New Yorker Carol Burnett profile

I have to say this is a lesser entry in their tradition of great, in-depth, profiles. I learned hardly anything new , but ji read a dozen or more anecdotes that I already knew quite well. Maybe that’s why she’s made it this far —and it is more or less the author’s end point: WYSIWYG.

For FUCK'S sake!!! CAROL!!

I do like that chair and ottoman very much.

Agree, r1. I dove into this loooooooong interview hoping I'd learn something new, some new insights, but it's basically just the Carol I've known since I was a kid, discovering her on The Garry Moore Show. Actually, I wish she'd talked more about Garry and the weekly effort of putting on that show as it's sadly either forgotten or unknown now. And that's really where she got her start.

The most interesting but: they would rehearse Mama’s Family skits as “ straight” scenes, and agreed it was all far too dark for their taste.

bit*

R5, that's not a new anecdote. The skit was the Maggie Smith episode and she suggested they do it straight and Burnett called it "heavy".

It's a shame the younger generations don't really seek out entertainers like Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Milton Berle, Gary Moore and Danny Thomas, Sid Caeser and Red Skeleton.

Carol going will be a profound loss to the industry. No different than Lucy.

I’ve read she was difficult on the set of “Annie.” Any truth to that rumor?

The writer is very good, and tried hard to mine for new ground, but ultimately even a casual Carol fan knows most of these stories.

Sad that she seems to be estranged from one and possibly both of her surviving daughters.

That’s not the anecdote, but I’ll take your point.

The profile skips over her two main forays into heavier drama: Friendly Fire and Pete n’ Tillie.

I haven't had the chance to read the article yet, but is there any mention of Vicki Lawrence? I wonder how frequently they see one another as Vicki is still doing her show and jetting about on her private plane hither and yon for personal appearances.

My sister knew Erin from Bennington. She was quite the fucked-up teen.

Her one daughter was into drugs. I don't know why she would be estranged from the other one, though.

Two were druggies

What ended the marriage to Joe Hamilton?

I knew her love of All My Children would somehow make its way into the piece and voila! There it was. She was so devoted to that show.

[quote] Her one daughter was into drugs. I don't know why she would be estranged from the other one, though.

Carrie and Erin have both struggled with drugs - Erin was institutionalized a few years back and Carol got custody of her grandson (Erin's child) so they are not speaking.

[quote] is there any mention of Vicki Lawrence?

Briefly, a quote from Vicki. Carol and Vicki have had a few falling outs. They're on a speaking basis now but considering the body language of the last two TV specials for Carol (the one on CBS and the 90th birthday one on NBC) they aren't exactly close as sisters any more.

Maybe Vicki was rude to Carol in an Applebee's, too!

R16 money and sex. What else.

One of these days, Vicki, they're going to lock you up.

Carol, you got splinters in the windmills of your mind!

Does it mention her close, close friendship with Julie Andrews?

Read the damn article. Of course it is mentioned.—just one close not two

I haven't heard that Ann Miller story before. The one about egg.

I wanted to hear Carol talk about her disastrous experience performing on Broadway in Fade Out, Fade In and how her affair with married man Joe Hamilton complicated it even further.

The drama with Carol and Vicki is largely because of Mama. Carol refuses to discuss Mama's Family and will only talk about the Burnett show sketches in interviews. She fell out with Vicki because of the syndication run and she was divorcing Joe when she did the NBC show. No good memories.

I think Vicki's one-woman show has also caused some squabbles as well, because the character is owned by Burnett's production company, but Vicki feels it's her character because she played it and made it the success it was. Typical business stuff.

Full of ridiculous errors like saying Fresno was a short lived series when it was a mini series. The writer bizarrely keeps praising her turn as Miss Hannigan which was not well received at the time anyways. I'm glad that she said that starring in Moon Over Buffalo was a career regret because in the documentary, she's repeatedly trashed.

She was dreadful as Miss Hannigan, desperately mugging through it all. And that's saying something!

I love Carol, but her the vast majority of the comedy from her show has aged so poorly, I couldn't get through that Maggie Smith sketch posted above. It is so obvious and belabored. I thought she was a disaster in Annie as well. I've never found her to have any subtlety at all, but in the 70s, I stayed up late and watched her show every Saturday night without fail. I liked her a lot in Robert Altman's A Wedding, still an underrated movie, imo.

In Moon Over Buffalo the very able cast was saddled with a lousy unfunny play which they tried valiantly to make work, and it just wasn't possible.

R28. Sounds familiar...

Clips of her on The Garry Moore Show are even more unfunny and dated, sadly.

[quote]The writer bizarrely keeps praising her turn as Miss Hannigan which was not well received at the time anyways.

That's not true. Burnett did get raves from some critics. Pauline Kael said she was the single best thing about the movie. There was even some talk of an Oscar nomination.

Carol was good in A Wedding and The Four Seasons, but it was obvious that she wasn't a film actress. TV and film are totally different animals. The camera didn't love her, and she usually came across as flat on the big screen. Lucille Ball had the same problem.

It was The Front Page where she was god awful...

Ugh......I mercifully have forgotten about that Front Page movie. How the hell did Billy Wilder lose so much talent?

Buck would have never been killed by friendly fire...

[quote] Does it mention her close, close friendship with Julie Andrews?

There's a description of them scissoring and eating each other's snatches in the article.

In a way Carol was a slightly more modern Martha Raye without the singing voice.

Far better, more famous and more influential. That’s a dumb post^

Is there a good biography of Burnett? Did she ever write an autobiography?

Carol was always a horrible singer and although she used it to her advantage comedically, when she tried to sing straight, she was terrible. Her tone is really unpleasant and her technique always has me thinking she's about to go into the Tarzan yell.

It sounds like she did write an autobiography but she didn't reveal anything interesting in it.

Or the Polident, R39!

Or marrying a homosexual.

Didn’t she star in a Bway play about her own life—with her grifting mom?

Alcoholic not grift.

She lived it and wrote it. She didn’t act in it.

She wants Allison Janney to play her but isn't she too old?

[quote]The camera didn't love her, and she usually came across as flat on the big screen. Lucille Ball had the same problem.

And yet, Ball had a long film career before Lucy, including a stint at Metro.

R46, she wrote it. That whore Linda Lavin played her grandma.

Carol was really good in Pete N Tillie but she got to do a lot of her schtick. Her water fight with Geraldine Page was a scream and probably got Page an Oscar nomination.

Burnett has never gotten an Oscar Nomination

R50 - Ball was under contract and as "Queen of the B's" worked for years in film but never quite broke through - she seems a bigger film star in retrospect because she is "Lucy," but her career was essentially over when she and Desi risked everything they had on I Love Lucy.

^The question wasn't whether or not Lucy became A-list, but that she was "flat" onscreen. Were that the case, she wouldn't have had a film career at all.

Yeah, I don't think it can be fairly said that Lucy was flat onscreen, especially in her pre-ILL years. She really glowed in Technicolor. They nicknamed her Tessie Technicolor, in fact.

But Lucy/Mame, oh yeah, she was flat alright.

I don't think Lucy/Mame was flat, she was just too old. I have to argue that if there was anyone who was flat onscreen it was Lansbury.

In The Manchurian Candidate Lansbury virtually jumps off the screen, hardly flat. Likewise, you can't take your eyes off her in her screen debut Gaslight, which earned her an Oscar nomination. She's even imminently watchable in a small supporting role in The Reluctant Debutante in which she manages to steal scenes from Rex Harrison and Kay Kendall.

Flat? Hardly.

Team Vicki on the Mamas Family issue. Carol contacted Vicki about doing another sketch comedy show with the Eunice and Mama characters. Vicki told Carol she had signed with Joe Hamilton Productions to revive Mamas Family for syndication and Carol quit talking with her for a few years.

Mamas Family has continually been in syndication since it went off the air in 1990.

R41, she wrote a boring book in the mid-80s titled One More Time. She said it was letter to her daughters. And that's accurate because they are likely the only ones who found her some of her stories and anecdotes interesting. It was over 350 pages and only covered her childhood, teen years and early start in showbiz.

Lansbury's two big chances were Bedknobs and Broomsticks and then Something For Everyone where she essentially played Mame. In both, she was not a compelling leading lady and it had a lot to do with her round, flat face. Pauline Kael likened her to another not ready for the movies, Gwen Verdon, in that both were capable of playing weird old bats.

