Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing,
Speaker 1: My chance to talk with artists, policy makers and performers
Speaker 1: to hear their stories. What inspires their creations, what decisions
Speaker 1: change their careers, what relationships influenced their work. My guest
Speaker 1: today is Carol Burnett. What brings you to terra? You
Speaker 1: you fix and you start it? I love you that
Speaker 1: that that gown is gorgeous. Thank you, Stan Wind and
Speaker 1: I just couldn't resist. That's Carol as Starlett O'Hara making
Speaker 1: a grand entrance wearing a set of curtains as a
Speaker 1: dress with the rod still attached. Harvey Corman is smitten
Speaker 1: as Captain Ratt Butler in this Gone with the Wind
Speaker 1: parody on the Carol Burnett Show. The chemistry between the
Speaker 1: players on this show Burnett, Corman and also Vicky Lawrence,
Speaker 1: Tim Conway and Lyle Wagoner is legendary. The show ran
Speaker 1: for eleven seasons. The first five seasons have been recently
Speaker 1: released on DVD. They haven't been seen since airing over
Speaker 1: forty years ago. It is incredible and you see them
Speaker 1: and it's the first time we did the soap opera takeoff.
Speaker 1: The first time, you know, Vicky and her when we
Speaker 1: started out, and we were pretty raw, pretty braw. We're
Speaker 1: gonna get to that because when I watched the show,
Speaker 1: I saw so many little tells and so many little
Speaker 1: things about how you guys crack each other up. Obviously
Speaker 1: there's there's things you guys do to each other and
Speaker 1: you can just see you almost with joy and almost
Speaker 1: loathing that they're like, you're kind of torturing. It's like
Speaker 1: getting the giggles in church. Yes, you know. But Alex,
Speaker 1: when we started the show, uh, I wanted to do
Speaker 1: it as a live show. We couldn't really do it
Speaker 1: live because the studio, which I love that studio because
Speaker 1: it was like a TV City TV City, uh Studio
Speaker 1: thirty three, which is like a little theater. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like senium and the seats are down. It's not
Speaker 1: like the teared things that you have, you know when
Speaker 1: when other shows, you know, and so I loved that,
Speaker 1: but we couldn't There were no flies in the theater.
Speaker 1: By that I mean where you could fly the scenery
Speaker 1: in and out and really do a live show. But
Speaker 1: I wanted it to go fast because we had a
Speaker 1: studio audience there and I couldn't stand to keep them waiting,
Speaker 1: because if they get bored and sit there for a
Speaker 1: long time while we take our time changing clothes and
Speaker 1: so forth, we lose them. So we lose that energy
Speaker 1: and enthusiasm that that you get when an audience is hot.
Speaker 1: So I would have a bet with the stage hands
Speaker 1: that I could do a skin out change faster than
Speaker 1: they could move that sofa across the rough. And also
Speaker 1: I didn't want um. I didn't want to stop and
Speaker 1: do pick ups something went wrong. I figured unless the
Speaker 1: scenery fell down and knocked us out in ahead, I
Speaker 1: wanted to keep going. So when somebody would add lib
Speaker 1: or do a bit that we had not done before,
Speaker 1: we never broke up on purpose ever. Ever, I just well,
Speaker 1: let's it was understood that you would add lib. It
Speaker 1: was understood that that was well. We never said it.
Speaker 1: It just started happening, so we just let it go.
Speaker 1: Who was the bad boy in church? Usually? Do you
Speaker 1: have comedy insurance? Yes? Yeah, because Harvey was trying to
Speaker 1: put him on and then Tim came up and topped him.
Speaker 1: I don't suppose you have comedy insurance down there, do you? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It was brilliant. I don't believe when you watch this shows.
Speaker 1: When you watch these shows, you're lost episodes. So that
Speaker 1: audiences from our show understand that it was sixty seven
Speaker 1: through seventy. Those eleven years and the first five years
Speaker 1: of the show you're referring to as the lost episodes.
