Gracie Allen: Encyclopedia II - Gracie Allen - The Real Gracie

Gracie Allen - The Real Gracie

What you saw on stage, however, was merely a character who wore the name Gracie Allen. In actuality, Allen was a cleverly talented comedienne whose timing was impeccable, who made every line she uttered, however carefully scripted, seem ad-libbed, and who went to great lengths in rehearsals to make her doings on the air or on the camera realistic---if the script called for Gracie to vacuum a rug, she vacuumed the rug for real. If it called for her to water or trim a plant, she did exactly that, for real. If it called for her to chop vegetables, she did it for real. She did it that way as often as she needed to until she had exactly the timing she wanted for the segment, and then she would do it for real when it was air time.

More to the point, she was an intelligent, sensitive woman, deeply devoted to her husband and even willing to forgive him his only brief dalliance outside their marriage. George has told the story that his guilt was overwhelming enough---the affair occurred in the wake of a very rare round of serious argument between the two, over a pricey centerpiece Gracie coveted---that he bought her the centerpiece, anyway. Months later, he noted, he overheard Gracie tell a friend, "I wish George would cheat on me again. I could use a new centerpiece."

Burns, for his part, once told a reporter he received letters often enough asking him why (never mind how) he remained married to "that fruitcake." He replied, "I love her, that's why"; the phrase became a running gag in the couple's radio and television shows, usually with George saying the phrase after one of Gracie's logically illogical speeches left someone gaping and looking at George with complete befuddlement. It also became the title of the first of five books Burns wrote, not to mention the inspiration for a sweet soft-shoe singing duet the two performed on at least one show episode.

Gracie was said to be sensitive enough about having one green eye and one blue eye (according to one biographer, anyway) that it prompted her retirement as The Burns & Allen Show completed its seventh season on television, as it supposedly had when colour came to films as well. The real reason she retired in 1957 was her health; George Burns noted more than once that she stayed with the television show as long as she did to please him, though he didn't object when she finally had enough. Burns tried to soldier on without her; when the show was re-named The George Burns Show, with the cast intact except for Gracie, the absence was only too obvious---and impossible to overcome. The re-named show barely lasted a year following Gracie's retirement.

By anyone's definition a very attractive woman with a neat, understatedly feminine figure and classically pretty eyes regardless of their colours, Gracie was sensitive enough about her appearance that even in the most balmy weather she refused to wear sleeves cut higher than the middle of her forearms---she had been scalded badly enough on one arm that she could not bear to allow more than her forearms to be exposed. No dress she owned had sleeves cut higher; she was never seen with short sleeves or sleeveless dresses or blouses in public. The half-forearm style became as much a Gracie Allen trademark as her affectionately squeaky voice and her infamous illogical logic.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The Real Gracie", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki