|Friends & Links|George Burns|Interview Pg 4

BURNS: Yeah, he'd fall on the floor. And it was always little things that broke him up. Like we were at Chasen's, he was with one party and I was with another party, and he came over to say hello. I said, "Sit down, Jack, have a little salt." Now, that's a nothing line. But it murdered him. He went back to his table and told them, "What do you think he just said? 'Sit down and have a little salt.'" Nobody at his table thought it was funny, but they all screamed, because Jack was hitting the table and falling on the floor. So Jack kept telling everybody this fercockteh joke and I got sick of it. So I said to Jack one day, "Jack, do me a favor. Tell everybody Milton Berle said that and not me."

Another time at Chasen's, Jack and I were having dinner and Jack got this brilliant idea. he said, "I can make Chasen pay for our check." I said, "How do you do that?" He said, "Simple. We're both good customers, we're always eating here. We'll get into an argument when the check comes and I'll call Dave Chasen over and I'll say, 'If George Burns pays the check, I'll never come in here again.' And then you say, 'If Jack Benny pays the check, I'll never come in here again.' Chasen will tear up the check. Easy. Can't miss." I said, "OK, Jack." So we had a nice dinner, check came, Jack called over Chasen and he said, "If George Burns pays the check, I'll never come in here again." I never said a thing. I just sat there. So Chasen gave him the check.

PLAYBOY: We remember hearing something about a piece of thread----

BURNS: Oh, the thread story. We were at some party and Jack had a little piece of white thread stuck on the lapel of his coat. I told Jack that I didn't know they were wearing little pieces of thread on lapels--would he mind if I borrowed it? And I took the little piece of white thread off his lapel. Well, Jack was a wreck. So, the next day, I got a little box and I put the thread in the box with a little note saying, "Thanks for letting me wear this last night." Well, Mary called me later and she says, "That piece of thread arrived an hour ago and if Jack doesn't get off the floor, I might leave him."

PLAYBOY: Benny always talked in superlatives about mundane things--the softest towels, the best spaghetti----

BURNS: Right, right. Jack once said to me, "This is the coldest glass of water I've ever had in my life." Now, how would anybody know the coldest glass of water? See, all the big things in life happened to Jack, everything big: big contracts, big money, big jobs, big honors. The big things didn't mean too much to him. So little things got to be very big in Jack's life. I don't know if you know this story--Jack had just signed a contract for a couple million dollars and I saw him at the club. I knew about the contract. I said, "Jack, you look all excited." He said, "Yeah, I just drove from downtown back and I took Wilshire Boulevard and I found out if you go 27 miles an hour, you miss every red light." He'd just signed a contract for $2,000,000 and he's excited about the red lights!

Oh, here's a great Benny story: We were at a party and Jack went to the mantelpiece and picked up a cigarette and began to light it. And I said, "Hold everything. Jack is now going to do the match bit." Now, Jack is standing there, everybody stops talking, they're all looking at Jack and he's got a cigarette in one hand, a match in the other. He doesn't know what to do. He put the cigarette in his mouth and lit it. I said, "Oh, new finish." End of Jack.

PLAYBOY: Yet Jack would go to any extreme to break you up--and never succeeded. Why?

BURNS: Because he tried so hard. Jack always tried to set me up for a laugh. Like the time Gracie and I arrived in Minneapolis and checked in at Jack's hotel. I called him and told him I was coming up. Jack said, "Don't come up for two minutes." I knew right away he was setting me up. So when I got up there, I sent the maid into his room ahead of me. Sure enough, he was standing on the bed, naked, with a flower in one hand and a pitcher of water in the other.

PLAYBOY: Benny had a famous line that supposedly triggered the biggest laugh ever on radio--"Your money or your life"--at which point he paused to ponder the choice. Did you and Gracie have any similar bit?

Burns: Well, our biggest smash was Gracie's missing brother. We got this idea of Gracie's brother being missing and we thought we'd go on a few CBS programs and ask whether anyone had seen Gracie's brother. Until then, if you had your own show, you didn't make guest appearances on anyone else's. We were the first to do it. Eventually, the thing caught fire and we went on all the shows. Like, the phone would ring on some dramatic radio show about, say, a submarine and Gracie would say, "Is my missing brother down there?" We went right to the top of the ratings.

PLAYBOY: Did Gracie find her brother?

BURNS: No. He changed his name. He really did. Gracie had a brother, George, and they started kidding him about being Gracie's missing brother. So he changed his name.

PLAYBOY: Gracie's death must have hit you very, very hard.