Speaker 1: And when you see so this is the crowd young,
Speaker 1: and you see over eleven years people get older. Harvey
Speaker 1: has a nice kind of auburn color to his hair,
Speaker 1: and then Harvey has like a steel color to his hair,
Speaker 1: and Vicky grows older, and everybody, not in any bad way,
Speaker 1: but everybody in eleven years is a long time. You
Speaker 1: don't see that on TV. But I will say with
Speaker 1: all sincerity that I don't think you'd have to go
Speaker 1: to Fred ash Stare and Gene Kelly in my mind
Speaker 1: to find someone who is as trim and fit and
Speaker 1: lithe as you on stage. You never had to exercise
Speaker 1: a day in your life. The show was your workout.
Speaker 1: The things you do when you're scissoring your way across
Speaker 1: the floor during the fire scene because you think the
Speaker 1: fire is happening. I look at you, and oh my god,
Speaker 1: look at this woman. What she's doing to herself was
Speaker 1: it physically as demanding as it seemed, I never felt that. No,
Speaker 1: I'm just in it. Well, you know, the the adrenaline
Speaker 1: starts pumping when you're performing and everything. And I'm really
Speaker 1: not that live. I mean, I I still can't touch
Speaker 1: my toes without bending my knees. I'm not that good.
Speaker 1: But I was able to do a lot of stunts
Speaker 1: and things like that. I don't know. I just threw
Speaker 1: myself into it. You don't think about it when you're
Speaker 1: doing it. And I never hurt myself. I got a
Speaker 1: few bruises here and there once in a while, but
Speaker 1: I never broke a bone jumping out of windows, falling downstairs,
Speaker 1: crashing through doors with burn metals exactly. Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: and and there you do that exit with Burt medals.
Speaker 1: I mean, I always joke with people and say, when
Speaker 1: I was young, and I was younger, I was pretty fit.
Speaker 1: I said, now I'm older, and I probably could do
Speaker 1: some of those things again. But it's more my doubts
Speaker 1: or my more of my concerns about it. I say
Speaker 1: to somebody, like, in my real life, I might not
Speaker 1: be as physically engaged as I was, But if you
Speaker 1: pay me a couple of million dollars. I can still
Speaker 1: run down the street with a gun in my head.
Speaker 1: It's always funny I can do what if the characters
Speaker 1: doing that? You know that I'm saving a baby from
Speaker 1: climbing into a well. I totally agree. And uh, in fact,
Speaker 1: I never knew sometimes how I was going to do
Speaker 1: a character until I got into the outfit. Interesting, I've
Speaker 1: worked from the outside in. You know some actors worked
Speaker 1: from the inside out. I Uh, there were lots of
Speaker 1: times I had no idea what I was going to
Speaker 1: do until I went into the costume fitting and saw
Speaker 1: what Bob Mackie had created for me. How did that
Speaker 1: union with him and that collaboration with him begin? Where
Speaker 1: did you first meet Bob? Well when we were getting
Speaker 1: ready to do the show, and we said, you know,
Speaker 1: costuming is going to be really important because the costume
Speaker 1: designer isn't going to just design for me. That costume
Speaker 1: designer is going to design for every everybody you see
Speaker 1: on the screen, dancers, singers, guest stars, rep company. Everything
Speaker 1: you see has to be coordinated by the one person.
Speaker 1: So um we had seen um Alison Wonderland on television.
Speaker 1: I remember Carol Channing was the Queen of Diamonds or
Speaker 1: Hearts or something like that, but fantastic, wonderful costuming. And
Speaker 1: then I'd seen Mizzy Keener I think it was in Vegas,
Speaker 1: and aside from the gorgeous gowns she wore, she also
Speaker 1: did a lot of fall down humor and you know,
Speaker 1: fat suits and crazy outfits and so forth. And the
Speaker 1: common denominator was Bob Mackie, and we said, you know,
Speaker 1: we've got to meet Bob Mackie and see if maybe,
Speaker 1: you know, he would be the one. So we got
Speaker 1: in touch with him and he came over to her
Speaker 1: house bing bong. I opened the door and there stood
Speaker 1: this guy that looked like he was twelve years old,
Speaker 1: just fresh and adorable, and he came in. He was
Speaker 1: about twenty four five years old, and he we just
Speaker 1: liked him right away. We knew he had the talent.
Speaker 1: So we hired him right then on the spot. And
Speaker 1: it was one of the best decisions. You see me,
Speaker 1: who was we my husband? To talk about your husband, well, Joe,
Speaker 1: Joe Hamilton's was the producer of the Gary Moore Show.