She wrote Carrie and Me and This Time Together. Carrie and Me was probably the most revealing, but she glosses over the early beginnings of her relationship with Joe Hamilton and his being a married man with 8 kids. I don’t think she ever said a word about her step kids. I read elsewhere Joes family sided with his ex wife and were devastated that the marriage broke up.

non paywall link below

Crazy to think that a person would have to be 60/65 years old at the youngest to really remember Carol Burnett at the height of her fame with The Carol Burnett Show.

As a child I loved her and never missed her show. Now I look try to look at some of those sketches and think they are awful and incredibly unfunny. One of the most overrated performers in show business. Pauline clearly never saw Annie on stage with Louden who was the best thing in that musical. Carol seems to have had a lot of important relationships that have gone sour. Her one daughter dies and she's estranged from the other two? Well she's never lost Julie who hasn't made any appearances since Carol's 90th birthday. Julie was nowhere to be seen on her 90th. Has she reached the point where we will not hear of her again until her death?

As a child, I enjoyed her show. But her personality doesn’t appeal to me. She seems kind of angry and bitter, and there is a shallowness about her that I can’t quite explain. I did find her funny on The Larry Sanders Show.

I didn’t know that Lyle Waggoner died.

I hated her charwoman. It wasn't funny, touching or really anything. Even as a kid I thought it was a pathetic attempt to gain a signature character. However, the first time we saw Eunice, we knew that was the one.

R65, Kael indeed did not see Annie onstage, but was shown the screenplay before it was filmed. She said she thought it was appalling, but also noted a problem with the locket moment. You can't half it. That's why the plot point is changed to having the locket kept with her belongings with Miss Hannigan.

1) One More Time, was actually a great book...a very blunt and poignant look at her early life and her messy parents and life being raised by her Grandmother in a tiny apartment in Hollywood.

2) You can be younger than 60 and remember the Burnett show...they cut out most of the musical stuff and syndicated the sketches for many years under the title "Carol Burnett & Friends". It was mostly sketches from the last 5 years of the show with a big emphasis on the Family sketches and movie spoofs.

3) Many of the sketches still hold up. Obviously, the Family sketches are great; MUCH better than the inane Mama's Family shit. The movie parodies are funny (if you like old movies and understand what they're about). There's some very funny standalone sketches...there's a great one with Carol as a neurotic woman visiting her shrink played by Harvey and she blames everything rotten in her life on the fact she was bullied by a male playmate when she was a kid, who stole her pail at the beach...that bully turns out to be the shrink. The show had good clever writing at times, but yeah....it was very broad comedy of that time. And, while I'm a huge fan of Carol and the variety show, I found watching the whole intact hour long episodes to be a bit excrutiating. The musical numbers are cute...for about 2 minutes then it's just corn that goes on and on and on.

4) As for the movies, it's hit and miss. I hate Friendly Fire...trying to hard to present her as dramatic. Pete n Tillie is actually mostly fun until they kill the kid and gets too maudlin. She's very funny in A Wedding which is a fun trainwreck. I'm not a fan of her Hannigan...but, the whole movie is really a mess. And, she's not terrible but Hannigan really works best with an actress who seems believable that she hates children.

Carol's best drama work...her stint on SVU where she played an old hasbeen actress who murdered her husband. She was really great in that!

I write to her around 1975 and asked if I could be on her show. I got a lovely letter back from her letting me know that that wasn't possible and gave me tips on how to pursue a career in entertainment if that's what I wanted to do. She also sent me an autographed 8 x 10. I treasure both to this day.

I can't read the whole article, I didn't realize she was estranged from her two living daughters, that's sad. I know her daughter Carrie died and seemed like a troubled woman. A buddy of mine did the first national tour of RENT in the late 90s and said Carrie was wonderful, and of course he met Carol a number of times when she came to see the show. He said Carol had really bad breath.

Paywalled

I've always said Harvey was funniest on her show. I thought Carol was good playing a drunk in a TV movie life of the party.

[quote] He said Carol had really bad breath.

R73 I’m guessing your buddy didn’t ask her to do the Tarzan yell.

Dorothy Loudon must've resented her so much.

When I see her now, I can't connect her to who she was in the '70s. Something about her is fundamentally different.

I loved her show when it was on (yes, I’m old) but other than the brilliant Family sketches I think it went downhill when Lyle Wagoner left and Tim Conway came on. The show did not need *two* schlumpy guys.

As an old movie fan though I loved the old movie send ups. I still laugh at the green curtains.

For the young'uns who don't know the history, after Carol (whose bursting stardom and popularity could not be contained in his ensemble) left The Garry Moore Show, she was replaced with Dorothy Loudon. Many people (not me!) felt she could not measure up to Carol's persona and talent but Dorothy plugged along, also appearing in a succession of Broadway flop musicals until ANNIE hit in 1978 and finally gave her the fame, a Tony and the appreciation she so rightly deserved.

Loudon then went on to have another enormous Broadway hit in NOISES OFF. The Michael Bennett musical BALL ROOM was in-between, and while not a financial hit, was a big personal success for her.

But Carol got to do the films of ANNIE and NOISES OFF and never came close to repeating the brilliance Dorothy brought to the stage in both those shows.

Yes, I'm sure there was bitterness there.

R80 I appreciate you expounding on my post. I was too lazy to go into detail!

God, watching Loudon play Miss Hannigan on YouTube- it's so far superior to Burnett's version. Not that the exact same Broadway performance would've necessarily worked for Dorothy on film.

I love Carol but she worked best on TV. Movies and Broadway just didn't agree with her. Though I'm one of the few who loves her rendition of I'm Still Here.

........ approx one year prior to ending the series in 1978

Musically, Carol was never better than in her two brilliant duets with Julie Andrews in their original JULIE AND CAROL AT CARNEGIE HALL. I think this was around 1960. The first I think is called "You're So..." and second is a medley of history of Broadway musicals. This was before Julie's success with MARY POPPINS.

Somebody please find them and post! TIA!

Loudon's Annie performance never could have worked in the movies. Too broad and exaggerated. Like Channing she always played to the balcony.

[quote] anyways

Oh dear, R27.

Vicky had absolutely no impact on The CB Show until the Mama character. One can't blame her for holding on to it for dear life.

I agree R86, every time the Mama horseshit has come up through the years, it is a negative for Carol.

I assume the courts all recognize the legality of who owns any syndication rights to the character... end of story.

I thought her first husband was that fag Don Burnett (on the right in this picture) but it was Don Saroyan.

I wanted to add that in that Facts of Life challenger series Loudon did, she was pretty unbearable.

Carol's managed to keep her personal life out of the spotlight, like MTM.

But she does have a few obvious secrets or sore spots. Her family relationships are an utter mess. She's a presumed lesbian but somehow snared a married man with 8 other kids and had 3 more kids with him. And her current husband looks to be smelling an entire bakery of cookies in every photo, so he is likely more of a companion.

Burnett married her current husband in her 70s so it's likely he was always a companion but I get it. When I'm older, I'd like a younger male to take care of me as well.

[quote] I didn't realize she was estranged from her two living daughters

I don't think she's estranged from her daughter, Jody Hamilton. Jody appears every week on the Stephanie Miller show and while it's not like Carol comes up all the time, when she does Jody seems to have a perfectly normal mother-daughter relationship with her. In fact, I think she's worked with her mother on some specials and clip shows or whatever. I think Jody herself struggled with drugs at one point and maybe they were estranged then, but that seems to be a long time ago.

I don't think she was ever estranged from Jody but definitely Erin. The addiction issues from Burnett's family were obviously exacerbated by her mom's work schedule.

Jody! Erin! Damnit!

Was one her parents an alcoholic or both? Or did one die early?

I always found Harvey Korman the best performer on the show. Didn't she also have a falling out with him? And she also had a falling out with Lyle because of the Playgirl shoot but I don't believe he did frontal. I seem to remember it was on the modest side.

Both Carol's parents were alcoholics.

I had to laugh when Carol told the story about how she told Harvey he could leave the show if he was unhappy, after he was allegedly rude to a guest star. If she lost Harvey, the show would have ended that season.

I saw FADE OUT/FADE IN (a terrible title) during my Carol-mania period. I was 16. Loved her an loved the first Carnegie Hall special, which still gives me great pleasure. But now, seeing the CBS series episodes, I cringe. A friend loved her voice because she sang duets with almost all her guest stars and blended beautifully with all of them.

