proposals of Mel's uncle Rupert with the exclamation, "Now, Rupert, I am in NO mood for your nincompoopity!" On The Adventures of Maisie, which starred Ann Sothern, she played various roles, including that of the title character's landlady.
She portrayed Lucille Ball's best friend Iris Attebury on the 1940s radio series My Favorite Husband. When Ball and husband Desi Arnaz decided to develop this program for television in a series called I Love Lucy, Benaderet was first choice to fill the role of Ethel Mertz, but was ultimately unavailable to accept it since she had already been cast for the fledgeling Burns and Allen television show. Vivian Vance, a relatively unknown character actress and singer, was eventually cast in the part. Benaderet did appear in a guest role on I Love Lucy on January 21, 1952 as "Miss Lewis", a love-starved spinster neighbor.
Benaderet began voicing the character of Granny (the sometimes dimwitted, sometimes assertive owner of Tweety) in the Warner Bros. cartoon series beginning in 1943. Benaderet continued to perform the voice of Granny well into the 1950s, when June Foray replaced her in that role in 1955. Benaderet voiced numerous female characters in the Warner Bros. animated shorts of the 1940s, displaying a great deal of versatility in her repertoire, from her natural feminine voice, to the "Granny" character, to the loquacious bobby-soxer (inspired by loud-mouthed comedienne Cass Daley) in Little Red Riding Rabbit (1944).
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