Burns and Allen of the Academy Awards, a record that would remain until Jessica Tandy won an Oscar for "Driving Miss Daisy" in 1989. Burns, who became a centenarian in 1996, continued to work until just weeks before his death of cardiac arrest on March 19, 1996, at his home in Beverly Hills. In 1929 Burns and Allen made their debut radio performance broadcast in London on the BBC. In the United States, they had failed at a 1930 NBC audition. After a solo appearance by Gracie on Eddie Cantor's radio show, they were heard together on Rudy Vallee's "The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour"
Driving Miss Daisy African American housemaid named Idella (Esther Rolle). When Miss Daisy drives her 1946 Chrysler Windsor into her neighbor's yard, her forty-year-old son Boolie (Dan Aykroyd) buys her a 1949 Hudson Commodore and hires Hoke Colburn (Morgan Freeman), an African American chauffeur. Miss Daisy at first refuses to let anyone else drive her, but gradually gives in. As Miss Daisy and Hoke spend time together, she gains appreciation for his many skills. After Idella dies in 1962, rather than hire a new maid, Miss Daisy decides to care for her own house and have Hoke do the cooking and the driving.