George and Gracie and Jack

George Burns wrote a number of very funny books, and spent a good deal of time talking about his late wife Gracie and his late best friend Jack Benny. One was called Living It Up and it was excerpted in newspapers.

These portions were published in the Journal-News of Rockland County, N.Y., on Sept. 19, 1976. Unfortunately, the photocopied scans of the artwork with them isn’t the best. The caricatures are by Louise Zingarelli, who later went into animation layout and design, spending a good deal of time with the 1980s versions of the Chipmunks.

Jack Benny —Long thread of friendship
By GEORGE BURNS
As you go through life, the good things and the bad things have a way of balancing themselves out. But there are times when you get the feeling that the bad things are winning. That’s the way I felt the day my closest friend, Jack Benny, passed away.
Jack was gone and part of me went with him, but a lot of Jack stayed here with me. Not only me — part of him stayed with people all over the world, he was the smartest and moat considerate man I ever knew. Everybody who came in contact with him fell in love with Jack. And the feeling was mutual because Jack loved people.
Sometimes for no reason at all he would stop at a little bakery in Beverly Hills, buy a cake and take it up to his doctor’s office. The receptionist and nurses would make coffee, and they'd sit around and have a little gossip session. Jack didn’t have an appointment with the doctor, he just got a kick out of talking to the girls.

I envied Jack because he enjoyed everything. In all the time I knew him there was just one little thing that always griped him. He could never get what he considered a good cup of coffee. He once said to me, “George, I’ve traveled all over the world. I've been everywhere at least once, and I’ve yet to find a good cup of coffee.”
“Jack,” I said, “if you’ve never tasted a good cup of coffee, how would you know if you got one?”
He gave me one of his scornful looks and said, “George, if that was supposed to be funny, it’s lucky you don’t make your living as a writer,” and walked away. It’s a well-known fact in show business that I could always make Jack Benny laugh. And it was always silly little thing that would do it — things that nobody else would laugh at. During all the years I knew Jack I never told him an out-and-out joke, because that would be the last thing he'd laugh at. He made his living writing comedy, so if you told him a joke, first he'd analyze it, then he’d start to rewrite it.
Now, here’s something I did at a party one night and it made Jack hysterical. It started while we were both standing at the bar having a drink. We were wearing dinner clothes and I noticed that there was a little piece of white thread stuck on the lapel of Jack's coat. I said “Jack, that piece of thread you're wearing on your lapel tonight looks very smart. Do you mind if I borrow it?” Then I took the piece of thread from his lapel and put it on my lapel.
That was it. I’m not sure, but I think during my life in show business I must have thought of a funnier bit — I certainly hope so. But that bit of business took Jack apart, he laughed, he pounded the bar and finally he collapsed on the floor laughing. I must admit I always loved every moment of it. Being able to send this great comedian into spasms of hysterical laughter was good for my ego.
The next day I got a little box, put a piece of white thread in it, and sent it over to Jack’s house with a note that said, “Jack, thanks for letting me wear this last night.”
An hour later I got a phone call from his wife Mary Livingstone. She said “George, that piece of white thread got here an hour ago and Jack still is on the floor. When he stops laughing, I think I’ll leave him.”
You may think I'm exaggerating when I talk about Jack falling on the floor — but it’s true. He’d collapse with laughter and literally fall on the floor. I don’t know what his cleaning bill was, but it must have been tremendous.
This is one anecdote about Jack Benny you may have heard before, but I think it bears repeating. One day he went to his lawyer’s office in Beverly Hills to sign a multi-million-dollar contract I knew that it was a very big deal, so when Jack came into the club that afternoon I said to him “Jack, you must be very excited.”
“I certainly am,” he said. “Do you know after I signed the contract I stopped at a little drugstore and, George, I finally found a place that serves a good cup of coffee.”
That was Jack Benny, my dearest and closest friend. And wherever Jack is I hope the coffee is good.

George Burns and Gracie Allen were one of America’s most beloved husband-and-wife comedy teams for over 10 years. Gracie was the scatterbrain in a permanent state of confusion. George, while tapping his cigar, was the patient straight man who tried to unravel her circuitous logic. In the following excerpt from his book “Living It Up,” George Burns recalls his life with the other half of the Burns and Allen team and the secret to his longevity in show business.

