And the Rest Is History (15 page)

At thirteen, he opened a school of dancing; most of the clients came from Ellis Island. He told them one of the requirements of becoming a U.S. citizen was a $5 course of dancing lessons. When he recounted this story he agreed it was dishonest but added, “Have you ever been hungry?”

As a teen he entered the vaudeville circuit and decided he needed to come up with a more theatrical name than Nathan Birnbaum. An idolized sibling had been born Isadore and, hating his nickname Izzy, changed it to George. His younger brother followed suit. “Burns” came from the Burns Brothers Coal Company—a company he used to steal from in order to heat his home.

George's destiny, Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen, was born in San Francisco to an Irish Catholic family. Her father went AWOL when she was five, leaving his wife and five children destitute; Grace never spoke of him. Allen first performed at age three at an Irish dance at a church social. She fell in love with the audience's applause, and every day, on her way home from the Star of the Sea Catholic School, she would walk from theater to theater, dreaming of the time when her picture would be posted in one. Grace felt that her ticket to show business success would have to be her talent, as she was insecure about her looks. When she was a child, glass fragments from an exploding hurricane lamp had left her with one eye that appeared green and the other that appeared blue. Another childhood mishap, in which a boiling pot landed on her, resulted in a severely scarred left arm.

When Grace was eighteen, she and her sisters began to work professionally and billed themselves as the Four Colleens. The group disbanded and she became part of an act for which she was paid $22 a week. This too did not lead to success, and finding herself unemployed and destitute in New York City, she enrolled in a stenography course.

Grace would have led a life of silent desperation, joylessly taking dictation, but fate, in the form of her roommate, Rena Arnold, intervened. When Rena heard that two entertainers were looking for new partners, she suggested that she and Grace catch their show.

The first time George met Gracie was when she and Rena went backstage, and Grace said her first words to her last love: “I liked your act.” Burns recalled in his memoir of their initial encounter,
Gracie: A Love Story
, “Like Grace herself, her voice was unforgettable.” Allen chose to partner with George, which pleased him, as he found her attractive and she did not mind his cigar smoke.

They launched a comedy duo, and the audience loved Grace's “illogical logic.” George did as well: “Next to Gracie, I was wonderful. All I had to do was stand next to her and imagine some of the applause was for me.” He said of her Dumb Dora act that Grace was smart enough to become the dumbest woman in show business history.

George said that there wasn't one moment where he looked at Grace and suddenly realized he was in love. He stated in his memoir, “Love is a lot like a backache, it doesn't show up on X rays, but you know it's there.” However, Grace was engaged to a fellow entertainer, Benny Ryan. In the vein of “Hope springs eternal,” George bought a wedding ring that he kept in his pocket in case Grace changed her mind. He said of the $20 band that it was very special: “The metal actually changed colors as it aged in my pocket.” Unfortunately for Burns, the ring was not enough to change Gracie's mind.

On Christmas Eve, George was serving as a party's Santa Claus but was in a far from jolly mood. The reason for his irritability: Grace had arrived late because she had been waiting for a call from Benny. Burns presented Allen with his gift of a silver bracelet with a small diamond; her gift was a lounging robe with a card inscribed, “To Nattie, with all my love.” When he snarled, “You don't even know what love means,” she raced to the bathroom in tears. At three a.m., he received a call from Grace agreeing to marry him. She explained that when he made her cry she realized how much she loved him. He opined that if he had made her miserable sooner, he could have won her earlier. George said that the call was the second-best Christmas present of his life. The best was when they slept together Christmas night.

The couple married on January 7, 1926, in Cleveland, Ohio; because of their different religions they were wed by a justice of the peace. As the judge was in a hurry to go fishing, the newlyweds' taxi cost only fifteen cents for waiting time.

George wrote of their union, “I have to be honest, I was a lousy lover. But Grace married me for laughs, not for sex. Of course, she got both of them—when we had sex, she laughed.” Allen endeared herself to her in-laws by adopting his mother's favorite phrase, used whenever her son aggravated her: “Nattie, you're such a schmuck.”

George's main “schmuck” moment occurred when the couple got in an argument. Grace wanted to purchase a $750 silver table centerpiece; George didn't want to buy one at any price. He stormed out and ended up having a one-night stand with a Las Vegas showgirl. Grace knew of his indiscretion, and George was aware that his wife had found out. Burns felt the situation more intolerable than if they had engaged in a full-blown fight. Stricken with guilt, George bought the centerpiece as well as a $10,000 diamond ring. Grace didn't bring up the affair until seven years later when she was in the silver department at Saks with Mary Benny (Jack's wife). She found a centerpiece she liked and said to her friend, “You know, I wish George would cheat again. I really need a new centerpiece.”