Speaker 1: That's where we met. And so when I was going
Speaker 1: to do my show, of course he was going to
Speaker 1: be the producer. So we were, and you were on Broadway.
Speaker 1: I had been, and then we moved to California. For
Speaker 1: moving to California, well, I ready, I was raised there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was raised in your grandmother in Hollywood. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that. I'm I know you grew up in San Antonio. No,
Speaker 1: I grew up I was seven years old. And then
Speaker 1: we left and moved to Hollywood at a granny's house.
Speaker 1: That's right. We're in Hollywood, a one room apartment, one
Speaker 1: block north of Hollywood Boulevard, the one that Now this
Speaker 1: is what you pulled on your ear? Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: hello to her? Yes, yes, And where was she at
Speaker 1: the end of her life, still in California? Was still
Speaker 1: in California? Did she come and see? Well, she she
Speaker 1: died before I got my show, but she had seen
Speaker 1: me do the Gary Moore Show, in the had Sullivan
Speaker 1: Show and so forth. And you accomplished. Yeah. Well, at
Speaker 1: first when I got the chance to go to New
Speaker 1: York from California, because I wanted to be on Broadway,
Speaker 1: I wanted to be ethel Merman, Mary Martin, you know that.
Speaker 1: And she was not for it. She said, you're bloodstooth
Speaker 1: it and you'll be dead in a week in New York.
Speaker 1: Why do you think she said that she didn't want
Speaker 1: me to go. She was trying to talk to you
Speaker 1: out of it. Yeah, she didn't want to lose you.
Speaker 1: Correct to show business. Correct is the sodom and gomra.
Speaker 1: She just didn't want me to be away from her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: to leave her. But when I got my first show,
Speaker 1: it was a Paul Winchell Kitty TV show, I auditioned
Speaker 1: and I got a gig on that, and I called
Speaker 1: Nanny and I said, Nanny, I'm going to be on
Speaker 1: Paul Winchell Show Saturday. And she said, well, say hello
Speaker 1: to me and said, Nanny, I don't think they're gonna
Speaker 1: let me say so. We uh, we figured out I'd
Speaker 1: pull my ear, which meant hi, Nanny, I love you,
Speaker 1: and then lay or when I got successful at Mannheim, Nanny,
Speaker 1: I love you. Your checks on the way and when
Speaker 1: you when you go. How would you describe when you're
Speaker 1: on Gary Moore show. You're one of a company, Yes,
Speaker 1: and you come to Los Angeles to do your show
Speaker 1: and you're part of a company, But you're not just
Speaker 1: part of a company. You're the star of the show.
Speaker 1: With your show, however, But I remember Gary Moore and
Speaker 1: I learned a lot from him. He was so wonderful
Speaker 1: and it was his show, The Gary Moore Show, and
Speaker 1: it was very popular, variety comedy variety show. And Derward
Speaker 1: Kirby was a sidekick Gerward and me and Mary and
Speaker 1: Lauren were the second bananas, but he never treated us
Speaker 1: as second bananas. For instance, Alex, we would come in
Speaker 1: on a Monday to read the script for that week,
Speaker 1: and he'd look at it and he said, and he'd
Speaker 1: have a joke or something. He said, you know, I
Speaker 1: can't I can't give this joke to Durward he can
Speaker 1: do it better than me. Or give this line to Carol.
