John Dunning Quote

Gracie Allen wasn’t as dumb as she seemed on the air. She proved that in 1939, appearing on the intellectual quiz show Information, Please, and holding her own with the experts. It takes a keen intelligence to play a dumb role that long and well, but Gracie had more than that. From the beginning, she had a singular ability to make audiences love her. The audience found her, I didn’t, said George Burns in a Playboy interview years after her death. The crowds they played to in the early ’20s, when they were just a lousy small-time act, defined what Gracie Allen was and would be for the next 35 years. The audience wouldn’t stand for it if her lines required sarcasm or spite. Burns learned that if he blew a puff of cigar smoke in Gracie’s direction, the audience would hate me. As he told the interviewer: She was too dainty, too ladylike, for malice or mean humor. She was a beautiful little girl, like a little doll, a little Irish doll.