George Burns

George Burns^[1], born Nathan Birnbaum (January 20 1896 – March 9 1996), was an American comedian and actor.

His career spanned vaudeville, film, radio, and television, with and without his equally legendary wife, Gracie Allen. His arched eyebrow and cigar smoke punctuation became familiar trademarks for over three quarters of a century. Enjoying a remarkable career resurrection that began at age 79, and ended shortly before his death at age 100, George Burns was better known in the last two decades of his life than at any other time in his life and career.

From the cantor's son to the Peewee Quartet

Nathan Birnbaum was the ninth of twelve children born to Louis and Dorothy (Bluth) Birnbaum in New York City. His father was a substitute cantor at the local synagogue but did not work very often. During the flu epidemic of 1903, Louis had his chance to earn some real money but contracted the flu and died. Nattie (as he was known to his family) started working in 1903 after his father's death, shining shoes, running errands, and selling newspapers.

When he landed a job as a syrup maker in a local candy shop at age seven, Nattie Birnbaum was discovered, as he recalled many years later:

Burns quit school in the fourth grade to go into show business full-time. Like many performers of his generation, he tried practically anything he could to entertain, including trick roller skating, teaching dance, singing, and adagio dancing in small-time vaudeville. During these years, he began smoking cigars—which became comic props—and adopted the stage name by which he would be known for the rest of his life.

He normally partnered with a girl, sometimes in an adagio dance routine, sometimes comic patter. Though he had an apparent flair for comedy, he never quite clicked with any of his partners, until he met a young Irish Catholic lady in 1923. "And all of a sudden," he said famously (and repeatedly—never failing to get a laugh from it, either), in later years, "the audience realised I had a talent. They were right. I did have a talent—and I was married to her for 38 years."

Enter Gracie

Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen was born into a show business family; after being educated at Star of the Sea Convent School in girlhood, she teamed in vaudeville with her sister, Bessie, in 1909.

She met George Burns and the two immediately launched a new partnership—but they did not click until Burns cannily flipped the act around: after a Hoboken, New Jersey performance in which they tested the new style for the first time, Burns's hunch proved right. Gracie was the better laugh-getter, especially with the "illogical logic" that informed her responses to Burns's prompting comments or questions.

Allen's half of the act was known generally as a "Dumb Dora" act, named after a very early film of the same name that featured a scatterbrained female protagonist, but her "illogical logic" style was several cuts above the Dumb Dora stereotype, as was Burns's understated straight man. The twosome worked the new style tirelessly on the road, building a following, and finally playing the vaudevillian's dream: the Palace in New York. They fell in love along the way and married in Cleveland, Ohio on January 7 1926—somewhat daring for those times, considering Burns's Jewish and Allen's Irish Catholic upbringing.^[3] (For her part, Allen also endeared herself to her in-laws by adopting his mother's favourite phrase, used whenever the older woman needed to bring her son back down to earth: "Nattie, you're a nice boy," using a diminutive of his given name. When Burns's mother died, Allen comforted her grief-stricken husband with the same phrase.)

Stage to screen

Getting a start in motion pictures with a series of comic short films, their feature credits in the mid- to late-1930s included The Big Broadcast of 1932; International House in 1933; Six of a Kind in 1934; The Big Broadcast of 1936; The Big Broadcast of 1937; A Damsel in Distress in 1937 and College Swing in 1938, in which Bob Hope made one of his early film appearances.

Burns and Allen were indirectly responsible for the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby "Road" pictures. In 1938, William LeBaron, producer and managing director at Paramount, had a script prepared by Don Hartman and Frank Butler. It was to star Burns and Allen with a young crooner named Bing Crosby. The story did not seem to fit George and Gracie, so LeBaron ordered Hartman and Butler to rewrite their script to fit two male co-stars—Hope and Crosby. The script was titled Road to Singapore and it made motion picture history.

Burns and Allen were always praised as having one of the happiest marriages in show business, their friends commenting that they were to marriage what Rogers and Hammerstein were to music: style, dignity, and class all the way.^{[citation needed]} But Burns eventually admitted that even their marriage suffered at least one stressful enough period that he did the unthinkable: after the stress climaxed in an argument over a pricey silver table centerpiece Gracie coveted, he had a very brief affair with a Las Vegas showgirl. To the day he died, he considered it the biggest regret of his life—and considered himself fortunate to have his wife's forgiveness. He also bought her the centerpiece out of guilt. Typically, Burns discovered in an offhand way that his wife knew what he had done, when he overheard what would have sounded anywhere else like a classic Gracie Allen punch line. Shopping with a friend, Gracie remarked, "You know, I really wish George would cheat on me again. I could use a new centerpiece."

