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Abe Burrows
Abe Burrows (born Abram Solman Borowitz; December 18, 1910 – May 17, 1985) was an American writer, composer, humorist, director for radio and the stage, and librettist for Broadway musicals. His versatile career in radio, Broadway, and television spanned many decades. He is best known for co-writing the book to the award-winning musicals Guys and Dolls and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.
Born Abram Solman Borowitz in New York City, Burrows graduated from New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn and later attended City College and New York University. While at NYU, he began working as a runner on Wall Street. Eventually he quit college and devoted himself full time to Wall Street where he remained five years in a variety of clerical jobs.
Throughout most of the 1930s, Burrows struggled to earn a living. He worked in an accounting firm, sold maple syrup, and took a job in his father's wallpaper-and-paint business. His entry into the entertainment world occurred in 1938 when he met a young comic writer named Frank Gaylen. The two started collaborating on nightclub acts, comedy sketches, and radio scripts. They also sold jokes to an impressionist who appeared on Rudy Vallée's radio show, and from there Burrows was able to gain a foothold in radio.
His big break came when he began working with Ed Gardner, the writer and star of radio's legendary sitcom, Duffy's Tavern. The two created the successful show after Gardner's character, Archie, had premiered on This Is New York, an earlier radio program. In 1941, Burrows was made the head writer of Duffy's Tavern, and he later credited that experience with helping him invent the Runyonesque street characters for Guys and Dolls. "The people on that show," Burrows once said about Duffy's Tavern, "were New York mugs, nice mugs, sweet mugs, and like (Damon) Runyon's mugs they all talked like ladies and gentlemen. That's how we treated the characters in Guys and Dolls."
Burrows also wrote for Danny Kaye's short-lived mid-1940s radio comedy show, helping head writer Goodman Ace fashion material for Kaye and co-stars Eve Arden and Lionel Stander. He quit Duffy's Tavern in 1945 to work at Paramount Pictures but soon returned to radio. As a guest on The Henry Morgan Show in 1947, Burrows performed "I'll Bet You're Sorry Now, Tokyo Rose, Sorry for What You Done."
Meanwhile, he became a popular guest on the Hollywood party circuit, performing his own satirical songs ("Darling Why Shouldn't You Look Well Fed, ‘Cause You Ate Up a Hunka My Heart?" and "The Girl with the Three Blue Eyes"). Such informal performances led to a nightclub act and regular appearances as a performer on CBS radio programs, and to his eventually hosting his own radio program on CBS Radio from 1947 to 1949, a 15-minute weekly comedy that Burrows wrote and directed as well.
As he recalled years later, his show came about while he was scripting a radio program for Joan Davis when George Jessel asked him, "When the hell are you gonna become a professional?" Burrows continued as Davis' head writer while doing his own show. Mixing comic patter ("I guess I could tell you exactly what I look like, but I think that's a lousy thing to say about a guy") with his clever comic songs, The Abe Burrows Show was popular with listeners and critics but not with its sponsor, Lambert Pharmaceutical, then the makers of Listerine mouthwash, but promoting a Listerine toothpaste on the show. Lambert, according to Burrows, complained that the show wasn't selling much of the toothpaste. "It seems that my fans were being naughty," he wrote. "While they were laughing at my jokes, they were sneering at my toothpaste."[citation needed]
The New York Public Library holds the Abe Burrows papers, which include complete runs of both The Abe Burrows Show (CBS, 1947–48) and Breakfast with Burrows (CBS, 1949), as well as appearances on other radio shows.[citation needed]
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Abe Burrows
Abe Burrows (born Abram Solman Borowitz; December 18, 1910 – May 17, 1985) was an American writer, composer, humorist, director for radio and the stage, and librettist for Broadway musicals. His versatile career in radio, Broadway, and television spanned many decades. He is best known for co-writing the book to the award-winning musicals Guys and Dolls and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.
Born Abram Solman Borowitz in New York City, Burrows graduated from New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn and later attended City College and New York University. While at NYU, he began working as a runner on Wall Street. Eventually he quit college and devoted himself full time to Wall Street where he remained five years in a variety of clerical jobs.
Throughout most of the 1930s, Burrows struggled to earn a living. He worked in an accounting firm, sold maple syrup, and took a job in his father's wallpaper-and-paint business. His entry into the entertainment world occurred in 1938 when he met a young comic writer named Frank Gaylen. The two started collaborating on nightclub acts, comedy sketches, and radio scripts. They also sold jokes to an impressionist who appeared on Rudy Vallée's radio show, and from there Burrows was able to gain a foothold in radio.
His big break came when he began working with Ed Gardner, the writer and star of radio's legendary sitcom, Duffy's Tavern. The two created the successful show after Gardner's character, Archie, had premiered on This Is New York, an earlier radio program. In 1941, Burrows was made the head writer of Duffy's Tavern, and he later credited that experience with helping him invent the Runyonesque street characters for Guys and Dolls. "The people on that show," Burrows once said about Duffy's Tavern, "were New York mugs, nice mugs, sweet mugs, and like (Damon) Runyon's mugs they all talked like ladies and gentlemen. That's how we treated the characters in Guys and Dolls."
Burrows also wrote for Danny Kaye's short-lived mid-1940s radio comedy show, helping head writer Goodman Ace fashion material for Kaye and co-stars Eve Arden and Lionel Stander. He quit Duffy's Tavern in 1945 to work at Paramount Pictures but soon returned to radio. As a guest on The Henry Morgan Show in 1947, Burrows performed "I'll Bet You're Sorry Now, Tokyo Rose, Sorry for What You Done."
Meanwhile, he became a popular guest on the Hollywood party circuit, performing his own satirical songs ("Darling Why Shouldn't You Look Well Fed, ‘Cause You Ate Up a Hunka My Heart?" and "The Girl with the Three Blue Eyes"). Such informal performances led to a nightclub act and regular appearances as a performer on CBS radio programs, and to his eventually hosting his own radio program on CBS Radio from 1947 to 1949, a 15-minute weekly comedy that Burrows wrote and directed as well.
As he recalled years later, his show came about while he was scripting a radio program for Joan Davis when George Jessel asked him, "When the hell are you gonna become a professional?" Burrows continued as Davis' head writer while doing his own show. Mixing comic patter ("I guess I could tell you exactly what I look like, but I think that's a lousy thing to say about a guy") with his clever comic songs, The Abe Burrows Show was popular with listeners and critics but not with its sponsor, Lambert Pharmaceutical, then the makers of Listerine mouthwash, but promoting a Listerine toothpaste on the show. Lambert, according to Burrows, complained that the show wasn't selling much of the toothpaste. "It seems that my fans were being naughty," he wrote. "While they were laughing at my jokes, they were sneering at my toothpaste."[citation needed]
The New York Public Library holds the Abe Burrows papers, which include complete runs of both The Abe Burrows Show (CBS, 1947–48) and Breakfast with Burrows (CBS, 1949), as well as appearances on other radio shows.[citation needed]