41 Facts About George Burns

George Burns's arched eyebrow and cigar-smoke punctuation became familiar trademarks for over three-quarters of a century.

At age 79, Burns experienced a sudden career revival as an amiable, beloved, and unusually active comedy elder statesman in the 1975 film The Sunshine Boys, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

George Burns was born Nathan Birnbaum on January 20,1896, in New York City, the ninth of 12 children born to Hadassah "Dorah" and Eliezer Birnbaum, known as Louis or Lippa, Jewish immigrants who had come to the United States from Ropczyce, Galicia, now Poland.

George Burns's father was a substitute cantor at the local synagogue but usually worked as a coat presser.

George Burns, called Nattie or Nate at the time, went to work to help support the family, shining shoes, running errands and selling newspapers.

When he got a job as a syrup maker in a local candy shop at age seven, George Burns was "discovered", as he later recalled:.

George Burns came down to the basement once to deliver a letter and heard the four of us kids singing harmony.

George Burns liked our style, so we sang a couple more songs for him.

George Burns was drafted into the United States Army when the US entered World War I in 1917, but failed the physical examination because he was extremely nearsighted.

George Burns later claimed that he selected the name George Burns because there were two active star professional baseball players with the name, each of whom accumulated more than 2,000 hits and held some major-league records.

George Burns normally partnered with a girl, sometimes in an adagio dance routine, sometimes in comic patter.

One running gag during this period, stretching into the television era, was George Burns's questionable singing voice; Allen lovingly called him "Sugar Throat".

George Burns attempted to continue the show, but without Allen, the show ended after a year.

George Burns acted primarily as the narrator, and secondarily as the adviser to Stevens's Gracie-like character.

The first episode involved the nearly 69-year-old George Burns watching his younger neighbor's activities with amusement, just as he had watched the George Burns and Allen television show while it was unfolding to get a jump on what Gracie was up to in its final two seasons.

George Burns performed a series of solo concerts, playing university campuses, New York's Philharmonic Hall and winding up a successful season at Carnegie Hall, where he wowed a capacity audience with his show-stopping songs, dances, and jokes.

George Burns, who enjoyed working, accepted the job for what would be his first feature film appearance for 36 years.

Heartbroken, George Burns said that the only time he ever wept in his life other than Allen's death was when Benny died.

People who knew George Burns said he never really came to terms with Benny's death.

Six weeks before filming started, George Burns had triple bypass surgery.

George Burns replaced Benny in the film as well as the club tour, a move that turned out to be one of the biggest breaks of his career; his wise performance as faded vaudevillian Al Lewis won him the 1975 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and permanently secured his career resurgence.

At 80, George Burns was the oldest Oscar winner in the history of the Academy Awards, a record that stood until Jessica Tandy won an Oscar for Driving Miss Daisy in 1989.

At a celebrity roast in his honor, Dean Martin adapted a Burns crack: "When George was growing up, the Top 10 were the Ten Commandments".

George Burns appeared in this character along with Vanessa Williams on the September 1984 cover of Penthouse magazine, the issue that contained Williams's notorious nude photos, as well as the first appearance of underage pornographic film star Traci Lords.

In 1979, at 83, George Burns starred in two feature films, Just You and Me, Kid and Going in Style.

George Burns remained active in films and TV past his 90th birthday.

George Burns did regular nightclub stand-up acts in his later years, usually portraying himself as a lecherous old man.

George Burns always smoked a cigar onstage and reputedly timed his monologues by the amount the cigar had burned down.

Arthur Marx estimated that George Burns smoked around 300,000 cigars during his lifetime, starting at age 14.

Eight years before his death, George Burns publicly admitted that once in their marriage, in the 1950s, he had cheated on Allen.

In guilt over the one-night affair, George Burns gave Allen a $10,000 diamond ring and a $750 silver centerpiece.

George Burns served as honorary chairman of the center's endowment drive.

George Burns remained in good health for most of his life, in part thanks to a daily exercise regimen of swimming, walks, sit-ups, and push-ups.

George Burns bought new Cadillacs every year and drove until the age of 93.

In December 1995, George Burns was well enough to attend a Christmas party hosted by Frank Sinatra, where he reportedly caught the flu, which weakened him further.

On 9 March 1996, George Burns died in his Beverly Hills home of heart failure.

George Burns's funeral was held three days later at the Wee Kirk o' the Heather church in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Glendale.

George Burns had always said that he wanted Allen to have top billing.

George Burns has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: a motion pictures star at 1639 Vine Street, a television star at 6510 Hollywood Boulevard, and a live performance star at 6672 Hollywood Boulevard.

George Burns is a member of the Television Hall of Fame, where he and Gracie Allen were inducted in 1988.

George Burns is the subject of Rupert Holmes's one-actor play Say Goodnight, Gracie.