Articles on that FABULOUS COUPLE

As a promo in early radio, Gracie went on a search for her missing brother, who really didn't exist. She would make "surprise" appearances on various other shows asking, "Have you seen my brother?" The team even came out with puzzles, each having a missing piece which looked exactly like her brother. George remembers...

The producers of the "Burns and Allen Show" on television had Gracie, originally a brunette, dye her hair blonde because it needed to be lighter for television. Does that mean that Gracie was the original "dumb blonde"?

Bea Benadaret (right) was the ir-replacable actrice who played Gracie's forgiving neighbor throughout the show's run on television. Though three different men played Blanche Morton's husband, Harry, it was Ms. Benadaret that stayed in her well-deserved role as George and Gracie's TV neighbor.

Following her run on the Burns & Allen Show, she went on to play roles in several shows including a recurring role in The Beverly Hillbillies. But her most famous role was still to come. The next time you watch an episode of The Flinstones listen to the voice of Betty Rubble, that's Blanche.

Burns and Allen was not only a big show in the states, but France also was in on the act. Instead of George and Gracie trying to learn to speak French, a French couple began doing their acts under the title Les Adventures de George et Gracie.

She was a matchless comic artist who was smart enough to become the dumbest woman in show-business history.

It's a show-business myth that Gracie replied to my request to "Say goodnight, Gracie," by saying, "Good night, Gracie." In fact, that's probably one of the most misquoted lines in theater history. Maybe she said it once, but I don't even remember that. She simply said, "Good night." There were many reasons for that, the main one was that I just never thought of it, from now on she will have said it.

Gracie Allen, the female half of the runaway comedy team of Burns and Allen, announced one March evening over the radio her intention to compete for the presidency at the head of a new third party, the "Surprise Party." Why the Surprise Party? As Gracie later explained...

People magazine's tribute to George Burns and Gracie Allen and their years of envied romance.

"For 40 years my act consisted of one joke," George Burns was fond of saying. "Then she died." The woman in question, as anyone within earshot of a radio or television in the 1950s would know, was his wife, Gracie Allen--and the female side of a showbiz team whose ditzy banter in an era of idealized domesticity made it one of the most beloved and successful comedy acts in history....