George X 100 -- A Century's Worth Of Facts About Centenarian George Burns
1. His 100th birthday is tomorrow.
2. His real name is Nathan Birnbaum.
3. He grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
4. He had five brothers and six sisters.
5. His father, Louis Birnbaum, was a butcher and part-time cantor.
6. Although he was the son of Eastern European Orthodox Jews, he was never bar mitzvahed.
7. To support his widowed mother, he sold newspapers and shined shoes as a boy.
8. His first performance was at the age of 8 with the Pee-wee Quartet, four neighborhood boys. They sang on street corners.
9. His eye for young women earned him the nickname "Romeo of Rivington Street."
10. By age 14, he'd been a trick roller-skater, a dance teacher and a dancer in vaudeville.
11. He dropped out of school after fourth grade.
12. He took the name Burns because he and his friend were called the Burns Brothers after they stole chunks of coal from the Burns Brothers Coal Yard.
13. He named himself George in honor of his brother Isadore, who had Americanized his name to George.
14. Other early show-biz aliases: Willie Saks, Jed Jackson, Willie Delight, Jack Harris, Jimmy Malone and Pedro Lopez.
15. He started smoking eight-cent cigars when he was 14.
16. When he was 16, he was so discouraged by his lack of progress in vaudeville that he took a job with a blouse manufacturer.
17. He was rejected from the Army during World War I because of poor eyesight.
18. He claims his first marriage to his onetime vaudeville partner, Hannah Siegel, was annulled because it was never consummated.
19. His best friend during his struggling vaudeville days was Jack Benny, a lifelong pal.
20. One of his show-stopping acts in vaudeville was an imitation of George M. Cohan.
21. He met Gracie Allen backstage at a vaudeville house. She was a friend of a performer who shared the bill with Burns.
22. George and Gracie's first appearance as a team was in Newark, N.J., in 1923.
23. He considered himself a failure as a performer until he teamed with Gracie.
24. Gracie called him "Natty."
25. His pet name for Gracie was "Googie."
26. When they first teamed, George was the comic and Gracie the "straight" woman.
27. The first time he proposed to Gracie (who was engaged to another man), in 1925, she responded, "Oh, Natty, don't be such a kidder."
28. They got their wedding license between shows in Steubenville, Ohio.
29. They were married the next day, Jan. 7, 1926, in Cleveland by a justice of the peace.
30. He gave Gracie a $17 wedding ring, which had been marked down to $11.
31. George and Gracie's first movie was a 10-minute short for Paramount in 1929 called "Lamb Chops," based on his vaudeville act.
32. He and Gracie did 13 one-reel films during the 1930s.
33. They did seven feature films with co-stars that included Bob Hope, W.C. Fields and Fred Astaire.
34. Unable to conceive, George and Gracie adopted two children: Sandra and Ronald.
35. Their first radio act was part of Guy Lombardo's show on CBS.
36. George insisted that their radio show have no studio audience because of Gracie's "mike fright."
37. To better learn movie scripts, he hired a private tutor to help him read above a fourth-grade level.
38. He still lives at 720 N. Maple Drive in Beverly Hills, where he moved in 1936.
39. During the Depression, he was earning $75,000 per picture.
40. Since 1934, he has been a member of Beverly Hills' Hillcrest Country Club, which was started because Jews were excluded by elite Los Angeles clubs.
41. At the club he lunched regularly with a group of comedians called "the round table" who occupied a corner table in the men's grill.
42. He drinks only soup that's served boiling hot, a reminder of his Lower East Side days when often all he had to eat was boiling water and ketchup.
43. He doesn't like vegetables or fruits.
44. He didn't like Groucho Marx.
45. He liked Harpo. One time, he and Harpo played golf in their underwear as a protest against the golf club's policy that members had to wear shirts at all times ("They didn't say anything about pants").
46. He gave up playing in the early 1970s because he finally realized he'd never be any good at it.
47. He smokes inexpensive El Producto cigars because the tobacco is loosely wrapped and it rarely goes out.
48. In nightclub acts, he times his monologue by how much of his cigar has been smoked.
49. His eyesight is so poor he can't read normal-size print.
50. He memorized his lines for his TV show, not trusting himself to read from cue cards.
51. The success of his TV company, McCadden Productions, made him a millionaire several times over.
52. To rehearse the monologues for his 1950s "Burns & Allen" TV show, he would talk to himself while walking down Sunset Boulevard.
