Year 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. It was the first year of the 1960s and is also known as the "Year of Africa".
George Burns (January 20, 1896 – March 9, 1996), born Naftaly Birnbaum, was an American comedian, actor, and writer.
He was one of the few entertainers whose career successfully spanned vaudeville, film, radio, and television. His arched eyebrow and cigar smoke punctuation became familiar trademarks for over three quarters of a century. Beginning at the age of 79, Burns' career was resurrected as an amiable, beloved and unusually active old comedian, continuing to work until shortly before his death, in 1996, at the age of 100.
Naftaly (late called Nathan) Birnbaum was the ninth of 12 children born to Louis and Dorah (nèe Bluth) Birnbaum, Jewish immigrants who had come to the United States from Romania. Burns was an active member of the First Roumanian-American congregation. His father was a substitute cantor at the local synagogue but usually worked as a coat presser. During the influenza epidemic of 1903, Lippe Birnbaum contracted the flu and died at the age of 47. Nattie (as he was then called) went to work to help support the family, shining shoes, running errands, and selling newspapers.
Jack Benny (born Benjamin Kubelsky, February 14, 1894 – December 26, 1974) was an American comedian, vaudevillian, radio, television, and film actor, and also a notable violinist. Widely recognized as one of the leading American entertainers of the 20th century, Benny played the role of the comic penny-pinching miser, insisting on remaining 39 years old on stage despite his actual age, and often playing the violin badly.
Benny was known for his comic timing and his ability to get laughs with either a pregnant pause or a single expression, such as his signature exasperated "Well!" His radio and television programs, tremendously popular from the 1930s to the 1960s, were a foundational influence on the situation comedy genre. Dean Martin, on the celebrity roast for Johnny Carson in November 1973, introduced Benny as "the Satchel Paige of the world of comedy".
Benny was born Benjamin Kubelsky on February 14, 1894, in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up in neighboring Waukegan, Illinois. He was the son of Meyer Kubelsky and Emma Sachs Kubelsky. Meyer was a Jewish saloon owner, later to become a haberdasher, who had emigrated to America from Poland. Emma had emigrated from Lithuania. Benny began studying the violin, an instrument that would become his trademark, when he was just six, with his parents' hopes that he would be a great classical violinist. He loved the violin, but hated practice. By age 14, he was playing in local dance bands as well as in his high school orchestra. Benny was a dreamer and a poor student and he was expelled from high school. He did equally badly in business school and at his father's trade. At age 17, he began playing the instrument in local vaudeville theaters for $7.50 a week. He was joined by Ned Miller, a young composer and singer, on the vaudeville circuit. They became life-long friends and Miller eventually joined the cast of The Jack Benny Program in the 1960s.
Elizabeth Ruth "Betty" Grable (December 18, 1916 – July 2, 1973) was an American actress, dancer, and singer.
Grable was celebrated for having the most beautiful legs in Hollywood and studio publicity widely dispersed photos featuring them. Her iconic bathing suit poster made her the number-one pin-up girl of the World War II era. It was later included in the Life magazine project "100 Photos that Changed the World". Hosiery specialists of the era often noted the ideal proportions of her legs as thigh (18.5"), calf (12"), and ankle (7.5"). Grable's legs were famously insured by her studio for $1,000,000 with Lloyds of London.
Grable appeared in several smash-hit musical films in the 1940s, most notable: Mother Wore Tights in 1947, with frequent co-star Dan Dailey. She came to prominence in 1939 when she signed with Twentieth Century-Fox and signed on to appear opposite Ethel Merman in the Broadway musical Du Barry Was a Lady. But it was not until she was called back to Hollywood to replace Fox's musical queen, Alice Faye, in Down Argentine Way, that she became a household name. Throughout her career, Grable was typecast in her stereotype-musical film roles, and when her career faltered in the 1950s, she found it hard to reinvent herself as a serious-trained actress.
Polly Bergen (born Nellie Paulina Burgin; July 14, 1930) is an American actress, singer, television host and entrepreneur.
Bergen appeared in many film roles, most notably in the original Cape Fear (1962) opposite Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum. She had roles in three Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedy films in the early 1950s: At War with the Army, That's My Boy and The Stooge. Later roles included Mrs. Vernon-Williams in Cry-Baby, a John Waters film.
Bergen received an Emmy award for her portrayal of singer, Helen Morgan, in the episode The Helen Morgan Story of the 1950s television series, Playhouse 90. Signed to Columbia Records, she enjoyed a successful recording career during this era, as well. In the 1950s she also was known as "The Pepsi Cola Girl," having done a series of commercials for that product.
She was a regular panelist on the CBS game show, To Tell the Truth, during its original run. She also appeared on the NBC interview program, Here's Hollywood.
In 1963 Bergen co-starred with Doris Day and James Garner in the film comedy, Move Over, Darling. Garner's character marries hers when he believes his long-lost wife (Day) to be deceased, only to have her turn up.
How 'bout a tear for the year of 1960
I watched the fins of the Cadillac fall
I remember Dad explained about the Berlin Wall
How 'bout a tear for the torment and the trouble
That was brewing in the Asian way
I wore a smile like the faces that surround L.A.
In the city of the lost and found
It's hard to get a break
Hard to stop from getting turned around
And make the same mistakes
My reputation's on the line
The final day of '59
But like the sun, just watch me shine
Today
How 'bout a cheer for the piano virtuoso
I practiced 61 minutes a day
I could never reach the keys
But it was all OK
How 'bout a cheer for the humour in my brother
That could brighten up the darkest nights
It's just another sign of love
Whenever we would fight
It's all the same twenty years ago
As it is right now
Like a tour at the closing show
When I take my bow
My reputation's on the line
At the start of '79
But like the sun, just watch me shine
Today
I've played this part so many times
Since the end of '59
But like the sun, just watch me shine