George Burns (born Nathan Birnbaum; January 20, 1896March 9, 1996) was an American comedian, actor, writer, and singer, and one of the few entertainers whose career successfully spanned vaudeville, radio, film, and television. His arched eyebrow and cigar-smoke punctuation became familiar trademarks. He and his wife Gracie Allen appeared on radio, television and film as the comedy duo Burns and Allen.
At age 79, Burns experienced a sudden career revival as an amiable, beloved, and unusually active comedy elder statesman in the 1975 film The Sunshine Boys, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Early life George Burns was born Nathan Birnbaum () on January 20, 1896, in New York City, the ninth of 12 children born to Hadassah "Dorah" (née Bluth; ; 1857–1927) and Eliezer Birnbaum (; 1855–1903), known as Louis or Lippa, Jewish immigrants who had come to the United States from Ropczyce, Galicia, now Poland. Burns was a member of the First Roumanian-American Congregation.
His father was a substitute cantor at the local synagogue but usually worked as a coat presser. During the influenza epidemic of 1903, Lippe Birnbaum contracted the flu and died at the age of 47. Burns, called Nattie or Nate at the time, went to work to help support the family, shining shoes, running errands and selling newspapers.
When he got a job as a syrup maker in a local candy shop at age seven, Burns was "discovered", as he later recalled:
One of the Burns brothers' first regular gigs was operating the curtains at the vaudeville and nickelodeon theatre of Frank Seiden, father of Joseph Seiden, who later became a Yiddish film producer. Burns started smoking cigars when he was 14.
Burns was drafted into the United States Army when the U.S. entered World War I in 1917, but failed the physical examination because he was extremely nearsighted. To hide his Jewish heritage, he adopted the stage name by which he would be known for the rest of his life. He later claimed that he selected the name George Burns because there were two active star professional baseball players with the name (George H. Burns and George J. Burns, unrelated), each of whom accumulated more than 2,000 hits and held some major-league records. Burns also was reported to have taken "George" from his brother Izzy (who had first adopted the name because he hated his own) and "Burns" from the Burns Brothers Coal Company, from whose trucks he stole coal as a youth.
His first wife was Hannah Siegel (stage name Hermosa Jose), one of his dance partners. The marriage lasted 26 weeks and occurred only because Siegel's family would not permit her to tour with Burns unless they were married. They divorced at the end of the tour.
Burns normally partnered with a woman, sometimes in an adagio dance routine, sometimes in comic patter. Though he had an apparent flair for comedy, he never quite clicked with any of his partners until he met Gracie Allen, a young Irish Catholic woman, in 1923. "All of a sudden", he later said, "the audience realized I had a talent. They were right. I did have a talent—and I was married to her for 38 years." Burns wed Allen in 1926.
Stage to screen
As a stage act the pair, billed as "Geo. N. Burns and Miss Grace Allen" appeared at the London Palladium during the week of 25 March 1929, performing a sketch by A.L. Boasberg titled "Lamb Chops".Theatre Programme: London Palladium, w/c 25 March 1929
Burns and Allen began their career in motion pictures with a series of comic short films in the late 1920s and early 1930s, such as The Big Broadcast (1932) with Bing Crosby, International House (1933) and Six of a Kind (1934) with W. C. Fields, The Big Broadcast of 1936 with Crosby again, The Big Broadcast of 1937 with Jack Benny, A Damsel in Distress (1937) with Fred Astaire and Joan Fontaine, and College Swing (1938) with Bob Hope and Martha Raye. Honolulu (1939) with Eleanor Powell and Robert Young was Burns's last film for nearly 40 years, though Allen starred in two more pictures without him.
In 1938, Paramount producer and managing director William LeBaron was planning a vehicle for Burns and Allen to team with established star Bing Crosby, with a script written by Don Hartman and Frank Butler. But the story didn't fit Burns and Allen's style, so LeBaron ordered rewrites to fit two male co-stars: Crosby and Bob Hope. The project became Road to Singapore (1940), the first in a long-running and popular series of "Road" films.
Radio stars
Burns and Allen first appeared on the radio as the comedy relief for bandleader Guy Lombardo. In his memoir The Third Time Around, Burns shared a letter from a college fraternity complaining that its weekly dance parties were interrupted by Burns and Allen routines.
Burns and Allen found their own show and radio audience, first airing on February 15, 1932. Their show was based on their classic stage routines and sketch comedy in which their style was woven into multiple smaller scenes, in a manner similar to that of the short films that they had made in Hollywood. They were also known for clever publicity stunts, such as Allen's hunt for her missing brother that carried over into guest spots on other radio shows. In April 1935 they added Ferde Grofé as musical director.