53. His production company produced several classic sitcoms, including "Love That Bob" and "Mr. Ed."
54. As a guest of President Kennedy at the White House in 1963, he performed "Willie, the Weeper, Was Chimney Sweeper," "Red Rose Rag" and "Strut, Miss Lizzie."
55. After cheating once on Gracie, he gave his wife a silver centerpiece and a $10,000 diamond ring.
56. After Gracie died in 1964, he started sleeping in her bed.
57. At least twice a month, he visits Gracie's mausoleum at Forest Lawn. "I tell her everything I'm doing. I know she'll never come back, but to me she really isn't gone."
58. He still keeps Gracie's wedding ring in his pocket on a watch chain.
59. He played himself in a long-forgotten 1964 sitcom called "Wendy and Me," with Connie Stevens.
60. He once stood 5-foot-9. He has now shrunk to just a bit over 5 feet.
61. His principal hobby is bridge.
62. He once got so abusive at a partner's misplay during a bridge match that the partner refused ever to play with him again.
63. He waited 36 years between movie roles - "Honolulu" in 1939 and "The Sunshine Boys" in 1975.
64. The Oscar-winning role in the latter was originally supposed to be for his good friend Jack Benny, who refused it because he was ill with cancer.
65. After winning the Oscar for best supporting actor in 1975, he told reporters, "I'm thinking of taking on gentile roles and becoming the new Robert Redford."
66. His favorite drink is a martini.
67. His first post-Gracie romance was with Lisa Miller, nearly 50 years his junior.
68. He later became involved with Texas socialite Cathy Carr, about 40 years his junior.
69. His fitness regimen: swimming laps, brisk walks, Canadian Royal Air Force exercises (sit-ups, knee bends, shoulder twists).
70. On a 1970s LP, he sang "Mr. Bojangles," "Satisfaction," "Feeling Groovy" and "A Little Help from My Friends."
71. He also has recorded three albums of country music.
72. He had a cameo role, dancing with the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton, in the 1978 movie bomb "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."
73. When he had triple-bypass heart surgery at 78 in 1974, it was reported he was the oldest person ever to have that operation.
74. He drove until he was 93, when he no longer could see over the steering wheel.
75. He is now chauffeured in his Cadillac by a 6-foot-6 driver named Conrad.
76. He buys a new Cadillac Seville every year.
77. He began wearing a toupee when he was 28 years old.
78. He always took his toupee off as soon as he came home.
79. The only time in his career when he was seen sans rug was during a scene in "The Sunshine Boys."
80. He applies Revlon's Eterna27 cream to his hands every morning.
81. He has six grandchildren.
82. He has five great-grandchildren.
83. He has written (or collaborated on) 10 books.
84. He has always called people whose names he doesn't remember "kid," no matter what their age.
85. He has played God three times in three movies.
86. For good luck, he wears Gracie's "cat's eye" ring on the ring finger of his left hand.
87. He is a fan of the California Angels.
88. Comedians he most admires: Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Milton Berle, George Jessel and Lou Holtz.
89. He appeared on the cover of Penthouse magazine with his arms around Miss America Vanessa Williams.
90. In 1983, Harper's Bazaar chose him as one of America's seven sexiest bachelors.
91. Playgirl readers picked him as one of America's 10 sexiest men.
92. He takes credit for discovering Ann-Margret.
93. He always has a piano in his dressing room.
94. He says his most embarrassing moment was when he went through a performance with his fly open. "For the next show," he said, "I closed my fly and the manager canceled me."
95. He contributed $1 million to the victims of the 1989 San Francisco earthquake.
96. Because of a substantial donation he made to the Ben-Gurion University in Israel, a building there is named the George Burns Medical Education Center.
97. A two-block street just west of Cedars-Sinai Hospital in West Los Angeles is named George Burns Drive.
98. For more than 25 years, he has been taken care of by his live-in housekeepers, Daniel and Arlette Dhorre.
99. When he was 97, he made a guest appearance on the sitcom "The Golden Palace" (the sequel to "The Golden Girls") as a favor to his friend Betty White.
100. When he was 96, Caesars Palace in Las Vegas signed him to a lifetime contract, including a performance on his 100th birthday. He won't, however, be well enough to perform.