R.I.P. Lulu from “Hee Haw”

We learned of the passing of country comedienneLulu Roman (Bertha Louise Hable, 1946-2025) a couple of weeks ago and decided to hold our tribute for her natal day.

To my mind, there are at least three iconic Lulus. One, almost exactly contemporaneous with Roman, is the British pop star, who we wrote about here. The other was the one created by Frank Wedekind in German Expressionist plays, famously played by Louise Brooks in Pandora’s Box. What the two have in common is a sexy and svelte, fun-loving and naughty identity. The gag of Lulu Roman’s character was she was the opposite of the other two physically. She was a very large woman, approaching 300 lbs. She’d gotten her start as a performer in Dallas night clubs, some of which had been run by Jack Ruby prior to his imprisonment for shooting Lee Harvey Oswald. There, she was billed as “Lulu Roman, the World’s Biggest Go-Go Dancer.” Buck Owens was a fan of her act and got her cast on Hee Haw when the show launched in 1969. She remained a cast member until the show wrapped in 1993, with one interlude of about a year for drug rehab.

That long run on Hee Haw is what she was almost entirely known for to the wider public. The running gag on the show was that she was a plus-sized good-time gal, always chasing after men who did not want to be caught. She was the opposite of the other country gal stereotype of the show, the Daisy Mae style “Hee Haw Honey” ” as exemplified by Barbi Benton. This comic trope had a long show biz history going back decades. Today it would be criticized for lookism no doubt, unless there were some other dimensions to it. With Lulu, it was just “this big, fat, homely woman is chasing men”. Sometimes, it would be slightly reversed, such as when an undesirable man (e.g. non-actor Junior Samples, or George “Goober” Lindsay) would be in love with her.

Lulu’s other television work mostly grew out of her association with the Hee Haw character. She appeared on Tony Orlando and Dawn’s variety show, was on The Love Boat, and did a TV special hosted by Anita Bryant. After Hee Haw wrapped, Roman was mostly known to country audiences as an inspirational speaker and Christian gospel singer. She glammed herself up a bit and distanced herself from her clownish past. Her 2013 album At Last featured duets with the likes of Dolly Parton and George Jones.

For more about show business historyconsult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, And please stay tuned for my upcomingElectric Vaudeville: A Century of Radio and TV Variety.