Hands of Burns

They survived 30-plus years of vaudeville, radio and television, and their act broke up solely because Gracie Allen wanted to retire.

Even then, George Burns took rest of the cast of The Burns and Allen Show into a new TV sitcom, which failed miserably.

On camera, Gracie did most of the talking. Off camera, it was a different story. Burns bent the ears of all kinds of reporters, talking about Gracie, the old days, his singing, Jack Benny and, eventually, his age.

The two were featured several times on the cover of TV Guide. George does all the talking in its edition on November 6, 1954. It’s an unusual subject—Burns regales the reader with the importance of hands for a comedian. Burns, of course, was never without his cigar, and he explains why.



Hands Tell The (Funny) Story
COMICS HAVE TO USE THEIRS SO YOU WON’T SIT ON YOURS, SAYS GEORGE (HANDY-GUY) BURNS
With TV spilling entertainment all over the living room rug and at times breeding the contempt of familiarity, it’s the rare viewer who doesn’t pride himself on being able to spot a phony actor from the genuine article.
What the viewer doesn’t realize, however, is just what makes the difference. “Watch a fighter’s feet,” the boxing experts will tell you. “Keep your eye on the line,” is the cry from the football people. Theater experts say: “Watch his hands.”
George Burns, a working craftsman who would rather talk show business than eat, but who nevertheless manages to eat very well, is particularly eloquent on the subject of hands.
“An actor’s hands,” says Mr. Burns, waving his own delicately through the air, “become important only when they are unimportant. When an actor has nothing specific to do with his hands, what to do with them becomes increasingly important.”
The subject arose when someone noted that Burns himself never appeared before an audience without a freshly lighted cigar. “I would be lost without that cigar,” Burns explains. “It is many things to me—a prop, a crutch, a straight man, a timing device. It’s also,” he adds thoughtfully, “a good smoke.”
In Burns’ view, “good hands” are as vital to an actor as a good voice or a good sense of timing. They become particularly significant to the stand-up comic who does nothing but tell jokes and who has no straight man for “bouncing” purposes.

“That,” says George, “is where a comic’s hands must become his straight man. Jack Benny, you will notice, will tell a joke and then deliberately fold his arms. He is bouncing the joke off the folded arms. More accurately, he is bouncing the joke off the time it takes to fold the arms. In that time, the audience hears, digests, interprets, understands and finally reacts to the joke. Of course, if it’s not a good joke, he’s in trouble.”
Burns is inclined to miss the good old days of radio when actors emoted from the neck up, their hands firmly anchored to their scripts. He recalls gleefully the time producer Max Gordon issued a casting call for a new Broadway play. A number of radio actors turned up and Gordon was amazed at the facility with which they read. “Radio actors, of course,” Burns explains, “are the best readers in the business and Gordon was so impressed that he hired every one of them on the spot. He died on opening night in New Haven, however. The radio actors kept walking around the stage sort of holding their hands at half mast, clutching thin air where they were so accustomed to clutching their scripts.”
Without professing to lay down anything even approaching a Burns’ Law on the subject, it is the comedian’s offhand opinion that Jerry Lewis, Danny Kaye and Sid Caesar possess the best hands in the business today among the comedians. “You can’t stop and recall ever having seen them. Their hands, that is. They know how to use them. Without props.”

Burns reserves the accolade, however, for his wife, Gracie Allen. “She never does the same thing twice,” he says, “which is remarkable. Watch an actor in rehearsal the first time. If he picks up a glass with his left hand, that’s the way he’ll do it every time. Gracie will change from performance to performance. Says it keeps her from getting in a rut. Yet you’re never aware of her hands.”
Burns’ own trademark, the cigar, has long since become a habit he couldn’t break if he wanted to. He uses as many as 40 cigars on a shooting day and has been singled out by the American Cigar Institute as a “clean cigar smoker.” “I’m not sure,” he says, “whether it’s because I never spill ashes all over the place or because I never play a gangster.”

If you can’t guess who Burns is imitating, from left to right: Jackie Gleason, Eddie Cantor, Sid Caesar, Red Skelton.