October 7, 1977: George Burns Plays God

October 7, 1977: The film Oh, God! premieres. George Burns plays God. He was almost old enough.

He was born on January 20, 1896, in Manhattan, as Nathan Birnbaum. When he went into show business, he named himself after two different, but unrelated, star baseball players of his youth: George Burns.

In 1922, already known in vaudeville, he met comedian Gracie Allen, born on July 26, 1895 (yes, she was older) in San Francisco, as Gracie Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen. They married in 1926, and developed a stage act where Burns played the "straight man," and Allen played a silly, addle-headed woman whose convoluted logic Burns was often ill-equipped to challenge. Burns once told an interviewer, "I would say, 'So, Gracie, how's your brother?' and let her talk for 15 minutes while I smoked a cigar." The act always ended the same way: George would say, "Say goodnight, Gracie," and Gracie would say, "Goodnight, Gracie."

The Burns and Allen Show debuted on radio in 1936; the series ran, moving back and forth between NBC and CBS, until 1950. After their radio show's cancellation, Burns and Allen reemerged on television with a CBS situation comedy, The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, which ran from 1950 to 1958.

Officially, the show, still popular, ended because Gracie was tired of learning lines. The truth was worse: She had a bad heart, and she died on August 27, 1964, at the age of 69. George later told an interviewer, "I go to her grave, and I tell her my jokes. She doesn't laugh. She's heard them all before."

George continued as a comic actor, and did standup on variety shows like The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. The death of his close friend and fellow comedian Jack Benny in 1974 devastated him. But in 1976, playwright Neil Simon cast George in the film version of his play The Sunshine Boys. At 80, George Burns became the oldest male actor to yet win an Academy Award for Best Picture. He told the media, "It just goes to show that if you stick around long enough, you become new again."

(In 2021, Anthony Hopkins won at age 83 for his role in The Father. The oldest actress is Jessica Tandy, who won in 1990, at 80. for Driving Miss Daisy. The youngest? In 2002, Adrien Brody won at 29 for The Pianist; and in 1987, Marlee Matlin won at 21 for Children of a Lesser God. Tatum O'Neal won at 10 in 1974, for Paper Moon, but she won for Best Supporting Actress, even though she was the female lead. In 1981, Timothy Hutton was 20 when he won Best Supporting Actor for Ordinary People.)

Before Betty White, George Burns was America's favorite elderly celebrity -- or, at least, America's favorite person famous for being old. George, how many of those cigars do you smoke a day? "About 20 a day." And how much do you drink? "I drink 6 martinis a day." And you date young women? "Yes." Why don't you date women your own age? "There aren't any." But couldn't fooling around with a woman that young prove fatal? "If she dies, she dies." What does your doctor say about all of this? "He's dead."

He also liked to say, "I never tell a joke older than I am. There aren't any." In 1977, just before the release of Oh, God!, Burns was the guest host on The Muppet Show. Gonzo the Great held a violin, and said, "It's my new act: Gonzo fiddles while George Burns!" It was a play on the old line -- not possible, because the violin didn't exist in ancient times -- "Nero fiddles while Rome burns." George heard Gonzo, and said, "Finally! A joke that's older than I am!"

In 1971, Avery Corman write a novel titled, Oh, God! Larry Gelbart wrote a screenplay based on it, to be directed by Carl Reiner. Both men had written for Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows in the 1950s, as had Mel Brooks. They cast Burns as God. "I originally offered the part to Mel," Gelbart said, "but he didn't want the demotion."

The story centers on supermarket manager Jerry Landers, who is chosen by God to spread His message, despite the skepticism of the media, religious authorities, and his own wife. Instead of wearing a long white beard and a long white robe, as God is often depicted, Burns dressed like a Florida retiree, complete with a sailor cap and loafers. When Jerry asks Him to prove he's God, by doing a miracle, God says, "The last miracle I did was the 1969 Mets."

Singer John Denver was cast as Jerry. Burns said, "Denver brought in his fans, and they got me to bring in the young kids." Teri Garr played Jerry's wife.

The movie was a hit. Burns said, "They're doing a sequel. I'm playing God again. Why not? At my age, anything I do is a miracle." Oh, God! Book II came out in 1980, and Oh, God! You Devil in 1984. Both times, Burns was the only returning actor, and there was no connection between the stories.

