Background
Jane Ace was born on October 12, 1905 in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, the daughter of Jacob Epstein, a retail clothing merchant, and Minnie Stern.
Jane Ace was born on October 12, 1905 in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, the daughter of Jacob Epstein, a retail clothing merchant, and Minnie Stern.
Ace attended Central High School in Kansas City.
The comedy team of Ace and Goodman Ace was created by accident. Goodman was supplementing his income from newspaper writing by broadcasting "The Movie Man, " a fifteen-minute weekly radio program devoted to reviews about the film world. One evening in 1929, after his own show had ended, Goodman was asked to improvise on air to mask a small emergency. Since Jane was waiting for him in the studio, Goodman called her in to chat with him. They talked about the bridge game they had played the night before and about a sordid murder committed a few days earlier. Their improvisation was particularly enjoyed by a local advertising executive who offered to sponsor them on their own radio show. The Aces created "Easy Aces, " a fifteen-minute program that aired twice a week in Missouri during 1930.
After the Aces went to Chicago for a trial run on CBS in October 1931, the "Easy Aces" became a national network feature for the next fifteen years. Jane and Goodman moved to New York City to continue the show for NBC in 1933; again using a fifteen-minute format, they broadcast three evenings a week. The show returned to CBS in 1948 for a half hour on Wednesdays. "Easy Aces" was an urbane situation comedy throughout its history. Jane played a scatterbrained housewife and Goodman a breadwinner. Other regulars included Mary Hunter as Jane's friend Marge (gifted with a memorable laugh), Ethel Blume as Betty, Jane's friend, and Helene Dumas as Laura, their maid. A typical program might feature Jane's scheme to borrow money for a pet project from a businessman whom Goodman is trying to impress; another might involve Jane's manipulations for a mink coat. Her efforts to outwit her husband led to complication resolved by the end of the show.
Because Goodman wanted to stress the apparent spontaneity of the show, the couple talked over a card table with a built-in microphone, a prop retained from their early days when it had been used to remedy Jane's "mike fright. " Goodman wrote all the scripts for "Easy Aces" and eventually became one of radio's and television's most renowned comedy writers.
Goodman defined the term malapropism, named for a Mrs. Malaprop, a character in Sir Richard Brinsley Sheridan's play, The Rivals, who confused and misused words that sounded similar, as "an actual word with a meaning of its own, even though the meaning is out of context. " He went on to distinguish a malapropism from "a verbal boner that confuses things that don't contain similar-sounding words, " as in Jane's "Love makes the world go round together. "
The show was canceled in 1945 after Goodman's dispute with the sponsor; it was revived as "mr. ace and JANE" in February 1948, when it aired before a live audience. The half-hour show was again canceled in May 1949 because of low ratings. Removed from the comfort and informality of the closed studio, the revived show lacked the charm and apparent effortlessness of the original.
However, during the 1945-1948 hiatus, transcripts of the original show were edited and sold to independent local stations, giving the Aces a larger audience than had heard the original broadcasts. Fees from these rebroadcasts allowed the Aces to retire from radio, which was particularly appealing to Jane who never regarded herself as an actress.
Between May 10 and June 14, 1950, an attempt to re-create the show on television was a failure. The dialogue was tailored to radio; the Aces' humor depended on the audience hearing the lines, not watching the actors delivering them. Television camera close-ups ruined the apparent spontaneity of the dialogue and high-lighted the show's lack of visual effects.
The Aces happily returned to private life at their Ritz Tower apartment in New York City, enjoying visits to the racetrack, the baseball park, and Miami. Jane lived in privacy until her death in New York City in 1974 from cancer, aged 77.
Ace, with her gift for presenting overlapping dialogue delivered in her characteristic midwestern nasal twang and with her hilarious malapropisms, was always the star of the show. Ace's way of delivering lines blurred the distinction between the true malapropism and a verbal boner and were labeled "janeaceisms" by Goodman. It was Ace who pioneered the use of malapropisms in radio comedy and linked them indelibly with her name in the public's mind.
Quotations:
"I've always wanted to see my name up in tights. "
"I look like the wrath of grapes. "
"I wasn't under the impersonation you meant me. "
"He shot out of here like a bat out of a belfry. "
"He has me sitting on pins and cushions waiting. "
"The coffee will be ready in a jitney. "
"I'm a member of the weeper sex. "
"I don't drink, I'm a totalitarian. "
Ace married Goodman Ace in 1922. Despite her father's misgivings, the marriage was very successful and ended only with Jane's death fifty-two years later.