Radio stars

Burns and Allen first made it to radio as the comedy relief for bandleader Guy Lombardo, which did not always sit well with Lombardo's home audience. In his later memoir, The Third Time Around, Burns revealed a college fraternity's protest letter, complaining that they resented their weekly dance parties with their girl friends to "Thirty Minutes of the Sweetest Music This Side of Heaven" had to be broken into by the droll vaudeville team.

In time, though, Burns and Allen found their own show and radio audience, first airing on February 15 1932 and concentrating on their classic stage routines plus sketch comedy in which the Burns and Allen style was woven into different little scenes, not unlike the short films they made in Hollywood. They were also good for a clever publicity stunt, none more so than the hunt for Gracie's missing brother—a hunt that included Gracie turning up on other radio shows searching for him as well. They also cooked up a stunt involving Gracie's fictitious run for the U.S. presidency ("Everybody knows a woman is much better than a man at introducing bills into the house," was a typical Gracie 'campaign' crack) which was influential enough that Allen actually received votes in the November 1940 election.^{[citation needed]}

The couple was portrayed at first as younger singles, with Allen the object of both Burns's and other cast members affections. Most notable bandleaders Ray Noble (known for his phrase, "Gracie this is the first time we've ever been alone") and Artie Shaw played "love" interests to Gracie. While singer Tony Martin, played an unwilling love interest of Gracie in which Gracie "sexually harassed" him, by threatening to fire him if the romantic interest wasn't returned. In time, however, slipping ratings and the difficulty of being portrayed as singles in light of the audience's close familiarity with their real-life marriage, the show adapted in 1940 to present them as the married couple they actually were. For a time, Burns and Allen had a rather distinguished and popular musical director: swing era titan Artie Shaw, who also appeared as a character in some of the show's sketches. A somewhat different Gracie also marked this era as the Gracie character could often found to be mean to George.

George) Your mother cut my face out of the picture.
Gracie) Oh George you're being sensitive.
Georgie) I am not! Look at my face! What happened to it?
Gracie) I don't know; it looks like you fell on it.

Or

Census Taker) What do you make?
Gracie) I make cookies and aprons and knit sweaters.
Census Taker) No, I mean what do you earn?
Gracie) George's salary.

As this format grew stale over the years Burns and his fellow writers redeveloped the show as a situation comedy, focusing on the couple's married life and life among various friends, including Elvia Allman as "Tootsie Sagwell," a man-hungry spinster in love with Bill Goodwin, and neighbours, until the characters of Harry and Blanche Morton entered the picture to stay. Like The Jack Benny Program, the new George Burns & Gracie Allen Show portrayed George and Gracie as entertainers with their own weekly radio show. Goodwin remained, his character as "girl-crazy" as ever, and the music was now handled by Meredith Willson (later to be better known for composing the play The Music Man). Willson also played himself on the show as a naive, friendly, girl-shy fellow. The new format's success made it one of the few classic radio comedies to completely re-invent itself and regain major fame.

Supporting players

The supporting cast during this phase included Mel Blanc as the melancholy, ironically named "Happy Postman"; Bea Benaderet and Hal March (later infamous as the host of The $64,000 Question) as neighbors Blanche and Harry Morton; and the various members of Gracie's ladies' club, the Beverly Hills Uplift Society. One running gag during this period, stretching into the television era, was Burns's questionable singing voice, as Gracie lovingly referred to her husband as "Sugar Throat." The show received and maintained a top ten rating for the rest of its radio life.

They also took the show to CBS in 1948, after having spent their entire radio career to date on NBC. They moved at the beckon of their good friend Jack Benny, who had been courted by CBS when he hit a negotiating impasse with NBC over the corporation he set up to package his show, the better to put more of his earnings on a capital-gains basis and avoid the punishing 80 percent taxes slapped on very high earners in the World War II era. When CBS czar William S. Paley convinced Benny to move to CBS (Paley, among other things, impressed Benny with his attitude that the performers make the network, not the other way around as NBC chief David Sarnoff reputedly believed), Benny in turn convinced several NBC stars to join him, including Burns and Allen. And thus did CBS reap the benefits when Burns and Allen moved to television in 1950.