'Gracie Allen was my only love'
By GEORGE BURNS
Getting to be my age didn’t happen overnight. I'm 80-years-old and I had a damned good time getting there.
I run into a lot of people who ask me when I’m going to retire. I think the only reason you should retire is if you can find something you enjoy doing more than what you’re doing now. I happen to be in love with show business, and I can't think of anything I’d enjoy more than that. So I guess I’ve been retired all my life.
I don’t know what age has to do with retirement anyway. I’ve known some young men of 85, and I’ve met some very old men of 40. There isn’t a thing I can’t do now that I did when I was 21 — which gives you an idea of how pathetic I was when I was 21.
But 80 is a beautiful age. The secret of feeling young is to make every day count for something. To me there's no such thing as a day off.
My writer, Elon Packard, and I work in the office from 10 until noon. It’s only two hours but it’s a very concentrated effort. We answer correspondence, update the routines in my stage act, write speeches for testimonial dinners, plan what I'm going to say on talk shows, write copy for various commercials I do.
But at 12 on the nose. I quit and go to Hillcrest Country Club. Hillcrest is like a home to me. I’ve belonged to it for over 40 years.
When I have my lunch there I always sit at the same table. This table is where the action is. There's very little listening but a awful lot of talking, because most of the people who sit there are in show business. Every day the cast changes — you might find Groucho Marx, Danny Thomas, George Jessel, Milton Berle and directors and producers like Eddie Buzzell, Pandro Berman, George Seaton, etc. With that bunch if you want to get a word in edgewise you have to have an appointment.

As in every group there is usually one person who takes charge. At our table it’s George Jessel. He knows all the jokes, he’s a great storyteller and very funny. But he does one thing that drives me up the wall. Whenever he’s scheduled to do an eulogy at someone’s funeral, he tries it out on us. Did you ever try eating lunch and listening to an eulogy at the same time? Jessel is the only one I know who can turn matzos, eggs and onions into the Last Supper.
Lunch usually takes an hour or so, and then I’m off to the card room for my favorite recreation — playing bridge. I love the game.
Sometimes I’ve watched some of the great bridge players play, and it’s always so quiet. We argue, we fight and the language we use didn’t come out of “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.” But there’s a reason why we carry on like this — all the men that I play bridge with are practically my age or even older; sometimes I’m the youngest at the table. So we holler and shout to make sure the other members of the club know that we’re still living. The only time we get quiet is when Georgie Jessel comes over to kibitz. It makes us very nervous because we know he’s got four eulogies in his pocket.
Sometimes in the evening I have a date. I usually take her to dinner at a nice restaurant. I like the company of young girls, and young girls seem to like to go out with me. It’s because I don’t rush them — there’s no pressure on them. When I take them to Chasen’s for dinner, in between courses they have time to do their homework.
On occasion if I'm in a romantic mood, I invite the young lady back to my place. And at the end of the evening she won't be disappointed. We have a little brandy. I turn the lights down low, and when I think the moment is just right — I send for my piano player. I sing her four or five songs and go upstairs and go to bed. My piano player takes her home. I’ve out lived four of my piano players.
But the only love in my life was Gracie and I was happily married to her for 38 years. Now don’t get me wrong, we had arguments, but not like other couples had. When we had a disagreement, it had to do with show business.
Looking back, I really don’t know why Gracie married me. I certainly know I wanted to marry her. She was a living Irish doll, such a dainty little thing, only 102 pounds, with long, blue-black hair and sparkling eyes; so full of life and with an infectious laugh that made her fun to be around. Besides all that she was a big talent. She could sing, she was a great dancer, and a fine actress with a marvelous flair for comedy.
But why did she marry me? I was nothing. I was already starting to lose my hair, I had a voice like a frog, I stuttered and stammered, and I was a bad, small-time vaudeville actor and I was broke. I guess she must have felt sorry for me.
I'm glad she did.
As time went on I got better onstage. I had to. For me there was no way to go but up. I finally got so good that nobody knew I was there.
Gracie: On my way in, a man stopped me at the stage door and said, “Hiya, cutie how about a bite tonight after the show?”
George: And you said?
Gracie: I said, “I’ll be busy after the show but I'm not doing anything now,” so I bit him.
George: Gracie, let me ask you something. Did the nurse ever happen to drop you on your head when you were a baby?
Gracie: Oh, no, we couldn't afford a nurse, my mother had to do it.
George: Is there anybody in the family as smart as you?
Gracie: My sister Hazel is even smarter. If it wasn’t for her, our canary would never have hatched that ostrich egg.
George: A canary hatched an ostrich egg?
Gracie: Yeah, but the canary was too small to cover that big egg.
George: So?
Gracie: Hazel sat on the egg and held the canary in her lap.
George: Gracie, this family of yours do you all live together?
Gracie: Oh, sure. My father, my brother, my uncle, my cousin, and my nephew all sleep in one bed and...
George: In one bed? I’m surprised your grandfather doesn’t sleep with them.
Gracie: Oh, he did, but he died, so they made him get up.
On Aug. 27, 1964, Gracie passed away. I was terribly shocked. The period of adjustment to such a loss took time. Gracie had been such an all-important part of my life that everywhere I looked, everywhere I went, the feeling of her was still there.
The most difficult time was at night. It was hard for me to go to sleep, and when I did doze off I’d soon wake with a start and look over, expecting Gracie to be there in her bed beside me.
This went on for about six months, then one night I did something, and to this day I can’t explain why. I was all ready to get into bed, and then for some reason I pulled the covers down on Gracie’s bed and got into it.
I don’t know if it made me feel closer to her, but for the first time since Gracie had gone I got a good night’s sleep. I never did go back to my bed —