Free Where Are They Buried? by Tod Benoit Page B

ALLEN
GEORGE BURNS
    JANUARY 20, 1896 – MARCH 9, 1996
GRACIE ALLEN
    JULY 26, 1902 – AUGUST 27, 1964
    George Burns’ early show biz attempts were not very successful. He played “lousy little theaters that played lousy little acts—and I was one of them,” he said. Often the performances were so bad that he’d have to change the name of his act in order to be booked for a second engagement. “I was what you call a disappointment act,” George later explained. “If an act got sick, I’d take their place.”
    But in 1923 George met a soft-spoken dancer, Gracie Allen, and, after a little coaxing, she agreed to team with him in a comedy act. They specialized in the humor of illogical logic; Gracie played the daffy but unflappable wife, while George was the unruffled but confused straight man whose simple questions elicited her nitwit answers. The combination was magical and for the next 35 years, including the twenty-year run with their
Burns and Allen
radio show, the first-class comedy pair delighted audiences with their hilarious homespun routines. George himself described their act as “having more plot than a variety show but not as much as a wrestling match.”
    In ill health, Gracie retired in 1958 and she died of a heart attack in her sleep six years later, at 62. George was devastated upon the death of his “Googie,” the love of his life, and he retreated from the spotlight, never to remarry. He later allowed that he’d kept the light on at her side of the bed for three yearsand, for the remainder of his life, he visited her grave once a month. “I just talk to her and tell her what has happened. I don’t know if Gracie can hear me, but it certainly does me a lot of good,” he said.
    Throughout the 1960s, George tried to revive his Burns and Allen act with Carol Channing and a few others, but the chemistry was never the same. George’s career was finally revitalized when he replaced his ailing friend Jack Benny and costarred in
The Sunshine Boys
, winning an Academy Award in 1975. Soon, George was a fixture of television and film, and he adopted the role of raconteur, telling funny stories that he maintained were true but had been embellished over the years. Using his cigar for punctuation, George was a master of one-liners and sardonic wit: “Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxi cabs or cutting hair,” he noted.
    As George approached his 100th birthday, the media clamored around, asking the comic his secret to longevity. “Fall in love with what you do for a living,” he said, taking a sip of a martini and a light puff of his cigar. “I don’t care what it is. It works.”
    More than three decades after Gracie passed away, George curled up in their bed and died of natural causes at 100 years old.
    According to his butler Daniel Dhoore, he was buried in a dark blue suit with a light blue shirt and a red tie. Dhoore continued, “We put three cigars in his pocket, put on his toupee, put on his watch that Gracie gave him and his ring. And, in his pocket, his keys and his wallet with ten hundred-dollar bills, a five, and three ones, so wherever he went to play bridge he’d have enough money.”
    In a companion crypt, George and Gracie lie together at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.
    CEMETERY DIRECTIONS: From Highway 2, take the San Fernando Road exit and turn northwest. After a mile, make a right onto Glendale Avenue. The park’s entrance is immediately on the right.
    GRAVE DIRECTIONS: Stop at the booth for a map of the cemetery’s roads, then drive to the Freedom Mausoleum. Walk in the front entrance of the Freedom Mausoleum, proceed down the hall on the right, then turn left into the Sanctuary of Heritage. On the right at eye level is the companion crypt that George and his Googie share.

CHARLIE CHAPLIN
    APRIL 16, 1889 – DECEMBER 25, 1977
    Born in England, Charlie Chaplin built his career in America and made some 80 films in which,