A Proper Post on Carol Burnett

The title of today’s post comes by virtue of the fact that our only previous post dedicated to this major entertainer focused on but a single accomplishment, my favorite creation of hers (the “Eunice” sketches). But I feel prompted to deliver something more in-depth on Carol Burnett (b. 1933) today for a variety of reasons: it is her 90th birthday; she just blew our minds a few months ago by playing a crucial role on the final season of Better Call Saul, and I’m working on a book about television variety shows, a history in which she of course plays a big part.

Burnett was born in Texas. On that score, I’d like to be able to claim she was related to B movie western sidekick Smiley Burnette… but he was from Missouri, and ended his surname in a silent e. (Hey, what about T-Bone Burnett, though? That one is totally possible!) Neither did the fact that her middle name is Creighton have anything to do with the most famous person by that name, Lon Chaney Jr. Creighton just happened to be her mother’s maiden name.

Burnett’s parents split up when she was a child. They moved to Hollywood, where the mom worked as a publicist for movie studios, and her father managed theatres. Carol grew up at her grandmother’s boarding house, a splendid and unusual opportunity to observe a variety of eccentric characters up close. Burnett attended Hollywood High, then UCLA. For a time she was an usher at the Warner Brothers Theater (now the Hollywood Pacific Theatre). Following a stand-out performance in a talent show in her senior year at UCLA, a kind benefactor bankrolled her move to New York to break into theatre.

The talented Burnett’s time of struggle was remarkably short. In early 1955, she and fellow boarders at the Rehearsal Club (a hotel for aspiring actresses) put on an off-Broadway show called The Rehearsal Club Revue. Agents came and she was on her way. (The Rehearsal Club still exists, believe it or not! Check out their website here). Her TV debut came on The Paul Winchell Show later that year — she played a love interest to Jerry Mahoney! The follow year she was cast as the co-star on Buddy Hackett’s short-lived sit-com Stanley (1956-57). I find the fact that Max Liebman produced this show significant. He was also the producer of Your Show of Shows. And not only is the toothy, goofy Burnett’s appeal very much in the Imogene Coca tradition, but her own variety show, launched a decade later, is very much in the sketch revue tradition of Caesar’s.

After Stanley was cancelled Burnett worked up a cabaret act which she performed in New York nightclubs, and made the rounds of TV variety shows, appearing onThe Tonight Show with Jack Paar, The Ed Sullivan Show,The Jonathan Winters Show, The Arlene Francis Show,The Dinah Shore Chevy Show,and others. In 1959 she became a regular on The Garry Moore Show. Here she is with fellow cast member Larry Blyden:

That same year, Burnett had her break-out Tony-winning success in the Broadway show Once Upon a Mattress, an adaptation of the fairy tale The Princess and the Pea, in which she played a wide variety of characters. Later she starred in TV adaptations of the show, in 1964, 1972, and (at a less energetic level) in 2005. I saw the 1972 one — it was a big television event.

The most lasting and popular of the many roles she introduced in this show was a bonneted, shawled and toothless cleaning lady who was to become one of her signature comic turns, and, in animated form, the mascot for her variety show. There is something very music hall, very clown, very Chaplinesque about this character that makes it iconic. (Some have an interesting theory that she made have been inspired by drag star Rae Bourbon. Check that out here).

In 1962 Burnett won an Emmy for one of her many powerhouse team-ups, in this case with friend Julie Andrews, in Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall. In 1964 she returned to Broadway for the show Fade Out – Fade In, by Comden and Green and Jule Styne. In 1963 she starred in a TV version of the musical Calamity Jane (in the role Doris Day had played in the movie a decade earlier). That same year she made her film debut in the comedy Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed with Dean Martin and Elizabeth Montgomery. In 1964 she was a cast member on the short-lived tv variety show The Entertainers with Bob Newhart and Caterina Valente. In 1966 her second TV special, Carol + 2. The other “two” were Lucille Ball and Zero Mostel, who were very gracious I must say in accepting that sort of billing. Lucy was a kind of mentor to Burnett, however, and there were many such team-ups over the years, the pair of them making guest appearances on each others’ shows. Around the same time, she also made a couple of appearances on Gomer Pyle, USMC, and likewise, she and Jim Nabors also appeared on each others shows thereafter.

Finally, the keystone of Burnett’s long stage, film and tv career, her own television variety program, The Carol Burnett Show, which ran from 1967 through 1978. I was two years old when the show launched, and was especially devoted to it in the mid ’70s, by which time it had become an American institution. She began every show with an especially brave ritual. She would come out and answer audience questions – sometimes with funny ad libs, sometimes quite earnestly. Upon request she would sometimes do her version of the “Tarzan yell”, which she had been doing since childhood. Her nervous habit of tugging her earlobe would usually manifest itself during these segments. The meat of the show would consist of comedy sketches with her troupe of regulars: Harvey Korman, Tim Conway, CarolLawrence (her protege) and Lyle Waggoner. This was the show on which she regularly performed the Eunice character I wrote about here. Depending on the guests, she would also perform musical numbers from time to time, and engage in banter. She was the first female comedian per se to helm her own show; to cement her place in hsitory she even had her own theme song, the memorable “I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together”, which seemed to put her in a class with Bob Hope.

Like many tv comedians of that time (Sid Caesar,Milton Berle, and Jackie Gleason all spring to mind — which I wrote about here) Burnett never did become quite what we think of as a movie star, despite vigorous and fairly numerous attempts to do so. The conventual wisdom is that over-exposure prevent it. But she did appear in numerous films, including Pete ‘n’ Tillie (1972) with Walter Matthau; Billy Wilder’s remake of The Front Page (1974), Robert Altman’s A Wedding (1978) and HealtH (1980), Alan Alda’s The Four Seasons (1981), Chu Chu and the Philly Flash (1981), Annie (1982), and Noises Off (1992).

In 1978 Burnett starred in a TV movie version of humorist Erma Bombeck’s The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank. This launched a long association with television movies, in which she increasingly attempted to establish herself as a dramatic actress.Friendly Fire (1979) was about the Vietnam War. Life of the Party: The Story of Beatrice (1982) dealt with alcoholism, a topic close to her heart since both of her parents had suffered from the condition. She co-starred with Elizabeth Taylor in Between Friends (1983). In 1987 she starred in a gender-reversed version of Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite.

Perhaps you’ll forgive us for leaving off here — four decades ago. Burnett never entirely retired and she has over 500 credits. There are more Broadway credits, guest appearances on hit tv shows, lots of voice-over work, many personal appearances on talk shows and in documentaries, and even some attempts to revive her variety show. You could fill an entire blog with the topic of Carol Burnett — which is the other reason I hadn’t heretofore attempted on an omnibus post of the show biz giant.

For more on variety entertainment, including tv variety, please see No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous,and for more on classic comedy read  Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube. And please keep an eye out forVaudeville in Your Living Room: A Century of Radio and TV Variety, coming out from Bear Manor Media this November!