Inside and outside the box

On television, The George Burns & Gracie Allen Show put faces to the radio characters audiences had come to love. A number of significant changes were seen in the show:

• A parade of actors portrayed Harry Morton: Hal March, The Life Of Riley alumnus John Brown, veteran movie and television character actor Fred Clark, and future Mister Ed co-star Larry Keating.
• Burns often broke the fourth wall, and chatted with the home audience, telling understated jokes and commenting wryly about what show characters were doing or undoing.
• When Bill Goodwin left after the earliest episodes, Burns hired veteran radio announcer Harry Von Zell to succeed him. Von Zell was cast as the good-natured, easily-confused Burns and Allen announcer and buddy. He also became one of the show's running gags, when his involvement in yet another one of Gracie's harebrained ideas would get him fired at least once a week by George.
• The first shows were simply a copy of the radio format, complete with lengthy and integrated commercials for sponsor Carnation Evaporated Milk by Goodwin. However, what worked well on radio appeared forced and plodding on television. The show was changed into the now-standard situation comedy format, with the commercials distinct from the plot.
• Midway through the show's run, the Burns's two adopted children, Sandra and Ronald, began to feature on the show, Sandy as an occasional drama school classmate of Ronnie, and Ronnie himself as George and Gracie's son who held his parents' comedy style in befuddled contempt and unsuitable to the "serious" drama student. Ironically, then, in one episode Ronnie and Sandy---in a plot centered around their school's staging a vaudeville-style show to raise money---performed a remarkable impersonation of their famous parents' stage and radio comedy routines.

Burns and Allen also took a cue from Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz's Desilu Productions and formed a company of their own, McCadden Corporation (named after the street on which Burns's brother lived), headquartered on the General Service Studio lot in the heart of Hollywood, and set up to film television shows and commercials. Besides their own hit show, the couple's company produced such television series as The Bob Cummings Show (also known as Love That Bob); The People's Choice, starring Jackie Cooper; Mona McClusky, starring Juliet Prowse; and Mister Ed, starring Alan Young and a talented "talking" horse.

The George Burns Show

The George Burns & Gracie Allen Show (home of the legendary skit where George says, "Say goodnight, Gracie" and Gracie replies, "Goodnight, Gracie!" - a legend disputed) ran on CBS through 1958, when George at last consented to Gracie's retirement. The onset of heart trouble had exhausted her of full-time work and she had been anxious to stop for a few years, but couldn't say no to George. Perhaps in gratitude for that kind of trouping, George finally agreed.

Burns attempted to continue the show without her, but without Allen to provide the classic Gracie-isms on cue, the show expired after a year.

Burns subsequently created a situation comedy he co-starred in with Connie Stevens, Wendy & Me, in which he served primarily as the narrator, and secondarily as the advisor to Stevens's Gracie-like character. The show's premise involved the middle-aged Burns watching his gorgeous young upstairs neighbor's activities on his television set, apparently via hidden cameras, then breaking the fourth wall and commenting on them directly to viewers. The series did not last long, as Burns withdrew because of Gracie's health.

The Sunshine Boy

Gracie Allen's death of a heart attack in 1964 devastated Burns, who immersed himself in work. McCadden Productions co-produced the television series No Time for Sergeants, based on the hit Broadway play. At the same time, he toured the U.S. playing nightclub and theater engagements with such diverse partners as Carol Channing, Dorothy Provine, Jane Russell, Connie Haines, and Berle Davis. He also performed a series of solo concerts, playing university campuses, New York's Philharmonic Hall and winding up a successful season at the prestigious Carnegie Hall, where he wowed a capacity audience with his show-stopping songs, dances, and jokes.

Then, in 1974, Jack Benny signed to play one of the lead roles in the film version of Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys. Benny's health had begun to fail, however, and he advised his manager Irving Fein to let longtime friend Burns fill in for him on a series of nightclub dates to which Benny had committed around the U.S.

Burns, who enjoyed working, accepted the job. As he recalled years later:

"The happiest people I know are the ones that are still working. The saddest are the ones who are retired. Very few performers retire on their own. It's usually because no one wants them. Six years ago Sinatra announced his retirement. He's still working."^[4]

But Benny was not even able to work on The Sunshine Boys, as he'd been diagnosed at last with pancreatic cancer and died soon thereafter, on December 26, 1974. Burns, heartbroken, said that the only time he ever wept in his life other than Gracie's death was when Benny died. He was chosen to give one of the eulogies at the funeral and said, "Jack was someone special to all of you but he was so special to me…I cannot imagine my life without Jack Benny and I will miss him so very much." Burns then broke down and had to be helped to his seat. People who knew George said that he never could really come to terms with his beloved friend's death.