Carol has a nice plot with Carrie and several other family members at Westwood Memorial Park, where Marilyn Monroe is interred. There is a large empty space in the center for when she croaks. Right across from Fanny Brice's ashes.

I agree with the poster about when Tim Conway came on the show full time. I never found him funny.

His sketches were the first examples of actors breaking character and laughing. Harvey did it all the time. I couldn't understand what he found so funny while I was bored and cringing. But probably because I was still a child, I made the assumption that Harvey laughed because he felt bad for Tim, as nobody else found him funny.

Carol's (and also Julie's) presumed lesbianism is a ridiculous myth that only deluded hausfaus would believe.

Carol was always a horrible singer

R42 - Did she ever make any records?

Her ex-husband, Joe Hamilton, was also an alcoholic. With her family history, I always wondered if that was the big issue that led to their divorce.

We saw some of Lyle Waggoner's pubic hairs in Playgirl, but they were sparse compared to the thick hair on his head.

So no full frontal. But were there rear shots?

[quote]I always found Harvey Korman the best performer on the show. Didn't she also have a falling out with him?

She threatened to fire him because he was miserable bastard not only to the shows staff but to guests as well.

Vicki told a story in her book about trying to get him to do her talk show, and him telling her to fuck off.

Together Again, For the First Time! · Carol Burnett · Martha Raye ℗ 1968 AEI Records

hopefully the full album will stream on link below

I love love love love Carol Burnett.

Pauline Kael made a funny comparison between Carol in Friendly Fire and Mary Tyler Moore in Ordinary People. Something like how it seems these women are having to do penance in these grim vehicles for making us laugh in their previous incarnations.

Tim Conway was a semi-regular for YEARS before he became a weekly regular co-star...so, no, the show didn't "go downhill" when he went full time.

Conway always comes across as a tad....special? when you see him in interviews. He seemed a bit dumb/simple in real life.

Harvey was great but he was also a mess. He desperately wanted to be THE star and not a brilliant second banana but he didn't have what it takes to be a lead. I think he finally came to terms with that later in life (he comes across as humble and honest about it in his Academy interview) but back in the day, he could be a miserable asshole.

Vicki was very raw those first few seasons which is why she was really only in the "Carol/Crissy/Roger" sketches early on where she played Carol's much younger sister (just like Carol's real life sister) but she became a first rate sketch actress. I think she's a humorless cunt in real life but she was great on Burnett. As for Mama, she was terrific on the Burnett show when Mama was a delicious old cunt but "Mama's Family" really is sentimental garbage. And, that's the schtick she does in her cabaret shows. Which is what the dim audience wants but...no thanks. I prefer Cunty Mama.

I remember loving her parodies of TV commercials which have probably have dated worst of all. I especially remember the "Tasters's Choice" takeoff with Carol, Harvey Korman & Cher.

Cher: "Jim? Would you like another cup of coffee? I have some in the bedroom. "

Harvey: "Oh yeah!" (they run off)

Carol: "Gee, that's funny...Jim NEVER wants a second cup of coffee!"

I remember laughing hysterically at Carol ripping apart a screaming loaf of Wonder Bread. "Don't Squeeze me! AIIIEEEEEEEE!!!"

There was a point during the run of the show when Bernadette Peters was on at least once a month.

Here's a song Bernadette would never perform again.

Everyone carrying on about how Dorothy Loudon was robbed -- are you the same ones who insist that Carol Burnett was "too big" for the screen? If so, you're fools. Dorothy Loudon's handful of appearances in theatrically released films (GARBO TALKS . . . MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL . . . um . . . um . . .) make Carol Burnett at her muggiest look like the model of Chekhovian nuance.

Was Carol a mentor for Bernadette?

[quote] The camera didn't love her, and she usually came across as flat on the big screen. Lucille Ball had the same problem.

R33 The camera didn't love Lucille Ball?

Bernadette said in People magazine that when her career was sputtering in Los Angeles, Carol Burnett and Merv Griffin had her on when no one else would. She was also in the audience for Carol during Moon Over Broadway and you could see how supportive she was backstage after the show.

I never could stand Bernadette Peters.

Bernadette was on the Burnett show 11 times.

R117 what did she do to you?

The person who posted the "the camera didn't love Lucy" is an idiot.

Lucy's problem in films, pre "ILL" is that she seldom really got good parts in good films. She was one of those actors who needed the right vehicle to really showcase her talent. In her case, it was a TV show that did that. But, she's very good in many of her pre ILL films...she even manages to make her mark in "Stage Door", her first really big film, where she's competing with Hepburn and Rogers and manages to hold her own in a strong supporting performance. Not to mention she has competition from Eve Arden among a host of great female actors.

Among Lucy's pre-ILL films she is especially good in two, Miss Grant Takes Richmond, and The Fuller Brush Girl. In both you can clearly see the evolving "Lucy" character and both are a lot of fun.

She was great in the Jean Harlow part in the Libeled Lady remake, Easy to Wed.

[quote]And, that's the schtick she does in her cabaret shows.

My favorite part is when Vicki does a medley of her greatest hit.

Isn't Vicki supposed to be a real cunt?

R124, Yes.

Bernadette was the original Cyndi Lauper.

Lucy also held her own against Katharine Hepburn in Without Love.

I used to know someone who is one of the select few who was able to view Lucy's test footage for what became the Angie Dickinson part in DePalma's Dressed to Kill. She was by all accounts astonishing and would have easily gotten a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Her facial expressions during the no dialogue museum sequences were apparently brilliant!

Bernadette would have been a fantastic Mame.

Was Harvey Korman known to be so miserable during the actual years of the Burnett show? I don't remember ever hearing about the issues back then.

R78 she turned into tim Conway.

[quote]Or marrying a homosexual.

Was it Joe Hamilton who was bi? Or was it MTM's husband Grant Tinker. I remember being surprised by the rumor but don't remember where I saw it.

Grant was a real Zaddy so I'm going with him.

R113 she would get no help from Sidney lumet on Garbo talks. He was not a subtle director.

R123 = members of Air Supply

Tim Conway was like garlic seasoning. At the right time, in the right amounts, he was great. At other times, he was just too much.

I liked some of Carol's singing. She's had several albums, solo and with Julie Andrews, I believe.

This was quite a good sketch. She really tapped into the melancholy of the number but then landed the jokes/gags just as the sad parts were building up to be almost too much.

Her voice is much more of a theater voice, of course. But she can carry a tune, for sure. (Or could then, anyway.)

R133 = Pauline Kael

Vicki herself said they had to tone down mama for thr mamas family sitcom to work, Harvey directed a lot of the episodes during the NBC seasons.

Carol and Joe made amends before he died.

Carol was big with novelty songs before Garry Moore. One performance on live TV in the late1950s (during Judy Garland's fat body/seemingly washed up career stage) Carol did a devastating "Big Singer' parody and does all of Garland's vibratto tics and gestures. It was VERY mean-spirited and it was only online for a brief time before it got removed and not seen since. It ruins the myth.

I also have a mutual acquaintance who was either Carol or Julie's dresser for one of their early shows and she reports there was NO DOUBT they were having lots and lots of sex backstage, in their shared hotel suites and in the back of limos.

R138, so we missed out on Lucy getting plowed in the back of the taxi? Did Gary talk her out of it?

I always suspected that Carol and Harvey had an affair. He left the show, then she got divorced.

As if Carol Burnett doing one of her stupid parodies could ruin the myth of Judy Garland.

r141 - the myth to be ruined was Carol's Golly Gee Nice Girl image.

Lucy was fully committed to her role in Dressed To Kill before she was replaced with Angie Dickinson. She even had Mary Wilkes shave her pussy in preparation for the shower scene.

Oy, these Lucy "jokes" are about as funny as death.

[quote]I also have a mutual acquaintance who was either Carol or Julie's dresser for one of their early shows and she reports there was NO DOUBT they were having lots and lots of sex backstage, in their shared hotel suites and in the back of limos.

I started wondering about Julie and Carol when she started telling the anecdote about fake-making out with Julie on the sofa opposite the elevators at the Watergate when Lady Bird Johnson walked by. She said they were trying to play a joke on Bob Mackie or someone who was about to come off the elevator but I figured they were "caught" in a real clench and people saw them so they had to hide it. Good save but I didn't buy it.

