George Burns - Gracie: A Love Story

I was sixty-three years old when Gracie retired, too young to stop working and too old to start a new career. What was I going to do, stay home and cough? There's no money in coughing. I had to keep workingS aks was depending on me. One of the first lessons Gracie and I had learned in vaudeville was that the audience doesn't care how you feel, they care how they feel. If people wanted to see something that would make them feel bad, hospitals could sell tickets. As Sophie Tucker said after breaking her ankle, What ankle? So we didn't tell anyone that Gracie was sick. I didn't need any more sympathy; anybody who'd seen me work alone already felt sorry for me.

At first I wasn't even sure how serious Gracie was about not working again. But in addition to the thousands of letters from her fans, we'd also received some big offers to make a farewell appearance. One Las Vegas hotel offered us $50,000 to do a final show. Gracie turned it down. She wouldnt even consider it. So I knew she was at least $50,000 serious about not working again.

For the first few years of her retirement I know Gracie was very happy. Her angina caused her to have some bad chest pains from time to time and she still suffered from the migraines, but she was well enough to go shopping and visit with friends and play cards and spend time reading and redecorate the house and keep the drawers neat. One night in a restaurant someone asked her if she missed the good old days. She laughed. Theyre always talking about the good old days, she said. Believe me, the really good days are right now. What was so good about running from train to train, living out of a suitcase, and having a quick bite if we had time? Now I have two people at home wholl get me anything I want, I have time to do whatever I want to do, and I have a little money. Maybe they were the good old days for somebody else. Ill take these days.

Well, I sort of liked running from train to train.

I think the only thing Gracie missed about being on the set was hearing the gossip. I know that I was a big disappointment to her because I never came home and told her good stories. You never tell me anything, she once scolded me. Dont you care? Of course I cared, but what was I going to tell her? Mr. Ed was seen in somebody elses barn?

Fortunately, Orry-Kelly, the Oscar-winning costume designer, made up for me. Shed spend hours on the telephone listening to him. Orry knew more about what was really going on inside show business than any gossip columnist, and he told Gracie everything. They were a perfect match: Orry loved to talk and Gracie loved to listen. Id know she was talking to him when I heard her say every few minutes, No? or Really? or Oh, my... The two of them were so close that we would all go to a party and spend the entire time together, and as soon as we got home theyd call each other and spend hours talking about the party. One morning I left the house about nine-thirty and I went to give her a little kiss and she was on the phone with Orry. I came home for lunch four hours laterand she was still on the phone with Orry.

When Gracie was talking on the phone shed rest the receiver on her shoulder and tilt her head to the side to hold it so she could keep her hands free. Sometimes, by the time she hung up, her shoulder was numb and her neck was stiff. Angina and migraines were one thing, but this was serious. Those were her telephone muscles. Orry solved the problem by buying her a $2 rubber shoulderpiece so she could cradle the phone comfortably. Gracie thought this was the greatest invention in history. Id bought her cars, jewelry, even fur coats, but none of them pleased her more than this rubber shoulderpiece. She was so excited when Orry gave it to her that she spent more hours on the phone with him telling him how well it worked.

Orry really was a delightful guy. He started out in New York hand-painting the dollar neckties that his roommate, Cary Grant, sold for $3. A lot of the women in Hollywood confided in him, so Gracie really knew everything that was going on. Hed tell Gracie, I dont know why Tallulah insists on taking off her clothes every time somebody walks into the room. It just isnt pleasing. And Im just so tired of her cocktail parties. When I went to her house the other day she was wearing shoes and pearls and her hat and thats all.

Really, Gracie would say, happily shocked. Oh, my...

One reason Gracie and Orry got along so well is that they understood each other. That was important, because nobody else understood them. Orry told stories in real life the way Gracie did onstage. Hed constantly get people and facts confused, then hed be amazed that wed misunderstood him. We were out one night with Orry and Charlie Lowe and Carol Channing, and Orry was telling a story about an old vaudeville act called Savoy and Brennan. Somehow Bert Lahrs name was mentioned and Orry said, Did you know he went to Alaska and they shot his right eye out and thats why he always wears those hats dipped over one eye?

He did? Carol asked, her eyes wide open with delight.

Yes, Orry said, and the only reason he became a female impersonator was so he could wear the Garbo slouched hat.

Carol was amazed. We all were. I didnt know Bert Lahr was a female impersonator, she said.

Orry looked at her like she was dizzy. Who said anything about Bert Lahr? It was Brian Brennan. Of course Gracie had understood him.

Many people, when they retire, go fishing, or they travel; Gracie went shopping. That was her sport, her recreation. Gracie traveled to the store. If she wanted fish, she knew where to buy it. We had often talked about shopping on our radio and television shows. It was a subject our audience knew a lot about. Once, for example, on the radio, Gracie told me shed bought ten pogo sticks for $50.

Pogo sticks? I said, Whyd you buy ten of them?

Why else? Because that was all they had.

But, Gracie, what do you want with them?

George, those sticks will come in very handy if youre attacked by a pogo.

Of course, that really wasnt Gracie at all. As far as Gracie was concerned, there was nothing funny about shopping. She took it very seriously. As she said on another show, You know how when you go to the office you drive right past Bullocks?

Yeah?

I didnt.

That was Gracie. She would often spend most of the day in Saks. I never minded. Gracie was a shopper, not a buyer. Shed always go with somebody else, maybe Mary Benny or Flo Haley or, after her first serious heart attack in 1961, her nurse-companion, Claribel Crewell. Shed find an outfit she liked, then try to find all the right accessories that went with it. A purse, shoes, a bracelet. Eventually shed find an accessory she loved that didnt go with the outfit, so shed try on new outfits until she found something that went with the accessory. Then shed try to find other accessories that went with the new outfit until she found something else she loved that didnt go with it.

But Gracie would worry about buying anything that cost more than a few dollars. Before making a final decision shed tell me, I saw this dress at Saks that I really liked. Do you mind if I buy it? Mind? After what shed done for us she couldve bought the whole store. Now, if Billy Lorraine had asked me I would have minded.

When she did finally buy something, shed always try to talk the salesgirl into giving her a discount. She was a terrible negotiator, but she loved bargaining. Sometimes the salesgirl would give her a few dollars off, and that would make Gracies day. Id come home at night and shed show me her new outfit and tell me, Look what you bought me today. And then shed boast about how much money shed saved by buying it.

The stores were closed at night, and Gracie loved to go out at night. Because she no longer had to get up early in the morning to report to makeup or wardrobe, she often went to the theater or dinner or friends houses. She always seemed to have something important to do. She loved going to the theater as a patronany theater. I know she enjoyed watching shows much more than she enjoyed being in them. Tom Clapp, a close friend who worked in the office, was a member of a small acting troupe called The Hollywood Shakespeare Festival, which performed Shakespearean plays in the park. Tom was very skinny, he had spindly legs, but for some reason he was cast to play Falstaff. Gracie had a basic knowledge of Shakespeares plays and she knew that Falstaff was supposed to be fat.