George Burns
George Burns
George Burnswas an American comedian, actor, singer, and writer. He was one of the few entertainers whose career successfully spanned vaudeville, radio, film and television. His arched eyebrow and cigar-smoke punctuation became familiar trademarks for over three-quarters of a century. He and his wife, Gracie Allen, appeared on radio, television, and film as the comedy duo Burns and Allen...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Actor
Date of Birth20 January 1896
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
I should have been a country-western singer. After all, I'm older than most western countries.
Take care not to wear stripes that are out of sync with your wrinkles.
This is all so exciting I've decided to keep making one movie every 36 years.
The happiest people I know are the ones that are still working. The saddest are the ones who are retired. Very few performers retire on their own. It's usually because no one wants them. Six years ago Sinatra announced his retirement. He's still working.
In what other business can a guy my age drink martinis, smoke cigars and sing? I think all people who retire ought to go into show business. I've been retired all my life.
A young mind in a healthy body is a wonderful thing. Especially for an old man with an open night.
When we played the back end of a horse we always knew that if we worked hard and did a good job we could become the front end.
Young. Old. Just words. Inside we feel like our shoe size.
I never go jogging, it makes me spill my martini.
By [age] 93, I had shrunk quite a lot. My car was known as the Phantom Cadillac. People would see it whizzing by and they would swear there was no driver.
At home we ate fish every Friday, as Catholics were then supposed to do. Being Jewish, I compromised. I wore a hat when I ate fish, out of respect for my own religion and the fish's family.
I'm onstage for an hour.I do an hour of stand-up. Actually, I do 10 minutes standing up and 50 minutes sitting in a chair. Oh, occasionally, I stand up again to do a dance or put over a song. But mostly I sit down. A great invention, sitting down.
My major contribution to the format was to suggest that I be able to step out of the plot and speak directly to the audience, and then be able to go right back into the action. That was an original idea of mine; I know it was because I originally stole it from Thornton Wilder's play Our Town.
Yale men do not like to be told anything by people who didn't go to Yale. The closest I came to Yale was once I had one of their padlocks.