The Burns and Allen Radio Programs | Part Four
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Home >> D D Too Home >> Radio Logs >> Burns and Allen Part 4 |
Chesterfield sponsored Burns and Allen's 1938 return to CBS
Elegant British society band leader Ray Noble moved to CBS with Burns and Allen for Chesterfield Time
Tenor Frank Parker served up the solos for Chesterfield Time with Burns and Allen
Paul Douglas served as announcer for The Easy Aces before joining Burns and Allen for Chesterfield Time
Gracie Allen had her first major solo outing in a feature film with 1939's The Gracie Allen Murder Case, co-starring with Warren William in the role of Philo Vance.
The Gracie Allen Murder Case wasn't just a knock-off for the Philo Vance film, as demonstrated by the slip cover of S.S. Van Dine's 1938 novel from which the eleventh Philo Vance film was adapted.
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Background
George Burns and Gracie Allen's five seasons over CBS launched a Burns & Allen franchise over Radio, in Film and on Television spanning twenty-six years. Burns & Allen's Radio programs spanned eighteen of those years:
Needless to say, as George Burns and Gracie Allen's fame and popularity continued to rise there were no end of sponsors willing to promote their goods with Burns & Allen as their headliners.
Chesterfield sponsors the Burns and Allen Radio franchise
From the very inception of locally and regionally broad-cast Radio, Liggett and Myers [L&M] Tobacco was one of the more prolific early sponsors of local, regional and eventually nationally broadcast Radio. Their Fatima and Chesterfield cigarette brands appeared over and over again from the inception of popularly broadcast network Radio:
- 1931 Chesterfield Half Hour
- 1932 Music That Satisfies
- 1933 Howard and Shelton
- 1933 Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra
- 1933 The Jane Froman Show
- 1934 The Chesterfield Show [Andre Kostalanetz]
- 1936 Chesterfield Presents Andre Kostalanetz
- 1937 Chesterfield Presents Kraft Music Hall
- 1937 Chesterfield Sports Resume
- 1937 Chesterfield Time [Hal Kemp and Alice Faye]
- 1938 Chesterfield Time [Burns and Allen]
- 1939 Chesterfield Time [Fred Waring]
- 1940 Glenn Miller
- 1940 Professor Quiz
- 1942 Harry James
- 1943-1955 Chesterfield Supper Club
- 1944 Johnny Mercer Music Shop
- 1945 Smoke Dreams
- 1947 Johnny Mercer
- 1949 The Bing Crosby Show
- 1950 The ABC's of Music
- 1950 The Bob Hope Show
- 1951 Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons
- 1952 Dragnet
- 1952 The Martin and Lewis Show
- 1954 Gunsmoke
L&M positioned their Chesterfield brand as their upscale cigarette line, promoting the brand to typically upper middle-class audiences. They positioned their Fatima cigarette brand as the imported tobacco cigarette of choice.
Burns and Allen move back to CBS . . . and tobacco
One of the more unlikely duos to achieve Entertainment World super-stardom, Jewish-born Nat Birnbaum [Stage name George Burns] and Irish Catholic-born Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen grew up worlds apart in myriad ways. Nat from New York and Grace from San Francisco found each other in New Jersey, Birnbaum performing a vaudeville act with then partner Lorraine. Grace reportedly approached Birnbaum after his 'Burns & Lorraine' act about working in vaudeville and 'George Burns' offered her a suggestion that she work with him. That was 1922. The act became a couple, and the couple married shortly after meeting. Continuing to slug it out in vaudeville for another five years, Burns & Allen soon caught the attention of the Film Industry and its search for comedy teams for its growing production of 'talkies' of the era. Burns & Allen were featured in several Vitaphone Shorts of the era, eventually leading them into featured guest appearances over network Radio. As the guest appearances grew more frequent, Burns & Allen's novel 'dumb Dora' act acquired exponentially more fans.
From the June 16th 1939 edition of the Oakland Tribune:
Gracie Allen Wins
Laughs As Detective
Gracie Allen is matching her nitwits against those of the Ritz Brothers on the screen of the Fox Oakland this week, and while there is more suavity to Miss Allen's "The Gracie Allen Murder Case," there is certainly more guffawing in the Ritz Brothers' "The Gorilla."