Speaker 1: She she can't say it funnier than I can't. So
Speaker 1: it was a true rep company, and that's what I
Speaker 1: learned about my show. He set a true you know,
Speaker 1: so his name was on it, but we were a
Speaker 1: true rep company. My name was, you know, the head
Speaker 1: of it. We were a true rep company. Because when
Speaker 1: that happens and you don't want to hog it, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: the show gets better. You give it to Tim, you
Speaker 1: give it to who's got yeah, and and do it
Speaker 1: you know, Oh, you know, years ago when I was
Speaker 1: doing the Gary Moore Show. One of the guests that
Speaker 1: week one week was ed Wynn, you know, the old
Speaker 1: wonderful Vaudevillian comedian. And so we were sitting around lunch
Speaker 1: one day and he was regaling us with stories and stuff,
Speaker 1: and he said he started to talk about the difference
Speaker 1: between a comic and a comedic actor, and Gary said,
Speaker 1: what is it? He said, well, a comic says funny
Speaker 1: things like Bob Hope. A comedic actor like Jack Benny
Speaker 1: says things funny. Well that good. So Joe, your husband
Speaker 1: and you you get out to l A, you start
Speaker 1: to do the show. Who's in charge creatively? Who's the
Speaker 1: final word creatively? We both you and your husband. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've done cast the show. Where did you find them? Well,
Speaker 1: Harvey was on the Danny Kay Show. Danny had a
Speaker 1: comedy variety show and Harvey was his How many years
Speaker 1: did show run? You know, I don't know, fine, something
Speaker 1: like yeah more than two right, And he was going
Speaker 1: to go off the air. And we had seen his
Speaker 1: show and love the show, and we said this, Harvey
Speaker 1: Corman is just sense. It's like Carl Reiner to Sid
Speaker 1: Caesar and Art Carney to Jackie Gleeson. You know, we
Speaker 1: wanted to get a rep company. We said, oh my god,
Speaker 1: and Danny's show was going off the air when we
Speaker 1: were going on. We said, let's get Harvey Corman. So
Speaker 1: that's what we did. I practically attacked him in a
Speaker 1: parking lot at CBS. I think we had already called
Speaker 1: his agent, but I I ran into him. Not I
Speaker 1: wasn't in a car, but I ran into him in
Speaker 1: the parking lot at CBS, and I just grabbed, you
Speaker 1: gotta be on my show. You gotta be on it.
Speaker 1: So we got him and Tim, well, Tim was it
Speaker 1: a regular at the get go. He yeah. We had
Speaker 1: him on maybe twice a month or something until duh,
Speaker 1: finally the penny dropped him. We hired him in the
Speaker 1: ninth year for every single week. I mean, was he
Speaker 1: had He was it something you just hadn't considered. He
Speaker 1: wasn't available, he didn't want to sign on. Well, he
Speaker 1: had done a couple of other shows in the meantime
Speaker 1: he did. He had a variety show that didn't work,
Speaker 1: and he had a comedy western that was filmed, which
Speaker 1: was a big mistake because Tim needs to be in
Speaker 1: front of an audience. You know, I have a funny
Speaker 1: story about his can's elation for this one. It's a
Speaker 1: funny s cancelation story i've ever heard. He was doing
Speaker 1: this show called Wrango and it was he was inept
Speaker 1: cowboy and it was filmed and so, and it was
Speaker 1: not very good. So he's in the motor home after
Speaker 1: they've done one scene one day and he's changing and
Speaker 1: putting on his boots and stuff like that, and there's
Speaker 1: a knock on the door and it was an underling
Speaker 1: actually from ABC, who was sent to tell him that
Speaker 1: the show was canceled. But he was nervous and he said,
Speaker 1: I'm uh warn't Warren Tart or somebody from ABC MI MI,
Speaker 1: Mr Conrad and Tim said why how are you? What?
Speaker 1: What can I do for you? And the guy said, uh,
Speaker 1: stop doing this. You can pack up your dressing room.
Speaker 1: He just didn't. He he took off his boots and
Speaker 1: went home. In fact, every show he'd done only ran
Speaker 1: about thirteen weeks because that was an arm then and
Speaker 1: then it was canceled. So at one point he had
Speaker 1: a license plate that said thirteen weeks. But what a genius?
Speaker 1: Who was the woman you're in a sketch, and I
Speaker 1: was maybe one of them, the one with the French
Speaker 1: revolutionary sketchy. She was. She was on our show nineteen times.
Speaker 1: She was. She's still with us. Nanny's about she's in
Speaker 1: her nineties and she was wonderful to work with, absolutely wonderful.
Speaker 1: You you are you see you're talking to someone who
Speaker 1: you know. Back then show business with show business, he
Speaker 1: did Broadway that you did, uh sitcoms and variety shows
Speaker 1: like yours, the old great variety shows that you don't
Speaker 1: see as much anymore. You did game shows, passwords there
Speaker 1: passed Alan Luddon. Yes, you saw you saw Geene Rayburn
Speaker 1: with that antenna like microphone match game. Richard Dawson was
Speaker 1: smash my gosh. And who was the one that was
Speaker 1: Klugman's wife Brett Brett Summers those people because you knew
Speaker 1: they all had like a flask, they were having a drink.