Burns replaced Benny in the film as well as the club tour, a move that turned out to be the one of the biggest breaks of his career: his performance as faded vaudevillian Al Lewis earned him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and secured his career resurgence for good. At age 80, Burns was the oldest Oscar winner in the history of the Academy Awards, a record that would remain until Jessica Tandy won an Oscar for Driving Miss Daisy in 1989.

The Droll Deity

In 1977, Burns made another hit film, Oh, God!, playing the omnipotent title role opposite singer John Denver as an earnest but befuddled supermarket manager, whom God picks at random to revive His message. The image of Burns in a sailor's cap and light springtime jacket as the droll Almighty ("Oh, every now and then I work a little miracle just to keep my hand in. My last miracle was the 1969 Mets. Before that, I think you'd have to go back to the Red Sea—aaahh, that was a beauty") influenced his subsequent comedic work, as well that of other comedians. At a celebrity roast in his honor, former actor and future U.S. president Ronald Reagan adapted a Burns crack: "When George was growing up, the Top Ten were the Ten Commandments."

Oh, God! inspired two sequels Oh, God! Book Two (in which the Almighty engages a precocious schoolgirl (Louanne Sirota) to spread the word) and Oh, God! You Devil — in which Burns played a dual role as God and the Devil, with the soul of a would-be songwriter (Ted Wass) at stake.

Burns also starred in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the ill-advised film based on the Beatles' album of the same name.

Burns continued to work well into his nineties, writing a number of books and appearing in television and films. One of his last films was 18 Again, based on a half-novelty, country music based hit single he enjoyed, "I Wish I Was 18 Again." ("Why shouldn't I be a country singer?" he deadpanned. "I'm older than most countries.") In this film, he played a self-made millionaire industrialist who switched bodies with his awkward, artistic, eighteen-year-old grandson (played by Charlie Schlatter). Classically, Burns delivered one of his typical droll observations, when he realises he and his grandson have switched bodies: "Oh, David, did you get the short end of this deal!"

His last feature film role was the cameo role of Milt Lackey, a 100 year old stand-up comedian, in the comedy mystery Radioland Murders.

Final Years

Burns's stage persona in his final phase of professional life was that of an amorous senior citizen ("I'd love to date women my own age — but there are no women my own age") that became a running gag for the rest of his career. He often shared the social company of very attractive young women, but he was never known to be crude or boorish with them and had a reputation for treating them with respect.^{[citation needed]}

Burns never remarried, nor did he elect to perform Burns and Allen-style routines again, with the exception of one such performance he consented to do with Bernadette Peters. According to They Still Love Me in Altoona, he found it impossible to sleep until he decided one night to sleep in the bed that Gracie used during her illness. He also visited her grave at least once a month, professing to talk to her about whatever he was doing at the time — including, he said, trying to decide whether he really should accept the Sunshine Boys role Jack Benny had had to abandon because of his own failing health.

George Burns received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1988.

In time, however, the likelihood that Burns would live to see his 100th birthday became a running gag in his (and plenty of other admiring comedians') stage work, but he indeed intended to live that long, even booking himself to play the London Palladium as a 100th birthday celebration. (This supplied another joke for his act, with Burns commenting "I can't die; I'm booked.")

These plans were dashed, however, when he suffered a serious fall in July 1994. George had fallen in his bathtub and had suffered injuries to his head. This was the beginning of the end for George, as he started to decline in health considerably. In December 1995, George attended a Christmas party hosted by Frank Sinatra where he reportedly caught the flu and weakened George even more. Although he reached his one hundredth birthday in 1996, Burns was no longer mobile enough to perform. All of his engagements were cancelled.

On March 9, 1996, just forty-nine days after his milestone birthday, George Burns died in his Beverly Hills home. His funeral was held on March 12th at the Wee Kirk o' the Heather church in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Glendale.

As much as he looked forward to reaching age 100, Burns also stated that he looked forward to death, as the day he died he would be with Gracie again in heaven.

