A Century of Burns and Allen

A century ago this year, George Burns teamed with Gracie Allen and made their debut in a vaudeville house somewhere in New Jersey. Nowhere that I’ve been able to find (and I and others have looked hard) does anybody seem to know where or when with more specificity, but Jersey in 1923 (or late 1922) seems to be the consensus.

We’ve chosen today, George’s birthday, to announce that naturally we will not be letting this auspicious benchmark go unobserved. This Valentine’s Day, February 14 (which also happens to be the birthday of their best friend Jack Benny) myself and Burns and Allen expert Lauren Milberger will be releasing a special podcast conversation about the greatest of male-female vaudeville comedy teams and their legendary romance. Then, this fall, we’ll be doing a cluster of public events (talks, screenings, performances, etc) in the tradition of our previous Marxfest (2014), Fieldsfest (2016), and West Fest (2018). Naturally, we’ll share more details on this blog as they are nailed down.

Meantime, I refer you to our previous Burns and Allen tributes:

My post on the team of Burns and Allen

My appreciation of George Burns in his own right

Lauren Milberger’s guest post on Gracie

The Raconteurs, Lauren’s wonderful podcast dramatization of the pair’s lives and careers

The Raconteurs web page, chock full of ongoing info and background about the show

Incidentally, the photo above happens to be the first picture I’ve noticed that an interesting fact about Gracie Allen is clearly in evidence — she had two different color eyes!