We have a piece of film history here: The screen debut of George Burns and Gracie Allen, doing a hunk of their vaudeville act as an 8-minute Vitaphone short called Lambchops. This came out in October of 1929…and just to save you doing the research and the math, Mr. Burns was 33 years old at the time, and he and Gracie had been married since January of '26.
Gracie's age is a little more difficult to peg. When asked her birthdate, she gave a wide array of answers, including "None of your business." When she died in 1964, George told reporters she'd been born in 1902. Historians have since concluded that 1895 is more likely…but not proven. If she was born in 1895, she was a year older than George.
This short did not catapult the team of Burns and Allen to movie stardom. They made a few more like this one and it boosted interest in their act. But it wasn't until they got into radio that they became famous. Here's a great artifact of the days of vaudeville…
