Gracie Allen

Gracie Allen (born July 26, 1895 or 1896?, San Francisco, California, U.S.—died August 27, 1964, Hollywood, California) was an American comedian who, with her husband, George Burns, formed the comedy team Burns and Allen.

As a very young child, Allen made her vaudeville stage debut with her father, the singer and dancer Edward Allen. She performed in an act with her sisters during her teen years but had abandoned the stage to pursue a secretarial career by the time she met Burns in the early 1920s. They formed a comedy partnership and were married in 1926. Their act was simple but effective: Burns would ask Allen questions, and she would give illogical, malaprop-laden answers. A typical exchange had George inquire, “Gracie, what are you doing to help conserve electricity?”—to which she replied, “I shortened the cord on the electric iron!”

Allen starred in more than 25 films, frequently with Burns. She also appeared on her own as a scatterbrained detective in The Gracie Allen Murder Case (1939) and Mr. and Mrs. North (1941). The Burns and Allen radio show, which ran from 1933 to 1950, transitioned to television with the debut of The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show (1950–58). It portrayed the daily life of the married couple, and Burns regularly broke through television’s “fourth wall” by stepping out of a scene to address the audience directly.

Because of ill heath and stage fright, Allen left the show in 1958 and retired from performing. Burns continued the act with a rotating cast of female partners, but none of them resonated with fans, and the show was canceled later that year.

When Allen died of a heart attack in 1964, she was widely reported as being 58 years old. The question of her year of birth, though, had already been a joke in her own comedy routines. Her gravestone reads 1902; census records have been cited to support 1895, 1896, and perhaps 1904; a document claimed to be a marriage license suggests 1899; Allen herself said she had been born in 1906.