Eugene Tracy Twombly (April 27, 1914 – October 17, 1968) was a sound effects technician in radio and motion pictures.[Mott, Robert L. Radio Sound Effects: Who Did It, and How, in the Era of Live Broadcasting. McFarland & Company (2005) p. 246. ]
Early life
Eugene Twombly was born in California in 1914 to Ralph H. and Marie L. Twombly (née Tracy; 1892–1958).
He was the eldest of two children with a younger brother, Ralph Jr. (born 1922), and of partial
Canadians ancestry from his paternal grandmother.
Career
He is best known for his sound work on
The Jack Benny Program,
[Nachman, Gerald. Raised on Radio. Random House (2012). ] where his wife, actress
Bea Benaderet, played telephone operator Gertrude Gearshift. Other works included
Arch Oboler's
Lights Out,
,
, and
When the West Was Young,
[Jack French and David S. Siegel. Radio Rides the Range: A Reference Guide to Western Drama on the Air, 1929–1967. McFarland & Company (2013), p.198. ] and a collaboration with
Bill Cosby and
Frank Buxton on
The Bill Cosby Radio Program, which aired 145 episodes from January to July 1968.
The Jack Benny Program included occasional references to "Twombly, the sound-effects man," and Mel Blanc voiced a character called "George Twombly" who often interrupted Benny and his cast with impromptu sound effects.[Feldman, Leslie Dale. Rustics and Politics: The Political Theory of The Beverly Hillbillies. Lexington Books (2015), p. 77-78. ]
Personal life and death
Gene Twombly was Bea Benaderet's second husband and the stepfather of actor Jack Bannon, and they resided in Calabasas,
California. He died of a heart attack at age 54 on October 17, 1968, four days after her death from pneumonia and lung cancer and one day after her funeral.
They are interred together at Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in
North Hollywood.
External links
