By: Elisabeth Sneed; Charlene Daniels; Ann Oldenberg; Karen Thomas

Leave it to Hollywood Celebs to rise from the rubble of the California earthquake and try to find some humor amid all the horror:

"I jumped out of bed and started taking bows," George Burns, who turns 98 today, quipped about Monday's massive earthquake. "I thought it was the audience applauding."

Grateful her family is OK, Zsa Zsa Gabor joked that sister Eva "was thrown out of her bed. I told her it was because she's so damn skinny."

Asleep in her Bel-Air home when the quake hit, Gabor says her husband "in the pitch dark, carried me out to the car."

Though she hasn't checked the top-floor nightclub (her house was once owned by Howard Hughes), Gabor lost five of her collection of antique china fu dogs (pug dogs) and four or five crystal chandeliers and much of her china. Fireplaces are cracked, she says.

Fellow Bel-Air residents Mickey Rourke and wife Carre Otis woke to shattered windows and TV's, as pictures shook off the walls.

Another Bel-Air denizen, "NYPD Blue's" Dennis Franz, says damage to his home is minimal. He and his 12-year mate Joanie are "the king and queen of the knickknacks," he says. "They went bouncing and flying and hitting you."

Franz's "NYPD" castmates David Caruso and Nickolas Turturro weren't so lucky. They've both vacated their now-uninhabitable apartments and moved into hotels.

Jack Nicholson's impressive art collection suffered in the quake. Fortunately, structural damage to his Mulholland Drive home wasn't major, though several doorways stretched.

Faye Dunaway's Coldwater Canyon home suffered no damage, but "the valley is stricken" she says. At 4:31 a.m., "I remember staring ...in the mirror opposite me, and it would just not stop shaking."

"Life Goes On's" Kellie Martin had it worse in Studio City. The apartment she shared with mother Debra and sister Heather was destroyed; she's in temporary housing.

But the quake is the end of an era for Carroll O' Connor. Wednesday, the "In the Heat of the Night" star closed his 15-year-old Beverly hills eatery, 'Carroll O'Connor's Place' due to structural damage.