Speaker 1: It was a party. Well they did that with Hollywood Square,
Speaker 1: Hollywood Square and everybody would get Snucker exactly. We would
Speaker 1: do Paul lind in my house to harass my mother.
Speaker 1: I had a childhood that was just immersed. It was
Speaker 1: just a wash in this comedy. I watched you, I
Speaker 1: watched Gleeson, I watched Alan Funt. I mean, I'm a
Speaker 1: kid born in nine, grew up in the sixties watching TV,
Speaker 1: pretty much a bandon TV after that. And then I
Speaker 1: go and I go to acting school, and of course
Speaker 1: everyone wants to do O'Neil and check Off and Ibsen,
Speaker 1: and we all want to plumb the depths of our soul,
Speaker 1: and rightfully so. But then I do a sitcom and
Speaker 1: I realized I'm stealing from all those people. And I
Speaker 1: saw and no one more than Corman, no one more
Speaker 1: than And he is so talented. He was one is
Speaker 1: timing and his tone he could when he did still
Speaker 1: Zachary Scott in Mildred Farce. You know, unbelievable, how he
Speaker 1: smarmie he was, and he channeled Clark Gable. I mean,
Speaker 1: I swear he didn't know how he was. He was
Speaker 1: so nervous that week when we were going to do
Speaker 1: Went with the Wind, uh, and he said, I can't
Speaker 1: do Gable. But the minute he got into the drag,
Speaker 1: he became again what I was talking about. He became
Speaker 1: custom lead the way, yeah, and the wig and the
Speaker 1: and the mustache and the whole outfit. And everything. He
Speaker 1: became Clark Gable. The show is, of course. I mean
Speaker 1: I want to talk about it in terms of not
Speaker 1: how things have changed, because I think people beat that
Speaker 1: to death a little bit. But I mean, you're a
Speaker 1: woman at your show, and did everybody uh treat you
Speaker 1: the way you wanted to be treated? Back then? It
Speaker 1: was all like yeah, yeah, sure, honey, put Joe on
Speaker 1: the phone. That's about right. Well, I it was my
Speaker 1: doing too, you know. I in that era there the
Speaker 1: only one who really would speak up was Lucy. She
Speaker 1: was very strong. But it's not in my nature to
Speaker 1: take over confront or anything. You know, like if if
Speaker 1: a sketch wasn't working or something, instead of like Gleason
Speaker 1: or Sid would say, let's look, guys, the stinks now,
Speaker 1: come on, you gotta fix it. But but you know
Speaker 1: they would do that. I would say, I'd call the
Speaker 1: writers down into the rehearsal hall and I'd say, you know, guys, um,
Speaker 1: I'm not doing this too well. Do you think maybe
Speaker 1: you could help me out with a different line here there?
Speaker 1: Because you know, otherwise I would have been a bit
Speaker 1: in their you know. And yeah, and I wired the writers.
Speaker 1: How many writers did you have Well, we had about
Speaker 1: seven for the comedy, and we had three special material
Speaker 1: writers who did all the original music and songs and
Speaker 1: medley and finales and so a music department, right, and
Speaker 1: uh so that was fine, but I would have a saying.
Speaker 1: I'd walk into the writer's room. Ernie Rosen was our
Speaker 1: head writer, and I said, you know, I'd love to
Speaker 1: do Mildred Pierce. Can we do Mildred Pierce someday? Or
Speaker 1: I want to do Postman Always Rings twice, Double Indemnity,
Speaker 1: African Queen Love Story, all of those you got, Well,
Speaker 1: we never did that. Let me go back and do
Speaker 1: that one, you know. And so they would do that.
Speaker 1: But I did dream a sketch once. I dreamed can
Speaker 1: you say it on the air? Sure it was. I
Speaker 1: dreamed it, and we put it on the air. I
Speaker 1: was in a shower, I mean the door covered me,
Speaker 1: you know, and the water was coming down and I
Speaker 1: was getting wet and washing and I'm singing, well on
Speaker 1: the moment I wake up, dream a little dream of you,
Speaker 1: and I'm singing. The band is playing so forth, and
Speaker 1: then I turned the water off, get a towel, kind
Speaker 1: of dry off, wrap it around myself, opened the door
Speaker 1: exit and the camera pans in and there are three
Speaker 1: musicians in tuxedos playing ringing wet your there. It worked,
Speaker 1: It was very funny. So you had those writers, and
Speaker 1: how much writing did you do? Didn't expand over the years,
Speaker 1: but you became more confident. How about this? Not about this?
