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Burns and Allen
Backstage
An Intimate Close-Up of the Famous
Radio Couple
B EFORE the interview was over, it was not
at all certain that I was not Gracie Allen’s
brother. Or is it George Burns’ brother? At
all events, I was just as lost.
I might have known from the way the matter
'farted that something confusing would eventuate.
The fact was that I was not asked to interview
Burns and Allen at all. I was asked to interview
'omebody else, hut the writer-fellow who was
going to interview Burns and Allen wanted to
interview that somebody else. So he asked me, and
I said all right, and we swapped and that’s how it
all began.
Indeed, I might have known that something
confusing would happen from such a beginning,
bur no sane mortal could have foreseen quite such
a topsy-turvy, downside-up affair as this interview
with Burns and Allen turned out to be. It might
more accurately be said, as Allen and Burns
turned out to be. You may catch some idea from
that of what to prepare yourself for.
l or my part quite unwarned, I presented my-
'<*!f on the dot of the appointed hour at the stage
door of the Paramount Theater in 'Times Square,
and, passing through that portal, became an un
fitting Alice stepping through the Looking Glass,
r.verything that followed made as much sense as
I he Carpenter and T he Snark and all the other
inverted denizens of that classic Wonderland.
Forcing what I told myself was an indifferent
progress through groups of chorus girls sitting on
the stairs with apparent—but only apparent—
unconcern for their evident allurements, I felt
into an elevator and my hand
short individual with tortoise-
I took him, in my innocence,
By Leo Fontaine
Same say that Burns is Jewish and Grace Allen is a Gentile, while others
whisper that Grace Allen is Jewish and her famous husband a non-Jew. The
fact is that both of these famous radio stars are Jewish. The writer of this
article is a well-known contributor to Radio Guide. His portrait-interview
with Burns and Allen is the most entertaining and colorful close-up of the
two stars ever presented to the reading public.
m
self pushed
grasped by a
shell glasses.
T ‘r George Burns.
Somewhere aloft, I think it was at the fifth
*or, he led me into a dressing room spacious
enough for a Latin prima donna and started
promptly disrobing, with only a casual, “Be with
*u in a minute.” I watched each article peeling
until nothing was left but a pea-green under
cut—and the tortoise shell glasses.
I’ll have Mrs. Burns in here right away,” he
nformed me. Picking up a telephone, he com
manded, “Have Mrs. Burns come to my dressing
; om at once, please.”
Not knowing exactly what was expected of me,
"'as immensely relieved when the young man se-
-cted a dressing robe from an elaborate collection
mging in a cabinet and, moreover, put it on. He
sat down, and then, “Now, just
what kind of an interview do
you want?” he inquired.
“Well, Mr. Burns,” I started,
but started only.
“Oh, let me introduce my
self,” he interrupted genially.
“I don’t blame you—no, I don’t
blame you at all. I’m Georgje
Allen—what’s your name?”
“Gracie Burns is mine,” said
the little dark-haired lady who stepped into the
room at that moment, and in all truth it was, and
is. Moreover, as far as she knows, it is going to
continue to be. I gleaned that much, anyway, in
a lucid interval of discussion on marriage and
divorce among motion picture and radio stars.
But it was only an interval.
Something about their background, how they
came to get into show business, how they liked
radio and all that sort of thing, I thought, might
be of engrossing interest to my readers.
“Do you think so?” asked Gracie. "Isn’t that
sweet ?”
“Tee-hee-tee-hee,” twittered Georgie, or George,
whichever he was at the moment.
“Now, George, listen,’’ Grace chided. “The
man is very nice and wants to interview you.
And besides, don’t put on an act—he didn’t pay
to get in.”
She had been, it seemed, with an Irish act which
is where she got the brogue she hasn’t ever been
able to shake entirely, in spite of the fact that
everybody in her San Francisco family but her
mother was on the stage. He was born in the
lower East Side and became the only actor in a
family of thirteen children, but he has a thousand
nieces who all do the Charleston, and at the age
of seven he was singing with a quartet in back
yards and Hamilton Fish Pond-Park, rather,
where he used to dance on skates.
“As a matter of fact,” said Grace, “George is
the dumb one in that act.”
“Just let that pass,” he remarked. “Brown and
Williams were doing a dancing act on skates and
I was twelve years old.”
“So he went into Brown’s act,” said Grace.
“Because Williams took sick, and my teacher
was sitting in the audience the first night I played
hookey from school. The next day they sent the
truant officer and when I played the Windsor
'Theater a year later, they were tearing it down.”
GEO. BURNS AND. GRACIE ALLEN
"Tee-hee-tee-hee," twittered Mr. and Mrs. Burns.
“George stole a gun,” Grace interpolated.
“For the five dollars pay I couldn’t collect,” he
explained. “Now, Gracie, you tell the man all
about yourself.”
Tee-hce-hee-hec,” twittered Mrs. Burns.
For it was their eighty-first week on the same
program for the Columbia Broadcasting System,
and that sort of thing, after eighty-one weeks, gets
you.
T was up until five o’clock this morning finish
ing my continuity,” George volunteered. “My life
is just a gag.”
“Georgie!” admonished Grace, for she wanted
to tell me that she hadn't worked for a year and
was visiting a girl friend in Jersey when an act
called Burns and I^orraine came to town and she
met them. Burns and Lorraine. Well, Burns,
anyway. He had an act and needed a girl. She
had an act and needed $500. So they decided to
put on his act.
“He was the comic and I did the straight lines,”
said Gracie, “but everybody laughed at me, so we
shifted the act around.”
Honest,” he interrupted earnestly, “I’m the
nut in the family. But let me tell you something
funny about Gracie. She gets up in the morning
and has her breakfast. 'Then she goes shopping.
T hen she goes to lunch. Then she goes to a mati
nee. Then she has dinner. 'Then she plays bridge.
Then she goes to bed. Then the next morning she
gets up and does it all over again.”
“Georgie!” exclaimed Grace, hopelessly. “Do
you suppose you could just let me tell the man it
was three years after w r e met before you got me to
marry you?”
“You think that’s funny,” retorted George.
“Well, listen to this—there were two fellow’s, a
Jew’ and a Scotchman—”
“And they couldn’t speak French,” put in
Gracie.
“Gracie!” said George. (Please turn to page 18)
THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE *
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