Leo Gorcey Talks about Billy "Whitey" Benedict

In our 17th post, Leo Gorcey reminisces about Billy Benedict, who played "Whitey" in the Bowery Boys. Although he began his association with Leo as a rival adversary of the East Side Kids (e.g., the venomous "Spider"), Billy was to eventually become a mainstay of the series as the amiably vacuous "Whitey," Bowery birdbrain par excellence. In fact, Billy is the only "add-on" gang member who's generally held in the same high-esteem among fans as the "original" Dead End core-group: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan and Gabriel Dell. And, quite fittingly, Leo reveals that Billy was just as nice offscreen as he was on (and one would guess probably a whole lot smarter, too!).