In a small and simple funeral, George Burns was laid to rest beside his beloved Gracie in a hilltop crypt.
The cigar-chomping comic and actor was mourned Tuesday during an invitation-only funeral attended by family and close friends. He died Saturday at 100."He was here for 100 great years. We may have wished for more, but no one in this room could have wanted him to hang on, unable to hear the laughter and applause or take his bows," manager and longtime friend Irving Fein told mourners at Wee Kirk o' the Heather church at Forest Lawn Memorial Park.
"So, George, we'll miss you. I know you took your music with you, so wherever you are, I hope they're playing it in your key."
The 70 or so mourners included Ronald J. Burns and Sandra Jean Burns, the entertainer's son and daughter, plus seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
The half-hour service for the show-biz legend had a Hollywood ending: As if on cue, the skies darkened and rain began to fall.
Burns had been unable to work since falling at his home in 1994. His 100th birthday shows were canceled, and he was unable even to be a spectator at a gala in his honor a few days before he turned 100.
A hearse carried Burns' wooden coffin to the hilltop Freedom Mausoleum, where he was reunited with his vaudeville partner and wife, Gracie Allen, who died in 1964.
"It will be Burns and Allen forever again," Burns' 59-year-old son said.
Alan Ladd and Nat "King" Cole are also entombed in the mausoleum.
After his wife's death, Burns made monthly visits to her crypt, telling one interviewer that her gold-leaf epitaph would be moved above his when he died. "She'll have top billing," he said.