The two productions even have one gag in common, a ghost-trailing sequence that first came to life back in the days of the "box acts" when comedians didn't bother, because of complete unacquaintance with their A-B-C's to commit gags to paper. It stems either from "Razor Jim" or "Over the River, Charlie," pretty hilarious in the '80s.
HAND WRITTEN
"The Gracie Allen Murder Case" is a tale by the late S. S. Van Dine, hand written for Miss Allen. She is the bete noir and the big moment of Philo Vance is that while she is constantly in his hair she unwittingly provides him with the needed clues to the strange murder of an ex-convict and sundry others.
Miss Allen performs her customary antics with a light heart and a song on her lips; Warren William is Vance, with Tongue in cheek; Kent Taylor and Ellen Drew attend to the romance and Donald MacBride, William Demarest, H.B. Warner and the vaudeville team of Shaw and Lee are in evidence. It is lightweight but amusing.
. . . WOOD SOANES
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Series Derivatives:
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Chesterfield Time |
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Genre: |
Anthology of Golden Age Radio Variety |
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Network(s): |
NBC |
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Audition Date(s) and Title(s): |
Unknown |
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Premiere Date(s) and Title(s): |
38-09-30 01 Gracie's Surrealistic Vacation Sketch
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Run Dates(s)/ Time(s): |
38-09-30 to 39-06-23; CBS; Thirty-nine, 30-minute programs, Friday evenings |
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Syndication: |
Columbia Broadcasting System |
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Sponsors: |
Liggett and Myers Tobacco Co. [Chesterfield Cigarettes] |
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Director(s): |
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Principal Performers: |
George Burns, Gracie Allen, Frank Parker, Ray Noble |
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Recurring Character(s): |
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Protagonist(s): |
None |
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Author(s): |
None |
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Writer(s) |
George Burns, Willie Burns |
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Music Direction: |
The Ray Noble Orchestra |
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Musical Theme(s): |
"The Very Thought of You" by Ray Noble |
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Announcer(s): |
Paul Douglas |
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Estimated Scripts or
Broadcasts: |
39 |
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Episodes in Circulation: |
1 |
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Total Episodes in Collection: |
1 |
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Provenances: |
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RadioGOLDINdex, Hickerson Guide.
Notes on Provenances:
The most helpful provenances were the log of the RadioGOLDINdex and newspaper listings.
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The Burns and Allen Radio Programs Biographies
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Nathan Birnbaum [George Burns]
Vaudeville Stage, Radio, Television and Film Actor
(1896-1996)
Birthplace: New York City, New York, U.S.A.
Radiography:
1932 The Robert Burns Panatela Program
1933 The White Owl Program
1934 The Adventures Of Gracie
1936 The Campbell's Tomato Juice Program
1936 The Campbell's Soup Program
1937 Lux Radio Theatre
1937 The Jell-O Program
1938 The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show
1938 Chesterfield Time
1939 Gulf Screen Guild Theatre
1940 The Hinds Honey and Almond Cream Program
1940 The Rudy Vallee Sealtest Show
1941 Well, I Swan
1942 United China Relief
1942 Command Performance
1942 Treasury Star Parade
1943 Command Performance
1943 The Bob Burns Show
1943 The Jack Benny Program
1943 It's Time To Smile
1943 Paul Whiteman Presents
1943 Cavalcade For Victory
1943 Mail Call
1944 Radio Hall Of Fame
1944 The Bakers Of America Show For the Armed Forces
1944 Your All-Time Hit Parade
1944 Birds Eye Open House
1944 Radio Hall Of Fame
1945 The Eddie Cantor Show
1945 Robert Benchley, Radio Critic
1945 Maxwell House Coffee Time
1945 The Danny Kaye Show
1946 Request Performance
1948 Philco Radio Time
1948 The Eddie Cantor Pabst Blue Ribbon Show
1948 Guest Star
1948 Kraft Music Hall
1949 Gisele Of Canada
1949 The Aldrich Family
1949 The Ammident Show
1951 Hedda Hopper's Hollywood
1951 The Bing Crosby Show
1952 The Lucky Strike Program
1952 The Doris Day Show
1964 The Arthur Godfrey Show
Here's To Veterans
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George Burns circa 1935
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From theMarch 10th 1996 edition of the Winnipeg Sunday Free Press:
He's gone to meet God--and Gracie
By Myrna Oliver
Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES — George Burns — the indefatigable entertainer whose staying power became the last, most
endearing gag in a graceful, laughfilled career — died yesterday morning at his home in Beverly Hills. He was 100 years and 49 days old.