In the 3rd film, set mostly in Las Vegas, Burns spent much more on-screen time as the Devil, using the name Harry O. Tophet -- the initials spelling "HOT," as seen on his license plate, and "Tophet" was a place where pre-Judaism Canaanites would sacrifice their children to the god Moloch. As with his version of God, he didn't use a traditional appearance: No horns, no tail, no mustache, no beard, not even exaggerated eyebrows. But he did wear a red sportsjacket, compared to the blue windbreaker he wore as God.

Spoiler Alert: In the true spirit of Las Vegas, when the old enemies finally face each other, God wins the hero's soul back by bluffing through a poker hand. The Devil says, "Why did I fold?" And God says, "I put the fear of Me into you."

How many actors have played both God and the Devil? In live-action, only George Burns, and he played both at the same time. When he was 87 years old.

(Max von Sydow played Jesus in The Greatest Story Ever Told in 1965, and the Devil, using the name Leeland Gaunt, in Needful Things in 1993. Willem Dafoe played Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988, and the Devil in a 2013 Mercedes-Benz commercial.)

George Burns had a running gag: "I can't die. I'm booked." He wasn't kidding: Years in advance, he had the London Palladium rented out for his 100th birthday, January 20, 1996. But at the age of 98, he fell getting out of the bathtub, and broke his hip. That has been the beginning of the end for many old people, and it looked like he was going to will himself to live to be 100, just for the sake of reaching the milestone. He did, but it was Jerry Seinfeld who took the London Palladium gig. George Burns died on March 9, 1996, just 49 days after turning 100.

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October 7, 1977 was a Friday. In baseball, Game 3 was played in each League Championship Series. Dennis Leonard, a Brooklyn native, goes the distance, and the Kansas City Royals beat the New York Yankees, 6-2 at Royals Stadium (renamed Kauffman Stadium in 1993). The Royals take a 2-1 lead in the series, and need just 1 more win for their 1st Pennant.

They will be disappointed. But perhaps not as badly as the Philadelphia Phillies. But in the top of the 9th, trailing 5-3 and down to their last out, the Los Angeles Dodgers benefit from a sickening turn of events, which leads to a 6-5 Dodger win, and they take the Pennant the next day. Philadelphia fans call it "Black Friday." I have a separate entry for this event.

Football was in midweek. And the 1977-78 NBA, NHL and World Hockey Association seasons hadn't started yet.

April 6, 1971: John Denver Gives West Virginia a Theme Song

April 6, 1971: John Denver releases his album Poems, Prayers & Promises. It contains covers of the Beatles' "Let It Be" and James Taylor's "Fire and Rain." It also includes his own composition "Sunshine On My Shoulders," and a song written by Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert, a then-married couple who would join with another, Jon Carroll and Margot Chapman, to form the Starland Vocal Band. In 1976, they went on to have a Number 1 hit with "Afternoon Delight."

Danoff and Nivert were driving down Clopper Road in Maryland to a Nivert family reunion in Gaithersburg. But the melody that got stuck in Danoff's head needed 4 syllables, so he tried Massachusetts, his home State, before remembering West Virginia. Not only was West Virginia nearby, but Danoff remembered listening, from his home in Springfield, Massachusetts, to a radio show that was broadcast from Wheeling, West Virginia: Saturday Night Jamboree.

So West Virginia became the site of the song, titled "Take Me Home, Country Roads." The State government eventually put the words "Almost Heaven" on its license plates. In 2014, the State made it the official State Song.

In 1979, Denver -- by this point, more identified with Colorado, not just because of his stage name (the native of Roswell, New Mexico was born Henry John Deutchendorf Jr.), but because of his 1972 hit "Rocky Mountain High" -- made it up to Maryland. He appeared at a World Series game in Baltimore, singing yet another of his rural-themed hits: "Thank God I'm a Country Boy." To this day, the Orioles play that song after "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the 7th Inning Stretch.

As for "Take Me Home, Country Roads," the site of the song's inspiration is no longer "Almost Heaven": The Washington, D.C. metropolitan area has grown like crazy in the last half-century, and swallowed up so much of the countryside with development. Both couples in the Starland Vocal Band split up, although, as of April 6, 2022, all 4 of them are still alive. Denver is not: He was killed in a plane crash in 1997.

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April 6, 1971 was a Tuesday. It was Opening Day of the Major League Baseball season. Oddly, the team that was closest to the site of the song's inspiration, the Baltimore Orioles, did not play that day: They had their opener the next day, beating the Washington Senators, 3-2 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.