Speaker 1: We wrote on our feet. When we get the sketch,
Speaker 1: we'd start to rehearse and Harvey would say, you know,
Speaker 1: can I just feel like saying this instead of that?
Speaker 1: So we do it. I would do it tim so forth,
Speaker 1: and I have to compliment our writers. They never complained.
Speaker 1: They came down and if it was funny and working,
Speaker 1: they said, great, keep it in. Carol tells a story
Speaker 1: about her friend Lucy All addressing the writers of The
Speaker 1: Lucy Show. When the pilot wasn't working. Lucy wasn't afraid
Speaker 1: to speak her mind. She told her kid, that's when
Speaker 1: they put the S on the end of my last name.
Speaker 1: Explore the here's the thing archives. I talked with Kristin Wigg,
Speaker 1: who early on preferred her scenes unscripted for some reason.
Speaker 1: It was less scary to me than having words in
Speaker 1: front of me, because I think when you're handed a script.
Speaker 1: You know that you're supposed to do it in a
Speaker 1: certain way. People will think like, how is she reading this?
Speaker 1: But when you're improvising, there's nothing to compare it to
Speaker 1: and you can do Take a listen at Here's the Thing,
Speaker 1: Dot Org. This is Alec Baldwin, and you were listening
Speaker 1: to Here's the Thing. The Carol Burnett Show was an
Speaker 1: ensemble show that welcomed the biggest stars of television and
Speaker 1: film as its guests. Burt Reynolds, Jerry Lewis, Phillis Diller,
Speaker 1: the Jackson Five Share. Everyone wanted to work with Carol.
Speaker 1: That was what we talked about, you know, the get go.
Speaker 1: I said, you know, aside from having a rep company,
Speaker 1: I want to have guest starts, but I don't want
Speaker 1: to have a guest star stay, like a Steve Lawrence
Speaker 1: who would come on and just sing a song and
Speaker 1: maybe we'd see him next in the finale. I wanted
Speaker 1: to integrate everybody into the show so many times, I
Speaker 1: mean almost every sketch, Almost every guest star we had,
Speaker 1: we put in sketches, so they were throughout the show.
Speaker 1: Remember the company? Yeah, correct, And so that's certainly what
Speaker 1: Bert was without naming names when people came out? Were
Speaker 1: some better than others? What did you do when they
Speaker 1: came on? Did you just kind of diminish their role
Speaker 1: the show? No, they were all pretty good, but some
Speaker 1: were you guys, that fabulous h Steve Lawrence is one
Speaker 1: of the funniest human beings in the world and hysterical,
Speaker 1: and he was one of my favorite sketch performers. We
Speaker 1: did Postman Always Drinks twice, we did African Queen together,
Speaker 1: we did Double Indemnity together, we did um uh from
Speaker 1: Here to Eternity together, I mean. And he was brilliant.
Speaker 1: And so when we first went into syndication many years ago,
Speaker 1: we had to cut all the music out, so it
Speaker 1: was only a half hour in syndication of the sketches
Speaker 1: because of cost of clarences and all of that. So Steve,
Speaker 1: of course all of his music was cut out and
Speaker 1: so forth. By one time he during this time, he
Speaker 1: and Edie were in an airport one day and these
Speaker 1: teenage girls ran up to him and said, you're that
Speaker 1: funny guy on the Brunette Show. And he used to say,
Speaker 1: if you're long cut my song, don't cut the sketch
Speaker 1: cut my song. I can sing anytime. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: can't do this anytime. Who were some of the other
Speaker 1: ones that came on that you ken Berry wonderful one,
Speaker 1: but saying dance he was in Crush, Well he's he's
Speaker 1: a great dancer, great huffer, and he sings and he's funny.
Speaker 1: He was adorable, and so we used him a lot.
