Though Burns’ brother George didn’t like his little brother Nathan adopting his name, the newly named George Burns felt like that moniker would look better on a marquee than his given name, according to Cigar Aficionado. It’s reported that he thought Nathan Birnbaum sounded too Jewish at a time when Jews were not exactly embraced by the ethnically Irish community he lived in.
From the age of 7 until he was 26, Burns worked developing his vaudeville act without much success. The turning point of his life came in 1923 when he met Gracie Allen in a Long Island theater. The pair teamed up and their star quickly rose. By 1926 they had reached the pinnacle of vaudeville, performing at the Palace Theater in New York (via Cigar Aficionado).
But live vaudeville was a dying form of entertainment. The future was in moving pictures, and Burns and Allen were among the first on the bandwagon. Throughout the ’30s they starred in motion pictures alongside the likes of Bob Hope and Fred Astaire.
Their live act also earned them a spot on the radio airwaves with CBS where they would dominate the ratings for over 15 years before making the jump to television. “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show” aired for nearly 300 episodes over eight seasons on CBS and NBC.