Trivia

• Burns and Allen were the subjects of Rupert Holmes' play Say Goodnight, Gracie.
• When Gracie Allen was buried, her tomb marker read "Gracie Allen Burns—Beloved Wife and Mother." After George was interred with her, this was replaced with one saying "Gracie Allen and George Burns—Together Again."
• In the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the two humpback whales are named George and Gracie after Burns and Allen. Their routine was also referenced by Commander Data in a second season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Outrageous Okona.
• In an episode of The Simpsons ("Rosebud"), it is implied that the fictional character Montgomery Burns was George Burns's brother since they both have the last name. Alluding caustically to Burns's success in his later life, his character makes a joke and then says "trust me it'll be funny when I'm an old man."
• A recording exists of Burns and other comedians "working blue" in front of a stag audience at a Masquers Club roast in the mid-1950s.
• During Burns's lifetime, a Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson depicted a futuristic city with flying cars, space helmets, and a billboard that said "Performing tonight: George Burns"
• Hooters restaurants have a sign that prior to George's death read "We even card George Burns" and following his death were changed to read "We even carded George Burns".
• Burns was one of the residents of Hell in the South Park episode, Hell on Earth 2006.
• Asked when 81 if, as a Sunshine Boy, he had lived in Hell's Kitchen on 45th Street, Burns wrote in a letter that he couldn't even recall where 45th Street is.
• Burns fell 11 days short of living as long as Bob Hope. Lived 36,573 days, aged 100.131 years.

Filmography

Features:

• The Big Broadcast (1932)
• International House (1933)
• College Humor (1933)
• Six of a Kind (1934)
• Many Happy Returns (1934)
• Love in Bloom (1935)
• Here Comes Cookie (1935)
• The Big Broadcast of 1936 (1935)
• College Holiday (1936)
• A Damsel in Distress (1937)
• College Swing (1938)
• Honolulu (1939)
• The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956) (narrator)
• The Sunshine Boys (1975)
• Oh, God! (1977)
• Movie Movie (1978)
• Just You and Me, Kid (1979)
• Going in Style (1979)
• Oh, God! Book II (1980)
• Oh, God! You Devil! (1984)
• 18 Again! (1988)
• A Century of Cinema (1994) (documentary)
• Radioland Murders (1994)

Short Subjects:

• Lambchops (1929)
• Fit to Be Tied (1930)
• Pulling a Bone (1931)
• The Antique Shop (1931)
• Once Over, Light (1931)
• 100% Service (1931)
• Oh, My Operation (1932)
• The Babbling Book (1932)
• Your Hat (1932)
• Let's Dance (1933)
• Hollywood on Parade No. A-9 (1933)
• Walking the Baby (1933)
• Screen Snapshots: Famous Fathers and Sons (1946)
• Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Grows Up (1954)
• Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Beauty (1955)
• All About People (1967) (narrator)
• A Look at the World of Soylent Green (1973)
• The Lion Roars Again (1975)

Radio series

• The Robert Burns Panatella Show 1932–1933; CBS

In their debut series, George and Gracie shared the bill with Guy Lombardo and his orchestra. The pair launched themselves into national stardom with their first major publicity stunt, Gracie's ongoing search for her missing brother.

• The White Owl Program 1933–1934; CBS
• The Adventures of Gracie 1934–1935; CBS
• The Campbell's Tomato Juice Program 1935–1937; CBS
• The Grape Nuts Program 1937–1938; NBC
• The Chesterfield Program 1938–1939; CBS
• The Hinds Honey and Almond Cream Program 1939–1940; CBS

This series featured another wildly successful publicity stunt which had Gracie running for President of the United States.

• The Hormel Program 1940–1941; NBC

Advertised a brand new product called Spam; this show featured musical numbers by jazz great Artie Shaw.

• The Swan Soap Show 1941–1945; NBC, CBS

This series featured a radical format change, in that George and Gracie played themselves as a married couple for the first time, and the show became a full-fledged domestic situation comedy. This was George's response to a marked drop in ratings under the old "Flirtation Act" format.

• Maxwell House Coffee Time 1945–1949; NBC
• The Amm-i-Dent Toothpaste Show 1949–1950; CBS

TV series

• The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show 1950–1958; CBS

Broadcast live every other week for the first two seasons, 26 episodes per year. Starting in the third season, all episodes were filmed and broadcast weekly, 40 episodes per year. A total of 291 episodes were created.

• The George Burns Show 1958–1959; NBC

An unsuccessful attempt to continue the format of The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show without Gracie, the rest of the cast intact.

• Wendy and Me 1964–1965; NBC

George plays narrator in this short-lived series, just as he had in The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, but with far less on-screen time, as the focus is on a young couple played by Connie Stevens and Ron Harper. Stevens is, essentially, playing a version of Gracie's character.

• George Burns Comedy Week 1985; CBS

Another short-lived series, a weekly comedy anthology program whose only connecting thread was George's presence as host. He does not appear in any of the actual storylines. He was 89 years old when the series was produced.

Footnotes

George Burns by Martin Gottfried, published by Simon & Schuster, 1996

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