The comedian, actor, singer and author apparently died of heart failure a few hours after his nurse found him shaking and breathing shallowly in his bed. His son Ronnie was with him at the end.
There were no last-second oneliners or pithy sign-offs, said Burns' longtime manager and friend, Irving Fein. But for years, Burns had insisted in gravelly monotone: "I don't believe in dying... It's been done."
Condolences poured into the Burns home from around the United States, recalling the comedian's many incarnations — as the vaudevillian, the hit radio and television act with his beloved wife Gracie Allen, and as the irascible elder statesman of comedy.
In a statement, President Clinton called Burns "one of the great entertainers of all time."
His friend of nearly eight decades, comedian Milton Berle said: "He's up there in heaven with Gracie, doing their act. And if I know George, he'll be throwing one-liners at St. Peter."
Burns had been in ill health since July 1994, when he slipped and fell in the shower at his home in Las Vegas. His frailty caused him to cancel performances celebrating his centenary at the London Palladium and Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. He was also too ill with the flu to attend his own 100th birthday bash in January.
Burns will be buried alongside Allen at a private funeral service Tuesday at Forest Lawn cemetery here, Fein said. A public memorial may be scheduled later.
"It's been hard to imagine show business before George Burns," said Bob Hope, who now, at 92, becomes comedy's elder statesman. "Now, it's difficult to imagine show business without him."
Goodnight, Georgie
Show business career began in 1903
The Canadian Press
George Burns died quietly at age 100 yesterday morning. A sketch:
Beginnings: Born Nathan Birnbaum in New York City on Jan. 20, 1896.
Early Years: Entered show business in 1903 as member of Peewee Quartet, then began vaudeville in 1905. Formed comedy act with Gracie Allen in 1923.
Later Years: Performed for some 90 years. Career spanned vaudeville, radio (The Burns and Allen Show), movies, television (The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show), nightclubs, best-selling books, recordings and video. Made first feature film with Allen in 1932, The Big Broadcast.
Married: Had two children, son and daughter, with Allen, whom he wed in Cleveland in 1926.
Awards: Won Grammy in 1991 for best spoken-word recording for excerpts from Gracie: A Love Story. Won Oscar for the aging vaudevillian in the 1975 film The Sunshine Boys.
Quotes: On retirement:"I can't afford to die when I'm booked."
On why he was considered sexy: "I've been longer at it than anyone else."
On age: "I've reached the point where I get a standing ovation for just standing."
Burns exits enduring,
endearing career
By Charles Champlin
Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES - George Burns, who died yesterday at the still-extraordinary age of 100, made it seem for a while as if he had no intention of leaving at all.
With his cigars and martinis and his fondness for the company of pretty young women, he made old age out to be not a grey back bedroom but an extension of the prime of life. The great achievement of his career may well have been to convince millions, who may have been doubtful, that life begins or begins again, not at 40 but at 79, as his did when he made The Sunshine Boys after a hiatus from the cameras of 36 years.
Extraordinary
His long climb from the lowest rungs of vaudeville to the top and then into radio and television as half of Burns and Allen prepared him, if not later audiences, for his extraordinary and endearing success as a single.
He remembered that when he and Grade were in vaudeville, he learned to go onstage with a cigar before the audience arrived, to test the prevailing drafts, so he could stand downwind from Gracie. He had learned that audiences resented him when the cigar smoke went in Gracie's face.