BURNS: It did. For months, I couldn't sleep. The last eight years, Gracie and I had twin beds. We always slept together, but the last eight years we slept in twin beds. I finally began sleeping in Gracie's bed a few months after she died. And it worked; it did a lot for me. And I visit Gracie.

PLAYBOY: You still go to the cemetery?

BURNS: Once a month. I talk to her. When I was up for The Sunshine Boys , I asked her to talk to the fellow up there and make sure I got the part; but don't talk to Him, I told her, talk to His son, because he's Jewish, too.

PLAYBOY: Well, somebody up there must like you. You got the part and at 79 became a movie star.

BURNS: Well, that was easy, because The Sunshine Boys called for somebody who was old, somebody who came from vaudeville, somebody who came from New York and somebody who was Jewish. How they found out I'm Jewish, I'll never know! Somebody must have sneaked into Hillcrest's locker room.

PLAYBOY: Did you expect to win the Oscar? Were you surprised?

BURNS: I felt I'd win it, because everybody convinced me that I would. All the people kept telling me, "George, you're going to win it." Finally, I believed it. If I didn't win the award, I would have killed myself.

PLAYBOY: Was winning the Academy Award your most memorable moment? Did anything else in your career top it?

BURNS: Well, playing the Palace Theater the first time was as big as getting the Oscar. Maybe bigger, maybe bigger. Whoever thought I'd play the Palace? That was really something.

PLAYBOY: Why are so many great comics Jewish?

BURNS: Well, for the same reason that blacks are great athletes and fighters. That's the way you could get out of the neighborhood. I think that most actors, practically all the comedians, came from poor families.

PLAYBOY: Earlier, you were talking about personalities who will last because they broke new ground: Groucho, Chaplin, Benny. What about Lenny Bruce? Was he a comic genius?

BURNS: I guess he was. Maybe he got to be a genius too soon. Lenny Bruce was the first one ever to say four-letter words, say anything he wanted. I never understood that kind of humor.

PLAYBOY: What about the new comics spawned by Bruce and Mort Sahl--Richard Pryor, George Carlin, the late Freddie Prinze?

BURNS: You mean all the kids that are coming up like Milton Berle, Alan King, Buddy Hackett, Jan Murray? Those kids will all make it. The kids today, you can't stop 'em. Look, I gave Bobby Darin his first job in Vegas and I gave Ann-Margaret her first job in Vegas. Well, OK, what did I do for them? I heard them and they were great and I took them to Vegas and I got on the stage and I said, "Ladies and gentlemen, Bobby Darin." And I walked off the stage and Bobby Darin killed the audience. Or Ann-Margret: "Ann-Margret, ladies and gentlemen." And she was a star, right from the first minute. You mean to say if I hadn't introduced them somebody else wouldn't have? I always go back to one thing. Powers always said that "every elephant has its own personality." You know, I never knew what the hell he meant by that.

PLAYBOY: Lenny Bruce became something of a martyr because his humor was considered, among other things, too political. Do you think comedians make a mistake by becoming political?

BURNS: No, if that's their cup of tea. I'm not political at all. I've met Presidents: Franklin Roosevelt, Jack Kennedy. I was invited to the White House when Kennedy was President. Bobby was there, so was Teddy. We sang harmony together.

PLAYBOY: A far cry from the Peewee Quartet.

BURNS: Yeah. I'll tell you who is very, very good. Teddy Kennedy is a great comedian. He got up and he gave an imitation of his grandfather, who was a politician in Boston, Fitz-something. The President was on the floor. And I was sitting next to Jacqueline Kennedy and she said to me, "I don't know what he's laughing for. He's heard that 20 times." I sang a French song, La Vie en Rose , for Jackie. She loved it; told me she had been speaking French all her life, but after hearing me, she realized she had been doing it all wrong. And I was at Kennedy's birthday party when Marilyn Monroe sang Happy Birthday .

PLAYBOY: Did you know Marilyn Monroe?

BURNS: I knew Marilyn. Never danced with her. Too bad, because I understand she danced close. You want a martini?

PLAYBOY: Sure. You spend a lot of time around young people; have you ever tried marijuana?

BURNS: No.

PLAYBOY: Does it concern you one way or the other? Do you think it should be legalized? Or banned?

BURNS: How would you know if you don't try it? You got some with you?

PLAYBOY: No. If we did, would you try it?

BURNS: No, because, look, I'm drinking a martini. That's the same thing, isn't it? I don't think you get more out of marijuana than you do a martini.

PLAYBOY: If one of your young ladies came back here and smoked marijuana would that offend you?