Premiering tomorrow on YouTube - Carol in the Long Beach CLO production of "Company."

R145 Is there any reason on earth why these two famous people would have to make out in public?

[quote]I always suspected that Carol and Harvey had an affair.

Hilarious. I think he would be about the last person Carol would wanna have sex with.

R147 Maybe no one was around at that moment and they just went for it.

150 posts and no one's mention the person she had on the first episode of every season?

Well Golllllly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After Harvey left, they brought in Dick Van Dyke as a replacement and he was awful. He wasn't meant for the second banana role at all. If you watch that famous "elephant story" blooper, you can see how badly DVD reacts to Mama's knockout response. He just does a schtick reaction that doesn't work.

Mary WICKES!!! R143

There's a lot of queer smoke around Miss Carol...

Attempting to explain the popularity of the Carol Burnett Show...which I only saw in full episodes when I was young (from around age 8 or 9, to 19 or 20):

I don't think sketches can be extrapolated from the show. That just doesn't work.

The show usually began with Carol on stage alone, talking to the audience. People from the audience asking her questions, wanting to come up onstage to meet her, whatever. Between the commercials there were sketches and song numbers. There were certain semi-regular sketch ideas (As the Stomach Turns). They weren't every week. Then the show would have something big for a closer, like the movie parodies. Then Carol would come out and sing "I'm so glad we had this time together..." It was a pretty well put-together show, with songs, dances, sketch comedy.

When they just use the sketches in syndication, that wasn't the whole experience.

The thing is, it probably never was great from beginning to end. Some things were dumb, others were hilarious. But you liked the cast. There were certain repeating guest stars like Steve Lawrence, who were almost like part of the cast. It had a charm.

She made a fool of herself over John Foster Dulles.

There was a LOT of music on the show. Maybe people tend to forget that part of it. Carol sang a lot with the guest stars. The other cast members participated in song numbers. I wasn't that wild about Carol's voice but after all, she wasn't just a singer, and it wasn't bad. (It was an era when there was still a lot of singing on TV, and it was partly a variety show.)

Jim Nabors was the guest on the first episode of nearly every season of The Carol Burnett Show,

appearing as the premiere guest for seasons 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11.

Other guests included Lucille Ball in the second season, Lola Falana in the fourth season, and Eydie Gormé in the sixth season.

I remember Rock Hudson and Gloria Swanson as guests (not on the same episode). And of course Dinah Shore, who was included in the GWTW parody.

I also remember Mel Torme.

Carol never had very good vocal training. She had an extraordinarily loud voice, and for the most part she could stay on pitch, but she had trouble making her vocal color seem appealing--it was always too strident (when she hits certain notes, it sounds like she's about to yodel).

But she was better when singing a duet with someone who could sing more attractively (Julie Andrews, Eydie Gorme, etc.). Her sheer vocal power helped sell the number when she did.

Full episodes. This opens with an episode with Carol talking to the audience.

I think you can go back to SNL's great days, i.e. Radner, Chase, Belushi et al, there were very few episodes that were good all the way through. There was one or two good skits but the others, especially towards the end were simply painful. Of course, it was 90 minutes vs 60 minutes and also live.

[quote] Carol was big with novelty songs before Garry Moore. One performance on live TV in the late1950s (during Judy Garland's fat body/seemingly washed up career stage) Carol did a devastating "Big Singer' parody and does all of Garland's vibratto tics and gestures. It was VERY mean-spirited and it was only online for a brief time before it got removed and not seen since. It ruins the myth.

As if Judy Garland didn't mock other stars herself, such as her well-known imitation of Marlene Dietrich on "The Jack Paar Show," which was equally mean-spirited.

I love Judy, but I just don't buy this idea that she was some sort of unimpeachable saint who should never have been mocked because she never mocked other people. She absolutely gave as good as she got.

I remember when Harvey left the show to star in his own sitcom and being stunned at how bad it was.

Lucy and Carol

[quote]As if Judy Garland didn't mock other stars herself, such as her well-known imitation of Marlene Dietrich on "The Jack Paar Show," which was equally mean-spirited.

I LOVED that bit. It wasn't too means-spirited, and Judy looked amazing.

Martha Raye's Judy Garland impression.

Carol was like Jack Benny - she didn't have to be the center of every joke or sketch - the cast could get laughs and she wasn't threatened by it.

Harvey & Tim's shenanigans and Vicky's star turn as Mama made the CB Show great and that reflected well on Carol.

Oh, it was pretty mean-spirited, r167--that's why it was funny.

Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.

Uh, the sketches work fine outside the context of the entire episode....why wouldn't they? They're standalone sketches.

I've watched whole episodes. They're....pretty hard to sit through. There's a LOT of music and almost every episode ended with a big musical production number. The music stuff can be fun to watch, especially some of the parodies of famous musicals, but a whole hour of variety can be a painful experience.

And the sketches we love, the ones that were part of the half hour syndicated Carol and Friends show, were the GOOD sketches. If you watch entire episodes of the Burnett show, you get those good sketches but also the not so good ones.

I loved the show then and I still love it but variety doesn't age well.

(It's really the same with old SNL...we remember all the classic bits but even in its heyday, SNL had lots of lousy sketches. In fact, in the entire history of SNL, there's probably been maybe 7 episodes that had a good sketch in that dreaded last half hour of the show.)

[quote]There's a lot of queer smoke around Miss Carol.

She mentions in the New Yorker profile that she came to New York "nursing dreams of becoming Ethel Merman or Mary Martin."

True r171. The original SNL cast wasn't always brilliant. There were many sketches that weren't all that funny.

I do have to say that even in the shit sketches, Gilda Radner always elevated the material. She was naturally funny and could still make you laugh when the sketch was below par.

I take it back R170. It was hilariously mean-spirited!

Gilda was the only reason I watched SNL. It was so uneven with the laughs separated by prairies of nothing. Lorne Michaels had a lot of nerve dissing Carol.

[quote] Uh, the sketches work fine outside the context of the entire episode....why wouldn't they? They're standalone sketches.

A lot of TV sketch comedy shows work on the familiarity of the audience with the actors, and sometimes the characters, if the characters appear in multiple sketches over time. They're not really standalone. The old Burnett show worked on the fact that the audience grew to like the actors and became familiar with a lot of the characters: Funt and Mundane, Mother Marcus, Mama and Eunice, Mr. Tudball and Mrs. Wiggins, Carol as the Queen, etc.

[quote] I've watched whole episodes. They're....pretty hard to sit through. There's a LOT of music and almost every episode ended with a big musical production number. The music stuff can be fun to watch, especially some of the parodies of famous musicals, but a whole hour of variety can be a painful experience.

But what you call painful was pleasurable to the audience at the time. After all it wasn't designed to be Carol and Friends. It was designed to be what it was, the hour-long Carol Burnett variety-comedy show.

Harvey had an ego, and if he had received a Supporting Academy Award nomination for Blazing Saddles as Madeline Khan did, I can imagine he would have left the show earlier.

Carol and Joe built this fabulous house overlooking Beverly Hills. She said Joe designed it himself. It really is straight out of "Dynasty."

Hard to find any photos of it but you can see it from the air starting at 25:04

Carol has never been one to air dirty laundry. That’s admirable, but it also makes her interviews very repetitive. She tells the same stories over and over.

^ very true

The thing was that The Carol Burnett Show was decidedly a family show: I watched it with my siblings and my middle-aged folks on Saturday nights as a kid. But Saturday Night Live was meant for young adults.

The weird thing is what Lorne Michaels most objected to about the Carol Burnett Show was Harvey Korman and Tim Conway cracking up or otherwise breaking character in their skits together, which audiences at the time loved. But after a while Michaels realized how much audiences loved it when the regulars cracked up, and didn't penalize them for doing so. Some of the most beloved bits of all time on SNL are because the stars are unable to remain in character because they're laughing so hard: "A Van Down By River," the Debbie Downer skit at Walt Disney World, and "Super Model Showcase" (my own favorite).

Say what you will about Vicki, but her autobiography was so hilariously cunty that apparently even she regretted it. Probably why it’s never been re-printed.

But she told a lot of stories in that book about CB Show and Mana’s Family drama that never would’ve been known otherwise.