He used to claim he had the easiest act in vaudeville, since all he had to do was say "You what?" or "Your brother what?" to trigger Gracie's glorious inanities ("You could have knocked me over with a fender"). The truth was, of course, that George was the ultimate old pro, who quickly saw the appeal of Gracie's chirpy malaprop innocence.
"Say, good night, Gracie," Burns would say.
"Good night, Gracie," she would reply.
Chatting in his Hollywood office a few years ago before going off to do a show in Lafayette, La., he suddenly
called to an assistant, "Phone Lafayette and find the name of the oldest theatre in town. I'll tell 'em I played there 50 years ago." After the hard years in tank-town vaudeville, he knew how to win an audience.
A trouper
Burns was a trouper in the old "the-show-must-go-on" tradition. Only a few years ago, he fell and stripped the skin off one shin, raising a ghastly bruised welt and reducing his gait to a hobble. He examined it in his Las Vegas dressing room one night after a performance. I'd have said it was a miracle he could stand, but he'd done an hour with the audience none the wiser about the injury or the pain.
He was one of the great show business raconteurs, onstage (where his tales were central to his charm) and offstage (where they flowed from an apparently bottomless memory). As with Alfred Hitchcock, another superb raconteur, it was not always clear where memory left off and imagination began, but it hardly mattered.
There was always a discernible ring of truth, as in his story about an early partner who could sing but not talk without a heavy stammer. One night at their boarding house in Altoona (or some such place) the partner ran to George gasping unintelligibly. "Sing it!" George said he cried. The partner sang, "We been robbed, we been robbed, we been robbed," to a tune George, for once, could not remember.
Many of George's stories, public and private, involved his long, dear friendship with Jack Benny. The game between them was that George could send Jack into hysterics with the lift of an eyebrow, but Jack could not raise a laugh from George, hard as he tried.
My favorite among the stories was of a long-ago breakfast. Jack said, "What're you having?" George said, "Steak and eggs; I'm hungry. What about you?" "I'm having Cream of Wheat," Jack said. "Why" George asked, incredulous. "Because Mary Livingston says it's good for me," Jack explained. "But steak and eggs are good for you." "That's right," Jack said defiantly. When the waiter came, they both had steak and eggs. When the bill arrived, George said, "You pay it, Jack." Jack said, "Why should I pay all of it?" "Because if you don't," George
said, "I'll tell Mary you didn't have Cream of Wheat."
Amazingly, George Burns linked a day before radio, let alone television, with a world of CD-ROMs and cyberspace. And no small part of the fondness audiences of all ages had for him was that he bespoke times when things seemed simpler, more innocent, less frazzled and cynical, when a few bars of soft-shoe and lines of a foolish
song from an ancient vaudeville act carried a strong and particular magic.
After Gracie died, George made monthly visits to her grave to bring her up to date on his doings. Now,
whatever one's theological leanings, it is nice to think of the act reunited.
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Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen
Vaudeville Stage, Radio, Television and Film Actor
(1895-1964)
Birthplace: San Francisco, California, U.S.A.
Radiography:
1932 The Robert Burns Panatela Program
1933 The White Owl Program
1934 The Adventures Of Gracie
1936 The Campbell's Tomato Juice Program
1936 The Campbell's Soup Program
1937 Lux Radio Theatre
1937 The Jell-O Program
1938 The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show
1938 Chesterfield Time
1939 Gulf Screen Guild Theatre
1939 Information Please
1940 The Hinds Honey and Almond Cream Program
1940 Good News of 1940
1940 The Rudy Vallee Sealtest Show
1940 Fibber McGee and Molly
1941 The New Burns and Allen Show
1942 United China Relief
1942 Command Performance
1942 It's Time To Smile
1942 Treasury Star Parade
1942 Well, I Swan
1943 This Is My Story
1943 The Bob Burns Show
1943 The Jack Benny Program
1943 Paul Whiteman Presents
1943 Cavalcade For Victory
1943 Mail Call
1944 Radio Hall Of Fame
1944 The Bakers Of America Show For the Armed Forces
1944 Your All-Time Hit Parade
1945 The Eddie Cantor Show
1945 Robert Benchley, Radio Critic
1945 Maxwell House Coffee Time
1945 The Danny Kaye Show
1945 Birds Eye Open House
1946 Request Performance
1947 The Jack Carson Show
1947 Songs By Sinatra
1947 Guest Star
1947 Front and Center
1948 Philco Radio Time
1948 The Eddie Cantor Pabst Blue Ribbon Show
1948 Kraft Music Hall
1949 Gisele Of Canada
1949 The Aldrich Family
1949 The AmmiDent Show
1949 The Adventures Of Philip Marlowe
1949 Life With Luigi
1949 The Bing Crosby Show
1949 Suspense
1951 Hedda Hopper's Hollywood
1952 The Bob Hope Show
1952 The Doris Day Show |
Gracie Allen circa 1937
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From the August 28th 1964 edition of the Oakland Tribune:
Heart Attack Kills
Gracie Allen at 58
HOLLYWOOD (AP) - Gracie Allen, whose scatterbrained comedy helped make Burns and Allen a top act in show business for 34 years, died last night after a heart attack. She was 58.