BURNS: I don't think so. No. Look, people smoke it. I went to a party and people sat around and smoked marijuana. That was all right. You pass the joint around. I didn't bother with it, because I didn't want to waste it. Look, I can't get any more kicks than I'm getting. What can marijuana do for me that show business hasn't done?

PLAYBOY: A lot of kids in show business have destroyed themselves with drugs.

BURNS: I can see where that can happen. I'm not much of a drinker; I have a couple of martinis before dinner, a couple of drinks when I go out. But when I was working alone without Gracie, I was drinking quite a bit before I walked onstage. I was very nervous about working alone. So I can see where sometimes you need something.

PLAYBOY: Another thing about contemporary entertainers is that they become famous and rich so quickly they don't know how to handle it. With you and your contemporaries, it took a long time to come up through the vaudeville circuit, didn't it?

BURNS: Yeah; it took four years for an Irving Berlin song to become popular and it would stay popular for four years. Now, with television, radio and records, it's a week and you have a new hit, a new star.

PLAYBOY: How do you spend your time these days?

BURNS: I get up at eight o'clock. I do some floor exercises upstairs. Take a shower. I come down, have breakfast. Then I go upstairs and I get dressed. Then I go out and do my walking. I walk between 15 and 20 minutes. Fifteen minutes is a mile. Brisk walk. Then I come in, have a cup of tea, finish getting dressed, and I'm at my office at nine o'clock. I'm writing another book, so I try to write seven or eight pages a day. And there's a lot of mail I've got to answer. Then I go to Hillcrest for lunch; used to be a very exciting table, but now everybody's gone. I have lunch, then I go inside and play bridge from one-thirty to three-thirty. And then I come home, I take a nap at four o'clock. I get up at five-thirty. If I've got nothing to do, I'll have a couple of martinis and I'll have my dinner, watch a little television and at nine or nine-thirty, I go up and read. If I've got something to do. I get dressed and I go out.

PLAYBOY: When you go out, where do you like to go?

BURNS: Oh, Chasen's, Gatsby's, the Palm. And I like to go to discothÈques . It's very easy to dance today. You just push the girl out and let her dance. Then, when she gets around to you again, you push her out again. I'm at the point now where I'm a fine pusher.

PLAYBOY: Seriously, were you really a great dancer?

BURNS: Seriously, yes. Was Valentino a great dancer? When Valentino was 18 years old, he used to dance at Churchill's and he used to get about 18 bucks a week. He used to dance at these afternoon teas. The women would come and have cocktails and tea and dance with these gigolos like Valentino--they didn't call them gigolos then, they called them lounge lizards.

Valeska Suratt was a very, very big star on Broadway, and she went into Churchill's and saw this beautiful young Valentino. So she danced with Valentino and he told her he was leaving for Hollywood to go into pictures. And she said, "What's your name, young man?" And he said, "My name is Rudolph Valentino." And she said, "Well, the first thing I would do is change that name." Which I did, and I've been calling myself George Burns ever since! That's a lovely story. It's a great lie, isn't it? It's a beautiful lie.

Actually, not many people know this, but I taught Fred Astaire how to dance.

PLAYBOY: You taught Fred Astaire how to dance?

BURNS: Are you an echo chamber? Yeah, I taught him to dance. Gracie and I made a picture with him, Damsel in Distress . We got a lot of money for it, $60,000 for six week's work. And I'm what you call a right-legged dancer. I've got a good right leg but a bad left one. And I knew if Fred Astaire saw me dance, he'd keep the right leg and fire the left one. So there were two guys in vaudeville who used to do a whisk-broom dance and I thought it was a great dance. I sent for one of them and he taught Gracie and me the whisk-broom dance. So we met Fred Astaire and I said, "Fred, I'd like to show you something: the whisk-broom dance we used to do in vaudeville." Which we didn't. But $60,000 for six weeks! We did the dance and Fred thought it was just great. He said, "Geez, great dance." I said, "Well, if you want it, it's yours!" He said, "You mean we can do it in the movie?" I said, "Of course." He said, "OK." Got him. Got ourselves $60,000 and I was teaching Fred Astaire to dance.

PLAYBOY: Didn't you also make a movie with W.C. Fields?

BURNS: Yeah, The International House . There was a scene in that picture at the table, where Gracie hits Fields with one of her offbeat lines and leaves. When they were shooting it, Fields came over and he said, "Jesus, I feel kind of silly, sitting at this table and she hits me with this line and she walks away and I have nothing to say. I need something." So I said, "I'll tell you what to do. You've got a drink of Scotch on the table"--Fields was always featuring the booze--"and a glass of water and a cup of coffee. Why don't you take the two pieces of sugar and put them in the water, mix the coffee and drink the Scotch?" It got a big laugh. And he said to me, "George, you're the greatest man I've ever met in my life."