There's a Dick Cavett interview where she suddenly puts her feet up on the little table between herself and Dick--in an attempt to be funny. The audience doesn't laugh, Dick doesn't laugh, and then she had to just leave them there. Very awkward.

r171 I agree. I think one of the mesothelioma channels was running her shows unedited a few years back and some of them stunk to high heaven.

Sammy Davis was in one where he had to play very camp gay and it was just.....ugh, not even funny in a camp way, just out and out terrible.

R181 - My parents fought constantly and it was always tense in my home but they both loved the CB Show and would laugh together while glued to the screen. It was the only hour of the week where I could be reasonably sure they wouldn't destroy each other.

Vicki was cast originally mostly because she looked enough like Carol to play her younger sister on the regular "Carol & Sis" sketch from the early years of the show.

Here they are with The Ernie Flatt dancers, dressed in the extraordinary way Bob Mackie imagined rock 'n' rollers dressed.

The Burnett show was aired at 10PM and was considered more of an adult show. Then again, All In the Family aired at 8 and it was certainly not a family show.

[quote]Madeline Khan

Oh, dear.

GLORY BE - Saturday nights on CBS was dream TV as a kid - All in the Family, Bob Newhart, MTM, CB - which one am I missing?

I just watched the opener of the full episode I linked to earlier, where Carol is talking with the audience. Several of the questions asked are from kid fans (some look around 12-14), and that was common, they're familiar with her and the show, so yes, kids were definitely some of the audience for the show. I'm sure many kids that age stayed up until 11 on Saturday nights.

One of the constants of the show was that Carol presented herself as one of the regular people, who just happened to have made it. (She still basically projects this kind of persona.) She had an autograph book and would ask her guests to sign it. She played it as if she was in awe of some of her guests. Maybe it was a performance but it worked.

R198 MASH, a show I never watched.

r188 it's a fucking typo. Unclench and relax. Jesus.

M*A*S*H* aired on Saturday nights in 1973-74. It first started airing on Sunday nights, then later moved to Tuesdays, and ended airing on Mondays.

The only thing I remember in that other slot on CBS Saturdays was the short lived Friends and Lovers with Paul Sands.

R176 I understand how the show played when it originally aired.

I WATCHED it when it originally aired.

Even then I would get bored with too many music moments...of course, I was 4 when it started and 15 when it ended.

The Jeffersons also aired in that slot.

R194 I guess I wasn't bored, because I don't remember having been bored. I honestly wasn't as "bored" by a lot of entertainment in my young life as many people were around here, judging by replies on a lot of threads. I sort of picture people having a kind of MOrris the Cat attitude at age 5 and up.

Girrrllzzz you are all about Carol Fuckin' Burnett TONIGHT!

God love you and be blessed!

As in: "I'm so BORED, Mother!"

R197 Yes. Yes we are.

Erin Hamilton isn't on speaking terms with her mother because Carol (and Erin;s father Joe Hamilton) tried to take custody of her son a few years back while Erin was having drug addiction problems.

Erin was the youngest and seemed to be Carol's favorite as she often spoke of her as a girl. Ironic that after Carrie beat addiction, she and Carol became very close and now Carol and Erin seem very distant.

In the documentary MOON OVER BROADWAY, there's a sequence in which Carol directs the wardrobe people to send her men's clothing so that she can pose for pictures to send to Julie, then (sometimes) in VICTOR/VICTORIA. The lezz vibe is off the charts.

So Julie Andrews is a dyke?

[quote] Erin was the youngest and seemed to be Carol's favorite as she often spoke of her as a girl. Ironic that after Carrie beat addiction, she and Carol became very close and now Carol and Erin seem very distant.

It's not uncommon for parents to change who their favorite child is as time goes by.

Look at Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Andrew. He was certainly not her favorite child by the end.

[quote]fter Carrie beat addiction, she and Carol became very close and now Carol and Erin seem very distant.

Relapse?

When I was a kid those Saturday nights were pure pleasure but I would avoid All in the Family like the plague. I guess I'm the only person on the planet but I found that show so self righteous, obnoxious, idiotic and very very loud. The show is still beloved but I never got it and never will. What a shock to see Jean Stapleton in old movies and find she was a good actor who I liked very much. Only saw her once on stage and am glad I did. How in the world could she bear to do Edith every week. God she must have been paid a lot. Instead of simply dying they should have had Edith committing suicide. Shooting Archie then shooting herself. Then the entire series turns out to be a dream and we first see Carroll O'Conner in the shower beginning Archie's Place or whatever it was called.

Maggie Smith on Carol Burnett was like Dame Edith Evans appearing on Happy Days.

R144 yeah. Let's say dirty things about long dead old ladies. Oh, my sides.

R155 most people my around my age (55) are more familiar with the half hour, syndicated Carol Burnett & Friends which ditched the musical numbers altogether. It was a massive hit in syndication.

Watching the hour long episodes, which I never did until they were on YouTube, is a very different experience.

Those syndicated episodes seemed to mostly use episodes from later in the run (1972 and on) and used nothing from the final season with Dick Van Dyke.

R206 she really did create a wonderful character with Edith. It started out as a carbon copy of the Britigh counterpart, but Stapleton soon developed her into something different. Maybe give the show another chance at some point.

R89 I liked The Dorothy Loudon Show. Which actually premiered 24 days before The Facts of Life in August of 1979.

She was over the top, of course, but it worked. They did a whole episode with a character named Hannah as an excuse for Dorothy to sing Hard Hearted Hannah.

In a way, The Dorothy Loudon Show saved Facts of Life. They had a tom boyish character with a New York.accent named Frankie. When FOL retooled for season 2, they borrowed that idea and brought Jo on, which made all the difference. Though I do prefer the season one episodes with Mr. Bradley.

I can see why "Dorothy" didn't really work.

I have no memory of Carol appearing pregnant on her original variety show but with 3 daughters, I guess she must have? Or could those pregnancies have been so well-timed as to avoid Bob Mackie maternity smocks?

SNL - one of my favorites was when Dan Ackroyd came to Roseanne Roseannadanna's house to fix the fridge and showed a LOT of plumber's crack.....I think it was a bit more than they planned and Gilda and Bill Murray broke up.....

Oh it was Lisa Loopner's house.....

It's a weird idea that Dorothy Loudon would have thought she would have had a genuine chance at Miss Hannigan over a much more nationally popular star like Burnett. At the time Carol Burnett was a much, much bigger star than she was. It just wasn't expected by that time that the original Broadway cast would transfer to screen adaptations, especially since musicals were considered such an unwise financial venture by that time. By the late 70s/early 80s, the studio thought they needed big stars like Albert Finney and Carol Burnett to put this over, just as studios went with Diana Ross rather than Stephanie Mills for The Wiz and Olivia Newton-John rather than Carole Demas for Grease.

[quote]Dan Ackroyd

AYKROYD

I was a kid during the later years of Carol's show so I always forget that Gloria Loring was a featured player in her earlier seasons.

Yes, DAYS OF OUR LIVES Gloria, singer of the Facts of Life theme song Gloria, ex wife of Alan Thicke and mother of Robin Thicke Gloria.

(She's the one playing Jennifer in this VALLEY OF THE DOLLS parody.)

Gilda and Candice Bergen - the right to extreme stupidity. Candice flubbed her line and Gilda ran with it.....

[quote]So Julie Andrews is a dyke?

She married two very, very gay men, so...

Gilda Radner was just so loveable!

It always amuses me when people can't enjoy comedy shows that are 'loud.'

When Randal Kleiser was going to direct Annie, he wanted Bette Midler.

[quote](She's the one playing Jennifer in this VALLEY OF THE DOLLS parody.)

On the actual brass bed with Lawrence and Loring wearing Duke and Tate's costumes. Not sure if Carol is wearing Parkins pink suit

Except for slapstick, which usually is funny to people in every era (because it's so simple), comedy usually dates very quickly.

R225, which makes it all the more remarkable how I Love Lucy has been around for 75 years and is still popular.

[quote] I think Jody herself struggled with drugs at one point

R92: Jody was expelled from Westlake School for Girls in the 9th grade for taking LSD on week-long class retreat to Catalina Island. Apparently, she thought it would be fun to trip *during* the hour-plus boat ride to Catalina, and took a tab before embarking. It didn't go well. She was busted half-way to Avalon (tripping her face off) and teachers found a sheet of tabs in her duffle bag.

R227 scandalous!

