Eugene Twombly

Eugene Tracy Twombly (April 27, 1914 – October 17, 1968) was a sound effects technician in radio and motion pictures.^[1]

Eugene Twombly
Publicity Photo of Eugene Twombly
Born	Eugene Tracy Twombly (1914-04-27)April 27, 1914 California, U.S.
Died	October 17, 1968(1968-10-17) (aged 54) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Other names	Gene Twombly
Occupation	Sound effects technician
Years active	1950s–1968
Spouse	Bea Benaderet ​ ​ (m. 1957; died 1968)​

Early life

Eugene Twombly was born in California in 1914 to Ralph H. and Marie L. Twombly (née Tracy; 1892–1958).^[2][3] He was the eldest of two children with a younger brother, Ralph Jr. (born 1922), and of partial Canadian ancestry from his paternal grandmother.^[2]

Career

He is best known for his sound work on The Jack Benny Program,^[4] where his wife, actress Bea Benaderet, played telephone operator Gertrude Gearshift. Other works included Arch Oboler's Lights Out,^[5] The Stan Freberg Show,^[6] The Gene Autry Show, The Whistler, and When the West Was Young,^[7] and a collaboration with Bill Cosby and Frank Buxton on The Bill Cosby Radio Program, which aired 145 episodes from January to July 1968.^[8][9]

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.^[10] In the 1962 first season of The Beverly Hillbillies (where Benaderet had a recurring role as Cousin Pearl Bodine), two consecutive episodes, "The Clampetts Get Psychoanalyzed" and "The Psychiatrist Gets Clampetted," featured a psychiatrist named "Dr. Eugene Twombly" who was played by Herbert Rudley.^[11]

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.^[12] They are interred together at Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in North Hollywood.