In contrast, George's finest moment occurred after he had been married for twenty-five years. They were in bed when Grace said that the nicest thing about him was that he had never mentioned her withered arm. His response, “Which arm is the bad one?”

While George was known as “Nattie,” Grace too had a nickname. Once, in the middle of the night, she elbowed her sleeping spouse and asked him to make her laugh. Half asleep, he mumbled, “Googie, googie, googie.” Henceforth that was his wife's pet name.

The couple's comedy success led to radio spots, and in 1940 the comedy duo's routine revolved around Allen running for president. In one of her “campaign speeches” she joked, “I don't know much about the Land-Lease Bill, but if we owe it we should pay it.” Another line, “Everybody knows a woman is better than a man when it comes to introducing bills into the house.” She actually drew votes in the November election.

During George and Grace's nineteen years in radio, they had an audience of 45 million and a salary of $9,000 a week. As always, George deflected fame from himself to his beloved: “I'm the brains and Gracie is everything else, especially to me.” In 1950, they transitioned to television where they played themselves in a CBS series; in the wrap-up to each episode, Burns would look at Allen and say, “Say good night, Gracie,” to which she would turn to the audience and simply respond, “Good night.”

Unable to have children because of her health (she had a congenital heart condition), the Burnses adopted a daughter, Sandra Jean, and a son, Ronald John; they agreed to raise them as Catholics with the hope that when they were adults they would decide on which religion was the right one for them. With their two children, thriving career, and a stream of friends including Jack Benny and Fred Astaire visiting their home, 720 North Maple Drive was a happy place to be. George commented on his relationship, “She made me famous as the only man in America who could get a laugh by complaining, ‘My wife understands me.'” Grace was never at a loss for the wisecrack herself. She said of her spouse, “My husband will never chase another woman. He's too fine, too decent, too old.”

Grace suffered the first symptoms of a heart condition in the early 1950s, and eight years later, she retired. During her final performance, George said, “Say good night, Gracie,” for the last time. The event made the cover of
Life
magazine. George remarked of their partnership, “The audience realized I had a talent. They were right. I did have a talent—and I was married to her for thirty-eight years.” George tried to shoulder on alone, but the program folded within the year. He said, “The show had everything it needed to be successful, except Gracie.”

After waging a battle with heart disease, Grace Allen suffered a heart attack in her home in 1964 at age sixty-nine. At the hospital the doctor asked Burns if he wanted to see Grace one last time. He replied, “Of course I did. I wanted to stand next to her onstage and hear the audience laugh. I wanted to hear that birdlike voice. I wanted her to look up at me with her trusting eyes.”

Although they were millionaires many times over, at her death, Grace still wore the $20 wedding band that George had given her four decades earlier; like her spouse, it had been irreplaceable. George recounted of Grace's death: “For the first time in forty years I was alone. So I did the only thing there was to do. I leaned over and I kissed her on the lips.” He said his last words to his first love: “I love you, Googie.” George was left to shoulder on—sans Grace.

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1929

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

T
he existentialist “it” couple, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, conducted their unorthodox romance against the backdrop of 1920s Parisian cafés, often with Picasso and one of his mistresses at the next table. During their tête-à-têtes the two discoursed upon events both personal and global. However, the topic upon which they most philosophized was their relationship, one of the most controversial in the history of literary lore.

The man who was to become renowned as half of France's greatest intellectual couple was Jean-Paul Sartre, the only child of a woman who, having lost her husband, lavished all her attention on her son. His wealthy mother was the former Anne-Marie Schweitzer, a great-niece of the famed Albert Schweitzer.

From an early age two traits were to define the boy's life: his genius and his appearance, which he felt was Quasimodo's own. He was five feet two and walleyed, and he wore thick glasses. Moreover, his skin and teeth indicated an indifference to hygiene. Not surprisingly, he identified strongly with the tale of Beauty and the Beast. As soon as Jean-Paul could, he escaped his school, where he was its outcast, and headed for Paris to study at the École Normale Supérieure, while simultaneously taking classes at the Sorbonne. In France's most eminent universities he distinguished himself as much by his brilliance as by his antics; he attended one student ball in the nude and another on the arm of a prostitute clad in a flaming-red dress.