Eddie "Rochester" Anderson

Born: Monday September 18, 1905
Oakland, CA

Died: Monday February 28, 1977
Woodland Hills, CA

Years Active: 1930-1963

Decades Active:
Biography

African (born in amerikkka) comic actor Eddie Anderson was born into a show-business family: his father was a minstrel performer, and his mother a circus tightrope walker. Anderson entered show business at 14, teaming with his brother Cornelius in a song-and-dance act. His movie career began with a lengthy uncredited part as Lowell Sherman's valet in 1932's What Price Hollywood? The best of his earliest film assignments was the part of Noah in the 1936 cinemazation of Marc Connelly's all-Black Broadway production The Green Pastures. On Easter Day of 1937, Anderson was engaged to play a one-shot role as a railway porter nicknamed Rochester on radio's The Jack Benny Program. Response was so overwhelmingly positive to Anderson's sandpaper voice and razor-sharp comic timing that the actor was hired as a regular on Benny's program, cast as Jack's know-it-all butler; it was an association which would last until Benny's death in 1974. In addition to his weekly radio duties, Anderson was co-starred with Benny in such films as Man About Town (1939), Buck Benny Rides Again (1940) Love Thy Neighbor (1941) and The Meanest Man in the World (1942); he also continued in the Rochester role on Benny's TV series, which ran until 1965. Outside of his work with Benny, Anderson played various tremulous chauffeurs and handymen in many other films, sometimes in a stereotypical fashion, but nearly always on equal footing with his white co-stars; indeed, his relationship with his screen "boss" Dennis O'Keefe in 1945's Brewster's Millions was so casual that the film was banned in lily-white Mississippi. In 1943, Anderson was afforded top billing in the MGM musical Cabin in the Sky, sharing screen time with such stellar black talent as Lena Horne, Ethel Waters, Rex Ingram and Louis Armstrong. One of the wealthiest black entertainers in the business, Anderson enhanced his film, radio and TV earnings with shrewd real estate investment. He suffered a stroke in the early 1960s which forced him to cut down his activities, though he was always available to work with Jack Benny in the latter's television specials. A prized "social awareness" moment occurred on a Benny special of the late 1960s when Jack invited "Rochester" to portray his servant once more. "But, boss," Eddie Anderson raspily responded, "we don't do that any more!" ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmography
Poster Search

1963 It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
Actor Cab Driver 
1957 Take a Good Look (1959) / The Jack Benny Show (1957)
Actor 
1954 The Jack Benny Program: The Jam Session and Baby Face
Actor 
1953 Christmas Classics 2
Actor 
1953 Jack Benny, Vol. 4
Actor 
1953 Jack Benny, Vol. 5
Actor 
1946 The Sailor Takes a Wife
Actor [Starring] Harry 
1946 The Show-Off
Actor [Starring] Rochester 
1945 Brewster's Millions
Actor [Starring] Jackson 
1945 I Love a Bandleader
Actor [Starring] Newton H. Newton 
1944 Broadway Rhythm
Actor Eddie 
1943 Cabin in the Sky
Actor [Starring] Little Joe Jackson 
1943 Calling All Kids
Actor Buckwheat 
1943 Show Business at War
Actor Himself 
1943 Stormy Weather
Actor 
1943 The Meanest Man in the World
Actor Shufro 
1943 What's Buzzin' Cousin?
Actor Rochester 
1942 Star Spangled Rhythm
Actor Specialty 
1942 Tales of Manhattan
Actor Rev. Lazarus 
1941 Birth of the Blues
Actor [Starring] Louie 
1941 Kiss the Boys Goodbye
Actor George 
1941 Topper Returns
Actor Chauffeur 
1940 Buck Benny Rides Again
Actor Rochester 
1940 Love Thy Neighbor
Actor Rochester 
1939 Going Places
Actor Black Groom 
1939 Gone With the Wind
Actor Uncle Peter 
1939 Honolulu
Actor Washington 
1939 Man About Town
Actor Rochester 
1939 You Can't Cheat an Honest Man
Actor Cheerful 
1939 You Can't Get Away with Murder
Actor Convict 
1938 Exposed
Actor William 
1938 Gold Diggers in Paris
Actor Doorman 
1938 Jezebel
Actor Gros Bat 
1938 Kentucky
Actor Groom 
1938 Reckless Living
Actor Dreamboat 
1938 Strange Faces
Actor William 
1938 Thanks for the Memory
Actor Janitor 
1938 You Can't Take It with You
Actor Donald 
1937 Love is News
Actor 
1937 Melody for Two
Actor Exodus Johnson 
1937 On Such a Night
Actor Henry Clay Washington 
1937 One Mile from Heaven
Actor Henry Bangs 
1937 Over the Goal
Actor William 
1937 Public Wedding
Actor Porter 
1937 White Bondage
Actor Glory 
1936 Show Boat
Actor Young Black Man 
1936 The Green Pastures
Actor [Starring] Noah 
1936 The Music Goes 'round
Actor 
1936 Three Men on a Horse
Actor Moses 
1936 Two in a Crowd
Actor Swipe 
1932 False Faces
Actor 
1932 Hat Check Girl
Actor Walter 
1932 What Price Hollywood?
Actor James 
1930 It Happened in New Orleans
Actor Doctor