Speaker 1: Bernadette Peters was the first. She was a kid. She
Speaker 1: was the first person we asked, we signed. She wasn't
Speaker 1: on on our very first show, but she was the
Speaker 1: first person we asked to be on our show. Someone
Speaker 1: that surprised you. Oh gosh, I didn't remember who was
Speaker 1: a movie star. Maybe they came on and surprised you.
Speaker 1: Betty Grabel. No, we had Betty on because I was
Speaker 1: raised in the forties and so you know, she was
Speaker 1: my favorite movie star and so I was thrilled when
Speaker 1: we got her on the show. She was funny, very
Speaker 1: very sharp, funny, wonderful sense of humor. And at the
Speaker 1: same time on that show was Martha Ray. So we
Speaker 1: had Betty Grabel and Martha Ray. And that was the
Speaker 1: first time we ever did the soap opera as The
Speaker 1: Stomach Turns, and it was they were in it. Uh,
Speaker 1: your show plays during a time of incredible politic upheaval
Speaker 1: in the country, the late sixties in the early seventies.
Speaker 1: It doesn't get anymore tumultuous, pretty heavy. And was that
Speaker 1: something that you cast an eye toward or did you
Speaker 1: decide to ignore it completely? Well, I don't know if
Speaker 1: it was a decision to ignore it, but we we
Speaker 1: just didn't do it. Nothing political, No, because I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm a clown and I just wanted to I'm gonna
Speaker 1: ask you about it. I just want Betty Belly laughs.
Speaker 1: That's what I wanted, you know, like a Sid Caesar.
Speaker 1: You know, I loved his show, and so that's really
Speaker 1: consider yourself a comic or comic, a comedic actor, comedic
Speaker 1: at it not because for you that range I want
Speaker 1: to get back to the Vietnam era thing, but for you,
Speaker 1: you see you come in and of course the wardrobe
Speaker 1: and the wig and the eyebrows make it in mildred
Speaker 1: fierce the moment you walk in. But also you have
Speaker 1: that core of Joan oozing out of you when you
Speaker 1: walk on. I just then you dump out of it
Speaker 1: and you can you can go from one extreme to
Speaker 1: the other and then you're a clown and then you're
Speaker 1: doing voices and you're the character's collapsing and you know,
Speaker 1: in the family sketch, Unie and Mama and Ed you know, sorry, sorry,
Speaker 1: well we did. We did about thirty five of those.
Speaker 1: And one time we had Maggie Smith on the show
Speaker 1: and uh so the sketch was with the family. Maggie
Speaker 1: Smith was a school teacher and she called Unice and
Speaker 1: uh Ed and Mama and to talk about the fact
Speaker 1: that unison ed son was a bully. Bubba was you
Speaker 1: never saw him, but was a Bubba in school and
Speaker 1: she wanted to discuss it with us. Well, during the
Speaker 1: course of the sketch, she discovers why poor Bubba is
Speaker 1: that way. It's because of this horribly dysfunctional family. Right. So,
Speaker 1: I don't know whose idea was in rehearsal. Might have
Speaker 1: been Harvey's, might have been mine, I don't Uh. We decided,
Speaker 1: just as an acting experiment, let's not do it as
Speaker 1: these characters. Let's do this sketch as if it's a
Speaker 1: it's a one act and so we did it. We
Speaker 1: didn't go over the top with the screeching and all
Speaker 1: of that. We did it very straight. Now, those sketches
Speaker 1: never had jokes in them. They were all about character.
Speaker 1: So when we did that, it was devastating. It was
Speaker 1: like doing a very serious one act when when Eunice
Speaker 1: is trying to defend her role as a mother, it
Speaker 1: was very very serious. So that was really great writing.
Speaker 1: And then we topped it off with the way we
Speaker 1: talked in all of that. Yeah, and then it became funny.
Speaker 1: It was a great piece of writing and a great
Speaker 1: acting experiment. We just did it in rehearsal to go
Speaker 1: back to that period, so your own uh politics didn't
Speaker 1: enter into the show or your husband's and you were
Speaker 1: better off for that. I think so, because now you know,
Speaker 1: when we're seeing stuff it holds up even though it
Speaker 1: was forty years old because it's not topical, you know.
