Actors - Gracie Allen

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	Actors - Gracie Allen

Gracie Allen (July 26, 1895 – August 27, 1964) was an American comedienne who became internationally famous as the zany partner of husband George Burns. Burns himself phrased it perfectly, in a gag that got laughs no matter how often he repeated it for the rest of his life: "One day, the audience realised I had a terrific talent. They were right. I did have a terrific talent. And I was married to her for 38 years."

The Burns drollery and the Allen malaprops and definitional contortions made for classically understated comic dialogue. It also made for very few true imitations, because the team's style was itself inimitable. Goodman Ace and his wife Jane, in their own legendary radio show, Easy Aces, approached it differently, with Jane Ace's classic word mangling a distinct contrast to Allen's "logically illogical" style. But Gracie was no scatterbrain. In fact, she was intelligent, highly sensitive, and a thoroughgoing professional, who retired at last for one reason only: her health. By the time she did, however, she was half a national institution; the signature Burns & Allen signoff (George: "Say good night, Gracie", Gracie: "Good night") became part of their country's vernacular.

Popular legend has it that Gracie would say, "Good night, Gracie." However, according to her husband, and a review of recordings of their television show, that never happened.

Life and Early Career

Allen was born in San Francisco, California. Christened Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen, into an Irish Catholic show-business family (her mother, Margaret, was an actress known as Ronnie Burns), Gracie Allen was educated at the Star of the Sea Convent School as a girl, and she and her three sisters were known as The Four Colleens.

She became a vaudeville performer with her sister Bessie in 1909. She teamed up with George Burns in 1922, and married him in 1926, despite the difference in their religions, which would have caused other people serious problems in those less tolerant times.

"Gracie, How's Your Brother?"

It was when the couple noticed Gracie was the likelier laugh-getter that their fortunes changed. George cannily flipped the act over---he made himself the straight man (and became the unchallenged best in the business in due course, simply because he was funnier as a droll straight man than most punch-liners were at getting laughs with the obvious jokes) and made Gracie the designated laugh-getter. George has summed the new act up in a classic bit that stayed with him for life: "All I had to do was say, Gracie, how's your brother? and she talked for 38 years. And sometimes I didn't even have to remember to say Gracie, how's your brother?"

This time, the couple clicked. They became vaudeville stars, then graduated to radio in the early 1930s as well as making several well-remembered and received short films. (These are shown periodically on the Turner Classic Movies network.) In time, their radio show developed from their original "flirtation act" (as their vaudeville and short film routines had been) into the situation comedy vehicle that most identifies them: a working show business couple negotiating ordinary problems through the pocket disasters of Gracie's "logical illogic", usually with the help (or, if you prefer, the co-conspiracy) of various friends and neighbours, at least until the characters of Harry and Blanche Morton were introduced for keeps, and their eventual permanent announcer, Bill Goodwin, and later Harry von Zell, became a part of the shows---and part of one of the more understated running gags in radio and (later) television, George firing him at least once every other episode.

"Gracie, Where's Your Brother?

Burns & Allen weren't indifferent to a running gag or a publicity stunt, and in 1932-33 they pulled off one of the best in the business: a yearlong search for Gracie's apparently missing brother, which helped make them radio stars in the first place, once Guy Lombardo's regular audience quit being mad at them for interrupting "the sweetest music this side of heaven" with their comedy.

A decade later, Gracie launched a similar stunt when she mounted a gag campaign running as the Surprise Party candidate for the U.S. Presidency ("I don't know much about the Lend-Lease Bill, but if we owe it we should pay it") and actually drew some votes in the November election. (Another typical Gracie-ism on the "campaign trail" went like this: "Everybody knows a woman is better than a man when it comes to introducing bills into the house.")

She was also the subject of one of S.S. Van Dine's famous Philo Vance mystery novels, The Gracie Allen Murder Case. Typically, she couldn't resist a classic Gracie review: "S.S. Van Dine is silly to spend six months writing a novel when you can buy one for two dollars and ninety five cents."

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Gracie Allen ]

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Actors - Gracie Allen

Life and Early Career

"Gracie, How's Your Brother?"

"Gracie, Where's Your Brother?

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