NBC/Elmer W. Holloway · Public domain

Burns spent a career spanning vaudeville, radio, film, and television, most of it performing as one half of Burns and Allen alongside his wife Gracie Allen, playing the deadpan straight man to her scatterbrained comic persona. At 79, long after most performers retire, he found an unexpected second act: his performance in The Sunshine Boys (1975) won him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and turned him into a beloved elder statesman of American comedy for another two decades.