[quote] Except for slapstick, which usually is funny to people in every era (because it's so simple), comedy usually dates very quickly.

That's strange, I've been to screenings of all kinds of old comedy movies that audiences still laugh their heads off at. Bringing Up Baby, HIs Girl Friday, Singin' in the Rain, The Women, Lubitsch comedies, Astaire & Rogers movies, All About Eve, The Odd Couple, Doris Day-Rock Hudson, The Pink Panther, and on and on.

Young Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd are both so nerdy hot in that SNL Lisa Loopner sketch.

R225, a lot of Carol Burnett is slapstick.

[quote] [R225], which makes it all the more remarkable how I Love Lucy has been around for 75 years and is still popular.

Because so many of the most memorable bits from ILL are indeed slapstick: the chocolate factory assembly line, the grape-stomping, the Ziegfeld girl headdress, the upside-down loving cup on Lucy's head, the William Holden episode...

I don't think that's altogether true, r232.

Yes, lots of physical comedy and funny faces but also brilliantly written characters in outlandish yet somehow believable situations. And so much of the dialogue is still memorable and quotable.

I still laugh at Eunice. Nora Desmond is very funny.

Oh my God this Nora Desmond roast still makes me belly laugh. "Madame did NOT come here to be insulted!" Even Vicki doing Phyllis Diller cracks me up. As does when Burnett and Korman do some 3 Stooges shtick.

R207 Maggie Smith wasn't a snob. She appeared in New Faces of '56 on Broadway doing sketches. And, one of her best friends was Alice Ghostley who accepted her Oscar when she won for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

Maggie was hugely influenced by working with her dear friend, the VERY gay Kenneth Williams...her cutting, bitchy performances were pure Williams.

R213 Jody, the middle girl, was born in January of 67.

The Carol Burnett Show began in September of 67.

Erin, the youngest, was born in August of 68, so inbetween the first and second season, so probably a carefully timed pregnancy?

[quote] I don't think she's estranged from her daughter, Jody Hamilton.

She refused to talk about her living daughters in that interview.

If Carol had gotten married younger she could have kids as old as 74 today.

FWIW I don't think Dorothy Loudon ever expected to be cast as Hannigan in the film of ANNIE. She hadn't made any films by 1982 and even after ANNIE only played small parts in a couple of them. But as it was Carol, to whom she'd often been unfairly compared....now that must have stung.

I love the idea of Bette Midler as Hannigan. I wonder if she was ever really considered or if she would have considered doing it. By 1982 she'd only done THE ROSE and JINXED.

Dorothy was going to play Fat Patty, the cabaret singer in the movie version of James Kirkwood's Good Times/Bad Times but it was abruptly cancelled. Cliff Robertson was going to play the closeted Mr. Hoyt.

R239 Right. I'm sure La Loudon was a realist and knew she wouldn't get the movie. BUT I suspect every actor in that situation holds out a secret hope that a miracle might happen. Then for Burnett to get it- I bet Dorothy at least rolled her eyes.

It seems like the kind of thing Carol's agent must've lobbied HARD for, her being seen as a mostly TV actress and all.

She was good in The Four Seasons, but that had a very TV feel. Quality TV, but TV.

By loud I mean when everyone yells their lines. There is never any subtly or contrast and that's what's All In the Family and Maude were like to me. But everyone else loves this stuff. God The Three Stooges were more nuanced.

Yes I know that Smith started in sketch comedy. She and Williams were so far beyond the Burnett show. There are a number of interviews with Williams and he is amazing, very fast and sophisticated. What a troubled sad life and tragic end he had. Smith felt she had to break away from him which I'm sure did his mental health no good but she had to.

I actually think Bette would have been terrific as Miss Hannigan.

In Canada The Carol Burnett Show did not have regular commercials. Instead, there were 3 min segments if Kraft product recipe demonstrations. As a kid I found these fascinating and the only time I ever saw them was during Carol Burnett.

In her Dick Cavett interview with Lucy and Lucie, Carol tells the story about an anonymous famous older male benefactor who wrote her a cheque so she could go to NYC and pursue acting. He said the only stipulations were that if she had success she must pay it back within a year, and also do the same in the future for a young talent. Does anyone know who the mystery benefactor was? For some reason I always thought it might be Gene Kelly.

It’s discussed in the profile. It was someone who saw her at a cocktail party in San Diego; by inference, they had a connection to UCLA. That is all.

I have always wondered, hasn't she ever told anyone who her benefactor was, not even family or close friends? At her age, I doubt there would be any repercussions if she said who it was. Or would a skeletal hand rise from the ground, grab her by the ankle, and pull her down to hell's fiery abyss?

The generous man saw Carol in some kind of college showcase for amateurs and was so taken by the way she stood out that he approached her and asked why she wasn't on Broadway. Learning that she was broke, the offer was made then and there. Carol used some of the money to correct a dental problem that popped up right before she left for NYC. I think she and her first husband were already married by then and he was looking to make it as a director/producer.

I admire that Carol kept her word to the man and his wife. Maybe after she is gone, a name will come out.

Hearing Carol's story about that wealthy generous benefactor many times over the years, I've never been under the impression that his name was famous or would lend the reveal any more particular interest. I can't remember the exact amount of the loan ($1000?), but it was probably peanuts for a local millionaire.

It might be more interesting to hear what young performer Carol may have granted a loan and if that person had any success.

Read the profile. She and her boyfriend were hired by someone from ucla as the entertainment for an out of town party/event. The benefactor was a guest.

Is your post directed to me, r251? I did read the profile. What's your point?

R63 Thank you

It was me.

Jack Benny.

She said on Dick Cavett the benefactor was someone whose name everyone would know.

[quote]There is never any subtly or contrast and that's what's All In the Family and Maude were like to me.

God'll get you for that.

R245 I remember those in the USA. Not sure it was on the Burnett show, But I remember them, and the recipes usually sounded horrible.

R244 Bette Davis would have been great as Miss Hannigan.

r258, she certainly would have been scary.

Carol's story changes on the benefactor. First it was a famous man, then just a philanthropist, now he's famous again. Carol said that her way of repaying was setting up scholarships, which makes sense.

R260 Couldn't he be famous and a philanthropist?

R261, absolutely but she goes from saying you'd know him to someone you've never heard of. I mean, I believe her story but she's being deliberately obtuse.

I wonder if Carol slept with him and the benefactor story was a way to clean up any rumors about that.

Most anybody who would have known about it or heard those rumors are long dead.

[quote] There is never any subtly or contrast and that's what's All In the Family and Maude were like to me.

That's what was popular fifty+ years ago.

Times change.

It was satire—the “brashness” was fully intentional.

R262 That's true, actually. I don't follow her history very much but I think you're right.

She’s over 90. She’s not using the exact words each time —shocking at this point?

The basic story remains the same after 60+ years. I have no doubt it is true.

It's ridiculous to say All in the Family was just a lot of shouting all the time, with no subtlety. It wasn't like that at all. There were probably a lot more simple conversations than anything. There were a lot of quiet, touching or moving moments as well. I have to wonder if the people saying this actually watched a lot of episodes. Sure there were shouting matches, but that wasn't the majority of the time.

I guess you could say the same thing about Maude, but I haven't seen Maude in many years.

And obviously if you don't have conflict and passion then the quiet scenes aren't going to carry much dramatic weight.

[quote] I have to say this is a lesser entry in their tradition of great, in-depth, profiles. I learned hardly anything new , but I read a dozen or more anecdotes that I already knew quite well.

I thought the same when I read the article. I realized it's because I'm old. The article was written by someone half my age (I assume) and is targeted at a younger generation who might only have seen her guest turns on streaming shows or heard of her as a TV legend. Not those of us who spent the 70s in front of a TV set.

R268 case in point this scene. Which makes me ugly cry each time I see it. This is the "end," for all intents and purposes, of the story of Archie and Mike, where Mike realizes Archie is basically a good man who was simply the product of a very difficult upbringing.

To me? The greatest 5 or so minutes of television.

God bless Carroll O'Connor and Norman Lear.

R270. I take your point.

It’s like when I watch American Masters on PBS, or some similar retrospective, and many of the talking heads are young people. I want to yell at the screen. You weren’t alive—I was! How do you know anything about the real X?