Nor did the Chicago White Sox play that day: They also opened the next day, beating the Oakland Athletics, 6-5 at the Oakland Coliseum.

The A's and the Senators opened on April 5, at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington. Tradition had it that the 1st game of the season in the American League would be in Washington, and that the President of the United States would throw out the ceremonial first ball.

President Richard Nixon had done so in 1969, but he wasn't available in 1970, and Vice President Spiro Agnew got booed when he did it -- not because the fans wanted to see Nixon, but based on his personality. Nixon was again unavailable for Opening Day 1971, so he selected someone absolutely unbooable: Master Sergeant Daniel L. Pitzer, U.S. Army, who had been a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

The Senators won, 8-0. Dick Bosman pitched a 6-hit shutout. As it turned out, this would be the last traditional AL opener in Washington: The following season, the Senators moved to the Dallas area, becoming the Texas Rangers. In 1984, Ronald Reagan began throwing out the Opening Day first ball in Baltimore, as the closest MLB city to Washington, restarting the tradition. In 2005, the Washington Nationals arrived, playing in the National League.

The traditional NL opener was always in Cincinnati, preceded by a downtown parade, in honor of the city's status as the home of the 1st openly professional baseball team. Although the Cincinnati Reds were founded in 1880, and have no corporate connection to the 1869-70 Cincinnati Red Stockings, they (and their chosen opponents) have usually played before every other NL team. And on April 5, they lost to the Atlanta Braves, 7-4 at Riverfront Stadium.

These games were played on April 6:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Boston Red Sox, 3-1 at Fenway Park in Boston. Ray Culp outpitched Stan Bahnsen. Reggie Smith and Duane Josephson each went 3-for-4. Carl Yastrzemski went 2-for-4 with an RBI. Thurmann Munson went 2-for-4, but the rest of the Yankees only got 3 hits and no walks between them, including an RBI single by Horace Clarke.

* The New York Mets were leading the Montreal Expos, 4-2 after 5 innings at Shea Stadium, when the game was called due to rain. Tom Seaver was the winning pitcher.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 4-2 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Roberto Clemente went 0-for-4, and Willie Stargell went 1-for-4.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Indians, 8-2 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Al Kaline went 1-for-4 with a walk.

* The Chicago Cubs beat their arch-rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, 2-1 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Billy Williams hit a home run off Bob Gibson in the bottom of the 10th inning to win it, making a winning pitcher out of Ferguson Jenkins. On what turned out to be his last Opening Day as a player, Ernie Banks did not play.

For the Cards, Joe Torre hit a home run, on his way to a season where he would win the batting title with a .363 average, and would be named the NL's Most Valuable Player. Lou Brock went 0-for-4.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Minnesota Twins, 7-2 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Harmon Killebrew went 2-for-3 with a walk and an RBI. Rod Carew went 0-for-4 with a walk.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Houston Astros, 2-0 at the Astrodome in Houston. Claude Osteen pitched a 4-hit shutout to outpitch Don Wilson.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the San Diego Padres, 4-0 at San Diego Stadium (later Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium). Juan Marichal pitched a 5-hit shutout. Willie Mays hit his 629th career home run.

* And the Kansas City Royals beat the California Angels, 4-1 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim).

Football was out of season. The NHL was between the end of its regular season and the start of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. There were 2 games played in the NBA Playoffs. The New York Knicks beat the Baltimore Bullets, 112-111 at Madison Square Garden. And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Chicago Bulls, 109-98 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

There were 3 games in the American Basketball Association Playoffs:

* The New York Nets beat the Virginia Squires, 135-131 at the Hofstra Physical Fitness Center, Hempstead, Long Island, New York. Like many ABA (and later World Hockey Association) teams, the home arenas only booked the "rebel league" teams through the end of their regular season, meaning that some of them had to scramble to find new homes for the Playoffs. In the Nets' case, the gym at Hofstra University was right across the street from the parking lot where their new home, the Nassau Coliseum, was being built. Rick Barry scored 43 points.

* The Miami Floridians beat the Kentucky Colonels, 120-102 at the gymnasium of Miami-Dade Junior College North in Miami.

* And the Utah Stars beat the Texas Chaparrals, 128-107 at the Moody Coliseum in Dallas. For the 1970-71 season only, the Dallas Chaparrals tried the ABA's experiment of regional "home games," and called themselves the Texas Chaparrals. In 1973, they became the San Antonio Spurs.