NONFICTION - Dec. 15, 1985

DR. BURNS’ PRESCRIPTION FOR HAPPINESS by George Burns (Perigee/Putnam’s: $5.95, trade paperback, illustrated). With a single wave of his cigar, George Burns could reduce Jack Benny from a rock of composure to a quiver of laughter. He can still upstage Milton Berle, and his deadpan delivery will endure long after Bob Hope’s staccato hortatory. All these are considerable achievements for the man originally known as Nathan Birnbaum; but neither Burns nor his writers--that piteous cadre from the gulag at Nate ‘n’ Al’s Deli--can write a book. This latest attempt, a glib pastiche of stand-up routines, publicity stills, and sexual inferences, argues eloquently if unintentionally that the difference between comedy and humor is equal to the difference between live performance and dramatic solvency. The Burns we saw portraying Al Lewis in “The Sunshine Boys” is not the Burns we get in these vapid, embarrassing pages. “There are no shortcuts to happiness,” Burns writes in one of the more profound statements of the book. “I don’t know any shortcuts to anything. If I did, this chapter wouldn’t be so long.” “Dr. Burns’ Prescription for Happiness” is a non-book and a non-event. If it does add to George Burns’ solvency, it will do so at the expense of his dignity and our respect.