Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor

1975

George Burns 

as

Al Lewis

The Sunshine Boys

George Burns (January 20, 1896 – March 9, 1996), born Nathan Birnbaum, was an American comedian, actor, singer, 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.

When Burns was 79, he had a sudden career revival as an amiable, beloved and unusually active comedy elder statesman in the 1975 film The Sunshine Boys, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He continued to work until shortly before his death, in 1996, at the age of 100, of cardiac arrest in his home.