Camden summer resident Beloin had long career as comic writer

Edmund M. Beloin was known around Camden as part owner of Beloin’s Motel, but in theatrical circles he was a well-respected comic writer who penned starring vehicles for Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and John Wayne.

Beloin died Tuesday at Hospice House Medical Center in Pompano Beach, Fla. He was 82. He was a summer resident of Camden for nearly 20 years. Prior to his retirement, Beloin lived the magic life of a Hollywood producer and writer with an impressive list of radio, television and movie credits.

For almost 50 years he worked in the writing trade: radio in its infancy, movies in their golden age, as well as television and theater.

Beloin was a young free-lancer banging around New York City in the 1930s when Jack Benny tapped him to write for his radio show. When Jack and Mary Livingston Benny took their show to Hollywood in 1935, Beloin went with them.

Beloin told his family that although writing for the Benny show was “nerve-wracking … Jack was the most patient editor a fledgling could have wished for.” Beloin wrote the “Jack Benny Radio Show” from 1936 to 1942. At Benny’s request Beloin wrote himself into the show, playing the character of Mr. Billingsly, the pleasantly insane boarder at the Benny mansion in Beverly Hills.

It was while rewriting parts of “To Be or Not To Be,” a 1942 movie starring Benny and Carole Lombard, that Beloin decided to take up screenwriting. His first screenplay, in 1943, was a musical for MGM, “The Harvey Girls,” starring a 16-year-old singer named Judy Garland. His next, “Lady On a Train,” starred Deanna Durbin and Charles Laughton.

Beloin moved to Paramount where he wrote a musical adaptation of Mark Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” which starred Bing Crosby. His next movie was “Road to Rio,” starring Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour. That film was the beginning of a long association with Hope who felt right at home with Beloin’s form of comedy.

Over the next dozen years at Paramount he wrote most of Hope’s feature comedies. They included “My Favorite Brunette,” “The Lemon Drop Kid,” “Visit to a Small Planet,” “My Favorite Spy,” “The Great Lover,” “My Favorite Redhead,” and “Holiday In Paris.”

Following a stint as co-writer of the play “In Any Language,” which opened on Broadway in 1952, Beloin returned to films, including the Irish musical “Top of the Morning,” starring Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald. His last movie was an adventure story, “Donovan’s Reef,” directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne.

Beloin received a Writers Guild Award nomination for his musical screenplay “G.I. Blues,” which was Elvis Presley’s first role after his discharge from the Army.

In the 1960s Beloin moved over to television, writing teleplays for “Playhouse 90” and serving as creative producer for the “NBC Comedy Hour.” It was on the latter show that Beloin hired a “bright youngster from New York” to write sketches. But they didn’t get along and “Woody Allen flew back to the greater glories of Manhattan.”

In the 1970s Beloin reluctantly turned his attention to situation comedies. He did so reluctantly, because he felt that modern sitcoms with their laugh machines degraded versions of the original situation comedy created by Jack Benny. Listed among those comedy shows were “The Thin Man,” “The Lucy Show,” “Mayberry RFD,” “My Three Sons,” and “Family Affair.”

Beloin retired to Camden with his wife, Lynn, to a 70-acre coastal retreat bought with earnings from his first Benny shows. In his later years, he was amused to note that videocassettes had brought many of his early movies back to life for the enjoyment of the children and grandchildren of his original audiences.

Beloin leaves his wife, Lynn, of Camden and Florida and a son, John H. Beloin of California.