Oh well…

On comedy sketches on The Garry Moore Show and at the beginning of her career - really, even in her early Broadway hit Once Upon a Mattress - Carol was often typecast as that post-war icon, the homely spinster/nymphomaniac who was always "hilariously" desperate for a man's, any man's affections. Those types proliferated in 1950s TV, embodied by Nancy Kulp, Rose Marie and Ann B. Davis on the old Bob Cummings show Love That Bob!.

And Carol's first film role was just such a type in the 1963 Dean Martin rom-com called Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed, in which Dean had to constantly fend off Carol's advances.

When Carol's variety hour first premiered, it was, of course, Lyle Waggoner who was cast to provide the comical sexual tension for Carol to play against in exactly that manner. Much of the humor of their interactions was her slobbering all over him. I suppose as the Women's Lib movement took firmer hold, that sort of humor was deemed inappropriate and just not funny anymore. And it basically cost Lyle his job.

Lyle Wagooner didn't get along with Lynda Carter on Wonder Woman.

Of course I misspelled his name - it's Waggoner.

Well, I always called him Wagooner.

Lyle made out fine. He founded Star Wagons, the company that provides most of Winnebago-like trailers for on-location sets.

Star Waggons*

Lyle's dead.

We know.

At this late date, what is she going to tell us? If the name of her benefactor is the biggest possible disclosure, then it isn't much. Will she tell us that Jim Nabors was gay? She doesn't like to dwell on the negative.

Guess who else was in Who's Been Sleeping In My Bed?

r271 that was great. Thanks

Oh, pick Lyle! PICK LYLE!

I was too young to understand her in the 1970s, but I also got the sense that she was kind of mean-- although she doesn't come across that way now. I thought she was funny in Palm Royale and Hacks.

Carol's play Hollywood Arms, apparently co-written with her late daughter who died before it was on Broadway is unbelievably bad. There is simply no play there at all, just people acting out what I guess are moments from Carol's life. It was really hard to sit through without thinking, "Did NOBODY notice this thing is shit on ice!"

By sheer force of will Linda Lavin managed to save herself and got a Tony nomination, but the rest needed to be taken out back and buried.

^^ this right here shows you how full of shit Broadway posters are.

Michele Pawk won the Featured Actress Tony for Hollywood Arms.

I'd never have thought a thread title about Carol Burnett that didn't end with Dead to Me! would be this popular in 2025.

The New Yorker remains one of the most important, and best, magazines in the U.S.

And they still manage to have gorgeous cover art most every week.

One thing Carol deserves a lot of credit for is bringing Sondheim awareness to the general public. She was already doing musical Sondheim tributes in the late '60s. I wouldn't be surprised if more people became familiar with his scores via The Carol Burnett Show than through Broadway.

The highlight of course is this Sondheim tribute from "Carol & Company" set in a roadside diner where every regular customer, cook and waitress is a Sondheim fanatic - and guess whose car gets stuck and has to stop by- It's Bernadette Peters!

r291 What am I - chopped liver?

[quote]Michele Pawk won the Featured Actress Tony for Hollywood Arms.

Sorry for confusion, you are right. I only remember Lavin being half-decent, I misremembered her as the Tony nominee. Pawk didn't register with me at all. The play stank so bad none of it matters.

But do continue to rage at me, you hardly seem hysterical at all.

R287 Dolores Gray won a Best Actress Tony for a musical that ran six performances. Just because someone wins a Tony doesn't mean the show is good.

Carol was a brilliant comic actress with incredible comic instincts. She could turn a nothing skit into hysterical. She was a pioneer; I won't have her vilified.

R295 That reminded me of when sardine cans used to have a key, and jelly jars (which were re-usable as glasses) used to have a lid that you had to pry open. Band-Aids came in a can, and had a string you pulled. And kitchens had avocado appliances and busy, patterned wallpaper.

I think Carol was the first woman to have her own sketch comedy show (Imogene Coca came before Carol, and Nanette Fabray, but both were part of a team, starring Sid Caesar--Your Show of Shows, Caesar's Hour).

It's not easy to be the star of sketch comedy show with your name on it and play many characters, as well as different styles of comedy, on the same show every week--pantomime, satire, slapstick, character comedy, situation comedy parodies, etc. Caesar, Jackie Gleason, Danny Kaye, and later Tracey Ullman did it, but not many could do it.

(And I forgot the earlier ones--Ed Wynn and Milton Berle.)

The Mrs. Wiggins character was brilliant.

Carol had a lot of work done but was never able to make herself into a beauty. She has succeeded in making herself look a lot younger, though--in that weird skin-graft-and mask-looking way they have out there.

She gave herself a chin.

I thought she gave herself less of a chin.

The thing to remember about Annie was that Carol was very vocal about alcoholism. She famously sued one of those gossip rags (National Enquirer?) for publishing that she was drunk in a restaurant. Then she turned around and played a comic alcoholic in Annie. At the time, she got a lot of shit about what some perceived to be hypocritical: trying to raise awareness about alcoholism and then playing one for comedy.

Martha Raye definitely preceded Carol with her own sketch comedy show The Martha Raye Show from 1954-56.

I didn't like her in The Front Page. There comes a time when you're just too famous, and you play too many roles--but mainly you're just too rich and famous--to go back and play some poor little tramp. She was also too old. And I don't know why she was cast, except for the box office. That's why Lemmon and Matthau were cast, after all.

[quote]I thought she gave herself less of a chin.

Well, if she did, she should've donated the excess to me

Martha Raye is pretty much forgotten now, and she was always on tv well into her old age. It's strange how some performers become forgotten and others are remembered.

R304 Thanks. I thought about that, earlier, meant to include it. It wasn't much of a success, though.

Some shows leaned more towards variety, some more towards sketches. Like Sonny and Cher had sketches, but it was more of a variety show. Ditto Pearl Bailey. Flip Wilson was more sketch comedy (I think). The Smothers Brother were sort of in-between, with more stand-up, though there were definitely sketches.

Red Skelton was another very long-running sketch comedy show, like Gleason.

Carol was miscast in the Follies concert. The story goes that they wanted her for Broadway Baby but she demanded I’m Still Here. Carlotta is supposed to be sexually desirable, especially to Ben.

And I’m sure Sondheim plotzed when she couldn’t drop her comic schtick and sang “When you’ve been through Herbert and J. Edgar Hoo-woo-ver.”

The Garry Moore Show was really the best with a mix of both music and comedy and because his weekly show was shot in NY, he could take advantage of all the current talent appearing in Broadway shows.

For strictly music variety hours Perry Como and Dinah Shore were both hugely popular.

Those shows were all very lavishly and expensively produced.

There's someone who's *really* forgotten. Garry Moore.

Pearl Bailey is also forgotten, and she was also constantly on tv and in the media into her old age.

Yeah but her show---which had a constant array of the biggest stars--was cancelled after only four months.

Simply, she was not made for movies. I've cringed through every movie I've seen her in.

And I have been a fan since "The Garry Moore Show.' Amazing she was doing that and "Mattress" concurrently in 1959 and 1960.

Ann B. Davis took over from Burnett when she left the stage show.

Carol got a lot of acclaim for that TV movie. Was it Friendly Fire? It must have been hard for her to be subtle and reign it in. She was always so big. Look at how she sobs, in that sketch where she can't open any of the supermarket products. She even overdid that. I never totally bought her doing straight drama but when called upon, she could do it well.

That over-acting Carol did on her variety hour was what all early TV stars of those comedy shows - Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Red Skelton, Martha Raye, Martin & Lewis - all did constantly and it's a style that was fully embraced by audiences across America back then. Those comedy sketches were really an extension of the comic vaudeville style which had died out in live performances in theaters and playhouses but found a safe home in 1950s television. I'd imagine anyone watching any of it now for the first time wouldn't find it very amusing.

It's really amazing that audiences were still enjoying watching Carol do it well into the 1970s.

Laugh In ran at the same time as Carol Burnett. They mixed slapstick sketches with political stand-up.

[quote] And I have been a fan since "The Garry Moore Show.' Amazing she was doing that and "Mattress" concurrently in 1959 and 1960.

R314 For those who haven’t already heard this story from Carol, she fell asleep on top of the mattresses during the nightingale number in a performance because she was so tired from doing the two shows at the same time.

[quote] Ann B. Davis took over from Burnett when she left the stage show.

And the show closed soon thereafter, much as “Fade Out, Fade In” did when Carol left it and pursued television opportunities.

