Variety show Stan Laurel revisited his music hall days when he performed at the "Royal Variety" show. In the United States, former vaudeville performers such as the Marx Brothers, George Burns and Gracie Allen, W. C. Fields, and Jack Benny honed their skills in the Borscht Belt before moving to talkies, to radio shows, and then to television shows, including variety shows. Variety shows were among the first programs to be featured on television during the experimental mechanical television era. Variety shows hosted by Helen Haynes and Harriet Lee are recorded in contemporary newspapers in 1931 and 1932; because of technical limits
Goodnight Gracie "this is a lighter." Alex, who was very close to her grandmother, is hurt by the seemingly shallow gift. Alex asks Frank about the note, and he notices it is in fact a letter which, in the humid environment in Florida, has become stuck together. As the family attends the memorial service for Gracie, the contents of the letter are revealed in a voiceover by Alex, telling the story of how she acquired the lighter when her favorite actor, Paul Newman, left it behind at the diner where she was working as a waitress. Frank, witnessing her pocket the lighter,