The couple was portrayed at first as unmarried, with Allen the object of Burns's affections as well as those of other cast members. Bandleaders Ray Noble (known for his phrase "Gracie, this is the first time we've ever been alone") and Artie Shaw played Allen's love interests. Singer Tony Martin also played Allen's unwilling love interest, whom she comically threatened to fire if he did not reciprocate her romantic interest.
With ratings declining and their audience familiar with their real-life marriage, Burns and Allen adapted their radio show in 1941 to present them as a married couple. Artie Shaw, who also appeared as a character in some of the show's sketches, was the show's bandleader at one time. Allen's character also changed slightly during this era, often being mean to Burns.
As this format grew stale over the years, in 1941 Burns and his fellow writers redeveloped the show as a situation comedy. The reformat focused on the couple's married life and their friends and neighbors, including Elvia Allman as Tootsie Sagwell, a man-hungry spinster in love with Bill Goodwin. The characters of Harry and Blanche Morton became a mainstay of the program.
As with The Jack Benny Program, the new George Burns & Gracie Allen Show portrayed Burns and Allen as entertainers with their own weekly radio show. Goodwin remained, and the music was now led by Meredith Willson (later to be better known for composing the Broadway musical The Music Man). Willson also played himself on the show as naïve, friendly and shy with women. The new format's success made it one of the few classic radio comedies to completely reinvent itself and regain great success.
Supporting players The supporting cast during this phase included Mel Blanc as the melancholy, ironically named "Happy Postman" (his catchphrase was "Remember, keep smiling!"); Bea Benaderet (later Cousin Pearl in The Beverly Hillbillies, Kate Bradley in Petticoat Junction and the voice of Betty Rubble in The Flintstones) and Hal March (later the host of The $64,000 Question) as neighbors Blanche and Harry Morton; and the various members of Allen'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; Allen lovingly called him "Sugar Throat". The show received and maintained a Top 10 rating for the rest of its radio life.
New network In 1949, after 12 years at NBC, the couple took the show back to its original network CBS, where they had risen to fame from 1932 to 1937. Their friend Jack Benny reached a negotiating impasse with NBC over the corporation he set up ("Amusement Enterprises") to package his show, the better to put more of his earnings on a capital-gains basis and avoid the 80% taxes levied on very high earners in the World War II period. CBS executive 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. Thus, CBS reaped the benefits when Burns and Allen moved to television in 1950.
Television The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show
"Major radio stars like Fred Allen, Jack Benny, and Amos 'n' Andy were preparing to make the move [to television], and I wanted to do it too, but I knew Gracie had no intention of competing," Burns remembered. "She was already talking about retiring from show business, and I had to try to talk her into starting a whole new career." He finally persuaded his wife to make one TV test, and if she didn't like it, Burns would never mention the subject again.George Burns, Gracie: A Love Story, pp. 240-241..
Burns prevailed, and The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show made its TV debut on October 12, 1950. There were significant changes from the radio show: A succession of actors portrayed Harry Morton: Hal March, The Life of Riley alumnus John Brown, veteran film 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 on what show characters were doing. In later shows, he actually turned on a television and watched what the other characters were up to when he was off camera, then returned to foil them. When announcer Bill Goodwin left after the first season, Burns hired announcer Harry Von Zell, a veteran of the Fred Allen and Eddie Cantor radio shows. 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: his involvement in Allen's harebrained ideas got him fired by Burns as often as not. The first shows were simply copied from the radio format, complete with lengthy and integrated commercials for sponsor Carnation Evaporated Milk by Goodwin. But what worked well on radio sometimes 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 run of the show, the Burnses' two children, Sandra and Ronald, began to appear, Sandy in an occasional voiceover or brief on-air part (often as a telephone operator) and Ronnie in various small roles during seasons 4 and 5. Ronnie joined the regular cast in season 6. Typical of the blurred line between reality and fiction in the show, Ronnie played George and Gracie's on-air son, showing up in the second episode of season 6 ("Ronnie Arrives") with no explanation offered for where he had been for the past five years. Originally his character was an aspiring dramatic actor who held his parents' comedy style in befuddled contempt and deemed it unsuitable for a "serious" drama student. When the show's characters moved back to California in season 7 after spending the prior year in New York City, Ronnie's character dropped his acting aspirations and enrolled in USC, becoming an inveterate girl chaser.