Gracie Allen

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Biography:  She had three sisters and one brother.  At the age of 5, her father left the family.  She never spoke of him again, socially.  She DID, however, make up funny things about her father in the Burns & Allen Show from time to time.  Her start in show business was with "The Allen Sisters," an Irish dancing group composed of her and her three older sisters Bessie, Hazel, and Pearl.  Gracie was attending secretarial school in San Francisco (Star of the Sea, School for Girls) before her full-time show business days.  Her roommate invited her to go to Union Hill, New Jersey to see if she was interested in working with either member of a vaudeville act that was splitting up.  The act was George Burns & Billy Lorraine.  Gracie chose George. 

    The Burns & Allen comedy act started in 1922.  Their debut was at Hillstreet Theatre in Newark, New Jersey.  Each was paid $5 a day.  Originally, George was the ditz and Gracie was the straight-man.  The audience found Gracie funnier and they loved her.  George felt the same way.  He immediately reversed their roles in future performances.  After that, they became a hit!  They were not married until 1926.  Despite this, they played singles long into their radio show days, which began in 1934.  When it became so obvious that the two were married, the radio show producers and everyone else told them, "Just get married, already," and they did.  As a matter of fact, becoming "married" on radio significantly brought up their sagging ratings.  Burns often joked, "We were the only radio couple to get married because we had to."  In 1934, the Burns & Allen radio show began on NBC, later continuing on CBS until 1950.  The TV series ran from 1950-1958 on CBS. 

    Gracie always suffered from migraines in adulthood.  They were terrible, but it rarely caused her to miss work.  There was one radio show in 1949 that she couldn't be on because of a migraine.  Jane Wyman was her substitute for that day.  It was the only show Gracie missed in working with George for  36 years.  The heart attacks is what was the beginning of the end for the show.  Gracie began having mild heart attacks in the late 1950s.  Her health was such that the hurried pace of a weekly TV show was not in her best interest.  She retired, ending the Burns & Allen TV show, in 1958.  She continued to have these small heart attacks for the rest of her life, which ended in 1964.

    In a Penthouse magazine interview very late in George's life, he said that upon Gracie's death, "I cried and cried until I couldn't cry."  He subsequently took a long break from show business, not working again for three years.  But even in the late 60s and early 70s, he only did a handful of small roles in film and television.  It wasn't until he did a movie in 1975 called "The Sunshine Boys" that everyone knew he was back full time.  The movie was a hit, and he won an Oscar for the role.  George had reinvented his act to being a surprisingly active, likable old man.  He became so popular on his own as a very old man that some younger people didn't even realize there was a Burns & Allen.  And for those who knew about Burns & Allen, there was a very definite distinction.  But no matter what, Gracie was always the one responsible for making George the star he had become from youth to old age.

    Gracie was very little like her stage persona.  She was always asked how she did it.  Gracie always said that she wasn't really acting, she just "did."  If it didn't make any sense to her, she couldn't do it.  To her, the Gracie character always made sense, but in an illogical sort of way.  She wasn't crazy, she just wanted to help people.  Gracie (the character) thought she was very smart and that everyone else was a little off-center.  She wasn't retarded by any means, but she didn't know as much as she thought she knew.  And as quick as she delivered her lines, she always blind-sided even the daffiest of characters.  The Gracie character is so brilliantly stupid that you can't help but be drawn like a moth to flame when you see her on screen.

• Had one blue eye and one green.
• Accidentally spilled boiling water on her arm as a child.  It left a terrible scar, and she kept it concealed for the rest of her life.  Her secret desire was to be able to wear a strapless evening gown and no gloves, just once.
• Had a fear of water and drowning.  She secretly took swimming lessons to be able to teach her children.

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