PLAYBOY: Did you like Fields?

BURNS: Oh, yeah. He came to our house a few times for dinner. He used to bring his own gin with him. Wore a vest with four pockets and he had two drinks in each pocket, in case you ran out of gin. First time he came over, he forgot his vest. So he called his chauffeur and said, "Go home and get me my vest." I had heard about his vest and I said, "Look, I'm a gin drinker myself, Bill, so you don't need the vest." And he yelled to his chauffeur, "Forget the vest. I've got gin from another source." Another Fields story, I don't know whether anybody knows this story and I don't even know whether it's true, but I think it is. W.C. Fields, when he was a very young man, was married to a very pretty girl. He was in his early 20s and he went to England and he did a juggling act. No talk. What they call a dumb act. Just juggled. At the finish of his act, he used to juggle cigar boxes. There was a great English star on the bill with him. And Fields's young wife went for this star. When Fields left England, she stayed with this star. This star stole W.C. Fields's wife, but Fields stole his delivery. That delivery, talking on the upbeat, was the other guy's delivery.

PLAYBOY: You've been around a long time----

BURNS: Yeah, I was brought up to respect my elders and now I don't have to respect anybody .

PLAYBOY: As we were going to say, you've known most of the great comedians. What about Fred Allen?

BURNS: Oh, yeah. Gracie and I used to do a routine about the bird, the hepple-white, a crazy routine that we made up. About Gracie's brother, who would go hunting and take four dogs, and the next day he'd take four more and the following day he'd take four more. What happened? He used to shoot them. She said, "He aimed at the bird, but he shot the dogs." So I said to Gracie, "Why don't you go hunting with him?" Big laughs. Anyway, we met Joe Frisco and he said, "Hey, that hunting routine--I'll give you a great joke. The bird that he goes hunting for, the hepplewhite, why don't you have the bird fly backward because it's not interested in where it's going, it's interested in where it's been?" I'm going back 50 years. It's an old joke. So we did it at the Palace and the joke was a smash, a big hit. It gave a believability to this crazy routine. Well, I got a call from Fred Allen and he said the joke about the backward bird was his. In those days, if it was your joke, only you could do it. You had to write your act down and register it at the Pat Casey office. If somebody stole your joke, Pat Casey would say, "Take it out," and you had to take it out or you couldn't get a job. Nowadays, if your jokes aren't stolen, you fire your writers! Anyway, it was Fred Allen's joke. I offered him $400 for it, but he wouldn't sell it. So I called up John P. Medbury, who was writing for us then. I explained the problem with Fred Allen and, without a pause, John says, "Have the bird fly upside down. In case the hunter shoots it, he falls up." And we did it and it was just as great. In fact, Fred Allen offered me $400 for that joke. Which is not true, but it gives you a good finish.

PLAYBOY: You have a reputation as one of the nicest men in the world. Have you ever done anything particularly nasty, something that you're ashamed of?

BURNS: Well, I have a temper. I blow up at people. Once, when I owned four television shows, I was fuming at this guy because he had done something wrong--I forget what it was--and the next day he didn't come to work. I said, "Where is he?" And they said, "He thinks you fired him." Me? I didn't fire anybody. I called him and said, "Please come back to work." I'd get mad, but then I wouldn't know about it the next day.

PLAYBOY: Looking back over your life, do you have any regrets? Is there something you haven't done or that you'd have done differently?

BURNS: No, I want to do it all again, but not different. Once more. A couple of times more.

PLAYBOY: Sum up your philosophy of life

BURNS: You have to have something to get you out of bed. I can't do anything in bed, anyway. The most important thing is to have a point, a direction you're headed. If kids had that, it would help a lot. If you can get a kid to fall in love with something, his lifestyle goes in that direction. I always knew where I was going. I was always in love with show business.

PLAYBOY: George, what's the secret to staying young?

BURNS: Young girls. I flew in from New York recently and sitting opposite me on the plane was a young, beautiful girl wearing a see-through blouse. That blouse made me very nervous. When I looked at it, I sort of got the feeling it was looking back at me. In fact, over Albuquerque, I'm not sure, but I think one of them winked at me. When we were landing, I had trouble fastening my seat belt.

PLAYBOY: Even Gracie wouldn't believe that story.

BURNS: You told me I was supposed to be funny. You didn't say I had to tell the truth.