[quote] Carol got a lot of acclaim for that TV movie. Was it Friendly Fire? It must have been hard for her to be subtle and reign it in.

Not really.

This is one of her most famous of all her sketches from her original show, and it beautifully shows how she could swiftly negotiate from believable naturalistic acting to her over-the-top sketch comedy style.

Carol could underplay...Mrs. Wiggins barely does anything in those sketches but walk funny and look vacant and it's still hilarious.

There's a brilliant sketch with Sammy Davis with the premise that Sammy and Carol's characters grew up in the same small Southern town. Sammy's character is now a big star (basically, Sammy Davis Jr) and Carol's character goes to see him backstage after a show he has done. She's all gushy about how well he's done but the undercurrent is, she's a racist whose family were the local big shots who once owned Sammy's family. Sammy is nice but starts to get irritated with some of her bullshit and contradicts something she says and she gets very, "Negro...don't get uppity with me! My family used to own your family." It's all very subtle and really well done both in the writing and acting.

And, again, she was VERY good in her SVU appearance as Birdie Sulloway a rather trashy aging actress who turned out to be a Black Widow killer. She had a much younger boyfriend played by Matthew Lilliard and they were both excellent.

I don't think Carol really enjoyed doing The Front Page...I think she knew she was miscast. But, she wanted to work with Billy Wilder, Lemmon and Matthau.

R319 That was a well done skit!

I think when Carol plays it straight she usually comes off as cold and distant.

Laugh-In was the bridge between Carol Burnett comedy sketches and SNL.

We would have done that on THE MANDRELL SISTERS!

Don't you get it? The mailbox was HALDEMAN!

[quote]Martha Raye is pretty much forgotten now, and she was always on tv well into her old age. It's strange how some performers become forgotten and others are remembered.

Love Martha Raye. Especially in this scene from Pippin, singing to Della Street's son...

Laugh In was considered to be so "naughty" and modern when it aired and it's just...mostly silly. Very mild sex jokes. Pretty tame satire. It's fun to watch clips here and there but very little sticks. They over relied on catchphrase comedy.

SNL had a stick up their ass and thought they were the height of sophistication...for doing drug jokes. And, sketches about a Scotch tape shop in a mall. They desperately wanted to be Python but they lacked the intelligence and the British flair for being 'silly'. (And, I liked early SNL...but Lorne Michaels is/was an ass.)

[quote]SNL had a stick up their ass and thought they were the height of sophistication...for doing drug jokes. And, sketches about a Scotch tape shop in a mall. They desperately wanted to be Python but they lacked the intelligence and the British flair for being 'silly'. (And, I liked early SNL...but Lorne Michaels is/was an ass.)

Dan Aykroyd said that everyone on the show had their favorites of old-time television, but they were told by Lorne to downplay it to keep the mystique of SNL being cutting edge and cool. But many of the writers and actors were huge fans of Burnett and her show at the time. Jane Curtin and Gilda were huge fans of Lucille Ball and Jane has also cited Eve Arden's Our Miss Brooks and Betty White's Life With Elizabeth as influences.

It was Belushi who pushed hard for Milton Berle to host SNL, as he adored Berle.

Lorne's a jerk, and supposedly Burnett has been approached to host SNL but refuses because of the shitty remarks he made about her show at the start of SNL. She appeared once, in the audience of a Harry Anderson show during the Dick Ebersol produced years.

SNL had several "TV Pioneers" on during those first five years: Berle, Desi Arnaz, and Broderick Crawford. I think they were all 'problems' to one degree or another. Berle was a complete asshole and trying to dictate how to run the show; Desi was mildly bossy and Crawford kept sneaking out to drink at the bar downstairs.

I’m pretty sure Carol’s place in “TV history” is just as secure as Lorne’s.

LOL...Carol wil be remembered LONG after Lorne Michaels.

No one remembers or gives a shit about some TV producer. Lorne Michaels isn't beloved now.

It's too bad Raye didn't take over for Ryan in Pippin when Ryan became ill. Nobody knew who Dorothy Stickney was so the very nice reveal and star turn the character was given went for very little. When the chair turned around and Ryan was in it it was electric. And who knew she could sing a song and knock it out of the park? Totally unexpected. But it could have been when Raye took over for Patsy Kelly in No No Nanette and even got Keeler's part in I Want to be Happy.

Caesar and Coca are still very funny in some of their sketches. Coca was great in 20th Century. Martin and Lewis and Abbott and Costello and early Bob Hope movies are still funny.

R333, your opinion, They are all pretty much forgotten.

And Duck Soup with the Marx Brothers which should be in every top ten list of best American films ever made and never is is as brilliant today as when it first came out. Maybe more so. I guess because it is pure comedy.

I wish I could have seen Irene Ryan in that role. Is it really true that she sang It's Time to Start Living, walked offstage, and died right there in the theater?

Lorne has remained relevant and revered by knowing whose asses to kiss.

Once he's gone, more and more of the toxicity that is working on SNL will be brought to light.

Even Orson Welles is forgotten if you are talking about average young people. But fans of old movies even young people love their stuff. I mean so many young people today won't watch anything in black and white. So are they going to see any of this stuff? Are they going to watch Citizen Kane or On the Waterfront? No. I guess they all need to be colorized.

Ryan had a stroke on stage but I believe she returned home to CA and died soon after.

I can't believe she did not win the Tony. Yes Patricia Elliott was wonderful but Ryan was one of the most electric things you were ever going to see in a musical. You hear it on the obc. What she gives the audience gave back 10 fold. Really thrilling.

My mother got tickets for me and my gay stepbrother to see Pippin. I think she was trying to tell us something....Granny brought the house down that night. Ben Vereen was doing his Fosse dance moves. And John Rubenstein was the perfect Pippin. I memorized all the songs.

Q: One of your famous co-stars was the late Irene Ryan. The story you always hear is that Ryan died in the theater, her last breath spent crooning her number "No Time at All," a song about how short life is.

A: No, that's not true. The real story is she started to slow down. I don't know if you ever saw her as Granny on "The Beverly Hillbillies," but she had that amazing kind of energy at all times. She didn't do trapeze work like our grandma does - she was a real old lady as opposed to a pretend old lady - but she was kickin' her heels and she was talkin' Texan and she was just funny. The afternoon before they opened in New York, Fosse told her that no matter what happened, she was not to come back onstage after her number. She agreed.

Who is that answering the question at r341?

I saw PIPPIN many times, at least 6. It was the year I first moved to NYC and it was my favorite show. I probably saw it 3 times in standing room.

Irene Ryan was unbelievably fabulous. I also saw it with Dorothy Stickney and then with Lucie Lancaster. Both were great but just didn't have the star quality of Ryan. That was all in its first year so no replacements and luckily no understudies except I think maybe eventually Betty Buckley (or Joy Franz?) for Jill Clayburgh. I had a huge crush on John Rubenstein.

R342 John Rubenstein

I tried to find the interview but he also went deeper into the situation. He said that it was winter and Irene was having trouble being away from sunny California and her friends. He thought she might be homesick and told Fosse. Fosse said he'd come to the next performance and evaluate her. But there was no next performance. Irene literally went from the theater to the airport to return back to LA, I think he also said something like she knew she had limited time left so she wanted to be comfortable.

I would imagine that her early departure from PIPPIN, whether she had died or not, might have cost Ryan some Tony votes as many voters might not have seen her.

How did we get to talking about Irene Ryan and PIPPIN in Carol Burnett's thread?

There are many people very well aware of popular icons of the past...if you're basing it on "does your average 25 year old know them?" then, that's stupid. Of course they don't. 25 year olds are dumb. And, dumber than ever because starting with Millennials, they mostly don't care about anything from before they were born.

But, there's always the oddballs who collect knowledge who keep those flames alive, especially for the major names.

But, the lesser known names, do start to vanish. Especially if they weren't in front of the camera.

Hitchcock will be a name for a long time because he created a brand for himself. John Ford won a lot more Oscars but only diehard film buffs know that name now.

[quote]How did we get to talking about Irene Ryan and PIPPIN in Carol Burnett's thread?

More people love Granny than Eunice.

Was the line in her song "from a man who calls me 'Granny'" specifically written with Ryan in mind, or was it just a happy coincidence? I'm sure that line must have brought down the house.

Fun fact: "Pippin" was partially financed by Motown and the OBC album is on that label. Many Motown acts did covers of the songs.