He said “you’ll never make a nickel all dolled up in a spangled skirt. Honestly, I have a hard time picturing that but what do I know about show business.ĭespite her mother’s efforts and all the years of dancing, it was the show business advise her father gave her at a very young age that defined Gracie Allen’s career. Bessie was so good that Sid Grauman used to tell people “if you want to learn tap you have to go to Bessie Allen.” Gracie never felt she was as good as her sisters and was in awe of Hazel who could dance and play the piano at the same time. To earn extra money the Allens gave private dance lessons in the basement of their house. The girls were experts in Irish and Scottish dances and won contests whenever they performed in church functions and county picnics. Gracie’s mother would stay up late at night sewing dresses for Gracie and her three sisters, Bessie, Pearl and Hazel to wear to dancing school. Pidgie would later say often that the first time she heard Gracie talk and heard that voice, she immediately went out and bought dancing shoes. Pidgie always wanted her children to be famous so when she was pregnant with Gracie she would go to her neighbor’s house every day because the woman was a great opera singer in hopes her child would be born a singer too. Her mother, who everyone called Pidgie because she remarried a man named Edward Pidgeon, loved show business. Her father, who disappeared from the family when Gracie was five years old, was a song and dance man who traveled in minstrel shows up and down the West Coast. Gracie Allen was barely five feet tall and had a child-like voice.
“When I was born I was so surprised I didn’t talk for a year and a half.” But it was the smartest dumb act in show business history. During a career that spanned four decades, audiences the world over knew her as just Gracie. She even ran for President of the United States. She enchanted audiences in small-time and big-time Vaudeville houses, in movie theaters, on the radio and on television. Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen – Gracie Allen – or just Gracie – was the most popular woman in America. “Gracie, why should I give your mother a bushel of nuts? What’d she ever give me?” “Why, George, she gave you me.
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