George Burns made audiences laugh for nearly a century. He sang with a kids’ quartet at age 7 on street corners, in saloons and on ferryboats, and then went on to become a star of vaudeville, radio, TV and movies.
Comedy legend Carl Reiner directed him as the Almighty in the hit 1977 movie “Oh, God!” opposite John Denver, as an assistant supermarket manager chosen to deliver a message to the world.
“George was really a workhorse,” Reiner, the author of the just-published “Why & When the Dick Van Dyke Show Was Born,” told IBD. “He was always so calm you never knew how much preparation he had done before he got there. We once had some weather problems and had to shoot a different scene, so I told him he could have some time to look over his lines. He told me, ‘Before I ever go into a project, I learn every scene and everyone’s part.’ He was ready.”
Burns’ Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor in 1975’s “The Sunshine Boys” made him the oldest winner of any Oscar in history, at age 80, a record that stood for 14 years.
Burns (1896-1996) was born Nathan Birnbaum in New York City, the ninth of 12 children of Romanian immigrants, living in three rooms without indoor plumbing. His father died from the flu seven years later, and Burns got a job mixing batches of cherry and chocolate syrup in the basement of a candy store.
During breaks, he and two other boys sang harmonies. The postman heard them and offered to be their agent, bringing in a lead singer and passing the hat wherever they performed. They soon won an amateur night, but by age 10, Burns had quit the quartet and joined two of his brothers to tap dance in variety shows between silent movies.
From Birnbaum To Burns
He gave conflicting accounts of why he chose his stage name (perhaps because his favorite brother was George, and Burns was a shortening of Birnbaum).
“He found a way to eat for nothing, asking for a cup of hot water and then pouring ketchup into it, and he came to like it,” wrote Martin Gottfried in “George Burns and the Hundred-Year Dash.” “He even found that amusing to recall, and like all of his vaudevillizing of hard times, it reflected an easygoing attitude toward life’s bumpy ride. … Even if nothing but failure lay ahead, which sometimes seemed to be his fate, he never despaired.”
After doing a bit of everything on stage, Burns was called up for World War I in 1917, only to be rejected for his extreme nearsightedness. As a result, he returned to the struggle of making it in showbiz.
One of his dance partners, Hannah Siegel, was supposed to go with him on a 26-week tour, but her parents refused unless they married. They did, though Burns claimed they never consummated the relationship, and divorced after they returned in 1923. That’s when he met Gracie Allen, a 17-year-old Irish Catholic girl who danced with her sisters.
The George And Gracie Team
Burns invited her to be the straight woman in a new comedy banter act in New York and on tour while he wrote. She was to ask questions, and he was to give funny answers, but it turned out he had to trade parts at times, since she got more laughs with her delivery than he could.
“He knew for the first time in his life that he was in a smash act,” wrote Gottfried. “Gracie had given him an awesome gift … making him a success at the only thing he wanted to be. There was a magic about Burns, and it was related to his vitality, his determination, his optimism and his extraordinary ability to relate to another person.”
In 1923, despite the religious differences of their families, they married and would adopt a daughter, Sandra, and a son, Ronnie.
George and Gracie began to get attention as a replacement act, ready to jump in anywhere, anytime, if someone dropped out. That led to a six-month contract with a vaudeville circuit.
Hitting The Air
Vaudeville began dying when radio became popular in the late 1920s. Their break came when Gracie was invited to be on Eddie Cantor’s program in 1931.
Burns wrote a dialogue that “established her character with the radio audience -- the lovable, dizzy lady whose illogical logic raised confusion to a new height,” he wrote in “All My Best Friends.”
The duo provided comedy relief for Guy Lombardo’s radio program. When the bandleader left in 1932, they inherited the slot on CBS, soon making them nationally famous. In 1937, they jumped to NBC.
George and Gracie had also been appearing in short comedy films starting in 1929, completing 11 more over the next five years, while having parts in 15 features in the 1930s. In 1935, they were paid $75,000 (equal to $1.3 million now) for starring in “The Big Broadcast of 1936,” enough money to move to Beverly Hills, Calif.
“For a show business family, the Burnses maintained a very un-showbusiness home,” wrote Gottfried. “It meant modest weekly allowances and reasonable nightly curfews. There were family meals, family trips and regular visits with the extended family. The house was casual, with a live-in couple, a houseman and a housekeeper/cook. … The one special touch was the constant laughter. Ronnie and Sandy agreed that their father was probably the funniest dad anyone ever had.”
In 1949, Jack Benny, a friend from vaudeville who had his own show on the National Broadcasting Co., convinced them to leave NBC with him and return to CBS radio, just in time for the network to capitalize on the birth of TV.
Beyond Gracie
In 1950, “The George Burns & Gracie Allen Show” debuted on CBS television.
Burns had been breaking the fourth wall, or talking directly to the home audience, commenting on the characters and joking. But the radio format seemed plodding on TV, so they developed what became the situation comedy formula, with recurring characters and running gags.
Their children also made appearances, and the show ran until 1958, when Gracie retired because of declining health. She died six years later at 69.
Burns threw himself into work to try to ignore his grief. George and Gracie had formed a production company, McCadden Corp., for more control and profit, and developed their own series, with their biggest hit being “Mister Ed,” starring Alan Young and his talking horse, a show that ran from 1961 to 1966.
From 1964 to 1965, Burns produced and starred in the TV sitcom “Wendy & Me,” with Connie Stevens as his young neighbor, but it faced stiff competition and was canceled after 34 episodes. Its lead-in program was the McCadden comedy “No Time for Sergeants,” with Sammy Jackson as a country boy who joins the Air Force, but it also faced popular competitors and died at the same time.
While producing these series, Burns performed stand-up comedy and his song-and-dance act to sell-out crowds at theaters around the country.
In the 1980s, he also released three albums, with “I Wish I Was 18 Again” reaching No. 12 on the country music chart. Not busy enough, he also authored 10 best-selling books, his last in 1996: “100 years, 100 Stories.”
Oscar And God
In 1975, Burns revived his film career with “The Sunshine Boys,” co-starring with Walter Matthau as retired vaudeville partners and earning Burns the Best Supporting Actor Oscar.
Two years later, “Oh, God!” was an unlikely hit, with Burns as the Lord telling an ordinary soul, played by Denver, to deliver a message to humans to shape up.
“When someone asked who should play God, I thought immediately of George because on his TV series, he was always standing outside the house talking about what was about to happen, a godlike quality,” said Reiner. “I learned that when he was in vaudeville, he hated Al Jolson but appreciated his talent, so whenever they were playing in the same town, George would give up one of his performances to go watch Jolson and learn from the master of show business.”
The movie grossed $51 million domestically, the seventh-highest for 1977, and it still receives rave reviews, with RottenTomatoes.com giving it an aggregate critical rating of 71 out of 100. Two sequels, “Oh, God! Book II” in 1980 and “Oh God! You Devil" in 1984, also starred Burns, but they had other directors and didn’t do as well.
Burns had been good health all his life, thanks to a daily regimen of exercise and swimming. At 96, he signed a lifetime contract to perform at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, but by then his health was deteriorating. His last motion picture was the 1994 comedy mystery “Radioland Murders,” in which he played a 100-year-old comedian.
Burns's joke was that he couldn’t die, since he was booked, but he passed on two months after turning 100. Apparently, he was being given top bill in another sequel to “Oh, God!”
Burns’ Keys
Star of vaudeville, radio, movies and TV.
Overcame: Changing popularity of outlets for comedy.
Lesson: A lively sense of humor will help you get through adversity.
“I’d rather be a failure at something I love than a success at something I hate.”
