Not long ago, I was telling my friend George about visiting another fellow named George and I said, "I wrote about this a long time ago on the blog." The first George e-mailed me later and said, "I did a search and no, you didn't." Apparently, I didn't so I will now do.
Around 1986 or so, I was doing a show for Sid and Marty Krofft, who tended then to move from studio lot to studio lot. We were working on one of the older ones in Hollywood and one day, I noticed a parking space for George Burns. I owned a copy of Mr. Burns' 1955 book, I Love Her, That's Why, so I brought it into the office and left it there until a few days later when I spotted a car in his parking space. That's when I took it over to his office and asked the secretary there (a temp, I think) if I could leave it with her, have Mr. Burns autograph it to me and then pick it up later. She looked at a little 3-by-5 card I'd tucked into it with my name written out and under it, I'd added, "The name may not look it but I'm Jewish."
As I'd kinda hoped, she got on the intercom to the inner office and told her employer that a "young Jewish man" had a book he wanted signed…and I remember thinking that compared to George Burns, Jerry Lewis was a young Jewish man. I also remember a little tingle when I heard the unmistakeable voice coming back to her over that intercom. He asked, "Which book?" and was apparently impressed that it was not his recent release but rather one that suggested its possessor was a true fan. "Send him in," he said.
I was sent in. George Burns, sans toupee, was sitting behind a big desk, looking more like a captain of industry than an old vaudeville hoofer. He asked about my surname and I gave him my stock line about how it was made up by the immigration department. Some guy at Ellis Island, I explained, said, "Here come some Jews. Let's give them real stupid last names!" If I had to pay myself royalties every time I've used that joke, I couldn't afford it but it usually gets a laugh and it got a good one from George Burns.
He offered me a chair and we talked for about an hour, during which I learned that Al Jolson was a putz, Danny Kaye was a putz, Groucho Marx could be a putz at times, Eddie Cantor was rarely a putz, George Jessel was the biggest putz of them all and Milton Berle had the biggest putz of them all. We talked about the night back in '72 when Groucho did a sad (because he was so old and out of it) one-man show down at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in downtown L.A. I'd seen Mr. Burns leaving in a limo after it was over and I asked him his thoughts. As expected, they were all about how Groucho had humiliated himself and how, and I quote, "I sure hope I die before I go out that way." Years later, when Burns was approaching his 100th birthday and it was advertised that he'd perform at Caesars Palace on that milestone day, I thought of that. He did make it to 100 but didn't make it to that stage.
There were, as you might expect, a number of stories about his friend Jack Benny — who, by the way, was definitely not a putz. The one I remember best was about how in the late sixties when strip clubs began featuring total nudity, Mr. Benny couldn't believe that there were places you could go, pay five or six bucks and see beautiful 21-year-old women dancing without any covering at all. The two of them had, with dark glasses and turned-up collars, ventured into one such place once in some other city…and of course, been immediately recognized, much to their shame. Burns did a semi-decent impression of his old friend asking why didn't they have places like that when he was younger, could enjoy it more and was on radio and not so easily recognized? There were also many tales of Burns sending Benny into fits of unrestrained laughter. Mr. Benny was a famously good audience.
So was I that day. As it started to feel like it was past time for me to go, Burns said he'd enjoyed talking to me as "batting practice" for the big game later that day when he'd be sitting in Johnny Carson's guest chair. He had a piece of paper on which he'd jotted down some lines he intended to use. The main topic was to be how he was dating a woman in her forties — "robbing the cradle" was how he described it — and he read aloud a couple of things he intended to say and asked if I thought they were funny. I told him which ones I thought were and then said, "Why don't you have Johnny ask you why you don't date women your own age? And then you say, 'There aren't any.'" Burns laughed, thanked me and wrote it down. Sure enough, that evening on The Tonight Show, there it was. Got a darn good laugh, too.
That's just about all there is to this story. Before I finished my Krofft job and checked off the lot, I stopped in two or three other times for briefer chats. George (he finally asked me to call him that) always greeted me by asking, "Did you get laid last night?" Even if I hadn't, I told him I had and he'd sound amazingly like George Burns when he muttered, "Good, good." Once, I asked him, "Never mind me. Did you get laid last night?" He answered, "Of course…that is, if by 'last night,' you mean 1957." Then he grinned and added, "Actually, it was more like 1970 but 1957 is funnier."
He was right, you know. 1957 is funnier. So was he.