Spokesmen for the family said Miss Allen died at 11:15 p.m. and that her husband, comedy actor George Burns, was at her side at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital.
Contacted at the Burns home in Beverly Hills, William Burns, George's brother, said the popular comedienne had been in seemingly good health before being stricken.
MILD ATTACK
He said she had experienced mild heart attacks in the past. They didn't, however, seem to slow her down much. Ten days ago she and her husband were among the guests at the gala wedding reception for Edie Adams and her new husband Marty Mills.
She appeared effervescent and cheerful, as she has been since her retirement in 1958.
Until then, the strain of sustaining her nitwit role sometimes made her tense and withdrawn.
REAL ACTRESS
At the time of her retirement, Burns explained why she quit: "She's never missed acting for a minute. She never was a ham, anyway. Most actors are aware of playing to an audience. Not Gracie. The side of the stage toward the audience was a wall to her. She concentrated only on what she had to say and never gave a thought to cameras or lights or makeup or anything.
"She deserved a rest. She had been working all her life, and her lines were the toughest in the world to do. They didn't make sense, so she had to memorize every word. It took a real actress.
"Every spare moment — in bed, under the hair dryer — had to be spent in learning lines. Do you wonder that she's happy to be rid of it?"
Miss Allen was born in 1906, the year of the great earthquake in San Francisco. Named Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen, she was one of four daughters of Edward Allen, a song and dance man then booked in San Francisco.
At 3 1/3, she had made her stage debut but she continued in Catholic schools until she was 14, when she began a dancing act with her three older sisters.
Later, she joined an Irish song and dance act and at one time went to secretarial school in Hoboken, N.J. It was in New Jersey that she met George.
Born Nathan Birnbaum in 1896 Burns had been through the vaudeville mill and claims to have weathered 50 partners before encountering Gracie.
She saw him on a bill at Union Hill, N.J., where he was booked as Burns and Lorraine. They met after the show and George revealed he was seeking a new partner. He suggested that Gracie join him.
REWROTE THE ACT
Gracie recalled later "Of course George had written this act for himself, with himself as the comedian and I as the straight man but the funny thing -- my straight lines got the laughs. People laughed twice as hard at my not being funny as they laughed at George's being funny. When we came of after the first show, he said, 'We're switching parts, Gracie.' He rewrote the act then and there."
Burns and Allen played vaudeville for three years hefore he was able to convince her they should get married. They were wed in Cleveland on Jan. 7, 1926.
INTO BIG TIME
After their marriage they were propelled into the big time.
They became headliners in vaudeville and starred on the bill that ended Vaudeville at New York's Palace Theater. After guest-starring on Rudy Vallee and Guy Lombardo radio programs, they began their own show on Feb 15. 1932.
Their career continued in radio and television until Gracie's retirement.
They also appeared in such movies as "Big Broadcast of 1932," "International House," "Love in Bloom," "Damsel in Distress," "College Swing," "Honolulu" and ' The Gracie Allen Murder Case."
George once analyzed his wife's humor "Gracie is not really crazy, if she were, we couldn't get a day's work."
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