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George Burns

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 landed a job as a syrup maker in a local candy shop at age seven, Burns was "discovered", as he recalled long after:

We were all about the same age, six and seven, and when we were bored making syrup, we used to practice singing harmony in the basement. One day our letter carrier came down to the basement. His name was Lou Farley. Feingold was his real name, but he changed it to Farley. He wanted the whole world to sing harmony. He came down to the basement once to deliver a letter and heard the four of us kids singing harmony. He liked our style, so we sang a couple more songs for him. Then we looked up at the head of the stairs and saw three or four people listening to us and smiling. In fact, they threw down a couple of pennies. So I said to the kids I was working with: no more chocolate syrup. It's show business from now on.

We called ourselves the Pee-Wee Quartet. We started out singing on ferryboats, in saloons, in brothels, and on street corners. We'd put our hats down for donations. Sometimes the customers threw something in the hats. Sometimes they took something out of the hats. Sometimes they took the hats.

— George Burns

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 would later become 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 he failed the physical examination because he was extremely nearsighted.[citation needed] 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 of 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 would accumulate more than 2,000 hits and hold 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 would steal 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 only occurred 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 girl, 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. "And all of a sudden," he said in later years, "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.

Burns was still appearing at major hotel/casinos in Las Vegas, Reno, and Lake Tahoe during the early 1980s. When Burns turned 90 in 1986, the city of Los Angeles renamed the northern end of Hamel Road "George Burns Road." City regulations prohibited naming a city street after a living person, but an exception was made for Burns. In celebration of Burns' 99th birthday in January 1995, Los Angeles renamed the eastern end of Alden Drive "Gracie Allen Drive." Burns was present at the unveiling ceremony (one of his last public appearances), where he quipped, "It's good to be here at the corner of Burns & Allen. At my age, it's good to be anywhere!" George Burns Road and Gracie Allen Drive cross just a few blocks west of the Beverly Center mall in the heart of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Burns served as honorary chairman of the Center's endowment drive.

Burns remained in good health for most of his life, in part thanks to a daily exercise regimen of swimming, walks, sit-ups, and push-ups. He bought new Cadillacs every year and drove until the age of 93. After that, Burns had chauffeurs drive him around. In his later years, he also had difficulty reading fine print.

Burns suffered a head injury after falling in his bathtub in July 1994 and underwent surgery to remove fluid in his skull. Burns never fully recovered and his performing career came to an end. In February 1995, Burns, in what would be his final television appearance, was presented with the very first SAG Lifetime Achievement Award by the Screen Actors Guild. In December of that year, a month before his 100th birthday, Burns was well enough to attend a Christmas party hosted by Frank Sinatra (who turned 80 that month), where he reportedly caught the flu, which weakened him further. When Burns was 96, he had signed a lifetime contract with Caesars Palace in Las Vegas to perform stand-up comedy there, which included the guarantee of a show on his centenary, January 20, 1996. When that day actually came, however, he was too weak to deliver the planned performance. He released a statement joking how he would love for his 100th birthday to have "a night with Sharon Stone."

On March 9, 1996, 49 days after his centenary, Burns died in his Beverly Hills home. His funeral was held three days later at the Wee Kirk o' the Heather church in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Glendale. As much as he looked forward to reaching the age of 100, Burns also stated, about a year before he died, that he also looked forward to death, saying that on the day he would die, he would be with Gracie again in Heaven. Upon being interred with Gracie, the crypt's marker was changed from, "Grace Allen Burns—Beloved Wife And Mother (1902–1964)" to "Gracie Allen (1902–1964) & George Burns (1896–1996)—Together Again". George had always said that he wanted Gracie to have top billing.

George Burns has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: a motion pictures star at 1639 Vine Street, a television star at 6510 Hollywood Boulevard, and a live performance star at 6672 Hollywood Boulevard. The first two stars were placed during the initial installations of 1960, while the third star ceremony was held in 1984, the new category of live performance, or live theatre, established that year. Burns is also a member of the Television Hall of Fame, where he and Gracie Allen were both inducted in 1988.

He is the subject of Rupert Holmes's one-actor play Say Goodnight, Gracie.

Courtesy-wikipedia
- George Burns

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