"Have a seat - would you like some coffee," George offered in a tone so warm and endearing that I felt like I was with my grandpa instead of a Hollywood legend. We chit-chatted about his cat and the weather and a number of other ordinary things until finally he looked at me and said, "Well Tom, I guess I better go get dressed so we can get started."
He disappeared upstairs with his butler and then reappeared a few minutes later fully attired in his formal best, chomping away on a big cigar. His reading glasses had now been replaced with his trademark round, black horn-rim glasses and he had that wonderful little crooked smile going.
"So where do you want to do this?" he asked as he made his way nimbly down the long and winding flight of stairs. "I don't know," I answered as I quickly surveyed the surroundings, "how about by the piano over there in the living room - that seems like a good place to start."
"Perfect," he mumbled, "but let me stop here for a second and fix a prop."
He stopped at the bar in the living room and proceeded to make a martini, shaken as I remember it; served straight-up and garnished with a couple of skewered green olives. I looked at my watch - it was a little before nine in the morning. "Maybe this is the secret to his longevity," I thought, "a cigar and a martini first thing in the morning!"
George walked over to the piano, raised his martini to toast me and in a few minutes I had the shots I'd come for. Like most of the veteran Hollywood people I photographed over the years, George Burns knew exactly how to turn it on when he had to for the camera, kept it turned on as long as he felt he needed to and then let you know when he was done. That was my window of opportunity - those few minutes when their switch was on, when my switch needed to be on as well and then gracefully turned off when theirs was.
As we sat in the living room with the video crew and production people slowly drifting in, George told one amazing story after another about his days in Hollywood, showed me a picture album of him and Gracie and ended our conversation with these unforgettable words; "I don't know how Dolores has put up with Bob all these years," referring of course to Bob and Dolores Hope while offering up a couple of stories to make his point - stories which I'm certain weren't repeated for the video camera later on. I smiled quietly, shook his hand, thanked him for his time and disappeared into the chaos that had now filled the once tranquil home.
When I think of George Burns today, I think of this quiet gentle man sitting in his underwear at the kitchen table, petting his cat and talking to me about the weather. And I think about a man whose eyes still got misty and his voice full of fondness when he talked about Gracie all these years later.