Speaker 1: So in a way that that was a blessing. We
Speaker 1: almost didn't get on the air because CBS didn't want
Speaker 1: us explain that they didn't want what me to do
Speaker 1: a variety show. They didn't want a variety show. They
Speaker 1: didn't want you, they didn't want me to do it. Well,
Speaker 1: what happened was when I left the Gary Moore Show,
Speaker 1: I signed a ten year contract with CBS, and there
Speaker 1: was a strange clause in the first five years of
Speaker 1: the kind was that if I wanted to do an
Speaker 1: hour long variety show, all I had to do was
Speaker 1: push the button, and CBS would have to put on
Speaker 1: thirty one hour pay or play variety shows with me.
Speaker 1: So hobably, what they called up the Burnett clause, which
Speaker 1: means that's never happening again. That's true. And so I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not gonna never you. I would never
Speaker 1: exercise that clause. Well, five years, we're almost up. There
Speaker 1: was a week left and I hadn't been working, and
Speaker 1: we were we just bought a house, or put a
Speaker 1: down payment on a house in California. We had two
Speaker 1: little babies, and Joe and I looked at each other.
Speaker 1: He said, yeah, we'd better push that button. It was
Speaker 1: the last week. There were a lot of between Christmas
Speaker 1: and New Year's. So I called. We were in California
Speaker 1: and I called the Vice president here. I said hi.
Speaker 1: He said, oh, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. How are you.
Speaker 1: I said, well, I'm calling to push that button, and
Speaker 1: he'd totally forgotten. He had no idea what I was
Speaker 1: talking about. And then they called me back the next day.
Speaker 1: He said, Carol, you know it's not for gals. For comedy,
Speaker 1: variety is a man's game. They wanted me to do
Speaker 1: a sitcom where I would play Agnes, and I said,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be the same person week after week.
Speaker 1: I want to I want to do this, And they
Speaker 1: had to put us on the air otherwise I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be sitting here talking to you about this. Now, you
Speaker 1: partnered with your then husband. You didn't stay married to him.
Speaker 1: We were married for almost twenty years, right, and you
Speaker 1: got divorced. But but during the time you were married,
Speaker 1: that was a good thing. We were doing the show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're doing the show, and you're doing a show with
Speaker 1: your husband, day in, day out with your husband. See,
Speaker 1: I love that idea. And some people think that's anathema
Speaker 1: to them. They never want to do that. Well, like, well,
Speaker 1: I kind of like the extent you want to say.
Speaker 1: I let him be the boss. He protected you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he totally protected me, and you know I could just
Speaker 1: come in and have fun, right, he let you. He
Speaker 1: worked with the writers and the this and that. You know,
Speaker 1: the time that I would work with the writers was
Speaker 1: when we were staging it and that's when I do
Speaker 1: you think you were funny? Yes? Did you crack him up?
Speaker 1: I'm not really that way in person, as they say
Speaker 1: in real life. Don't you love that term in what
Speaker 1: somebody like in real life? I'm very kind of quiet.
Speaker 1: And and was he honey, Yeah, he had a great
Speaker 1: sense of he yeah, he was. He wasn't a performer
Speaker 1: in anyway. Well, he actually was a member of the Skylarks,
Speaker 1: which was a okay, the Skylarks was a great musical
Speaker 1: group like the High Lows, and you know, and uh
Speaker 1: he started out writing special material music material for the
Speaker 1: Dinah Shore Show years ago. You know, your show was
Speaker 1: done in a different era in terms of standards and practices.
Speaker 1: What was that like? Did you sit there sometimes they go,
Speaker 1: Now we they left us alone, They left you alone.
Speaker 1: We had when you stick that sword in Harvey Corman's crotch?
Speaker 1: What did they say about that? It was an accident?
Speaker 1: Was it an accident? You? Oh? You know one time
Speaker 1: though we were doing we had this wonderful censor, sat
Speaker 1: Charlie pett John, God bless him. And he was a
Speaker 1: who We just loved him anyway. He never bothered with anything.
Speaker 1: So Harvey and I were doing a sketch where I
Speaker 1: was a nudist and I was being interviewed by him
Speaker 1: like Edward R. Murrow, you know, and I'm behind a
Speaker 1: fence that says keep out, and I'm bare shoulder and
Speaker 1: you know, I'm leaning on the fence bare legs with
Speaker 1: high top sneakers on. So it was jokes about a
Speaker 1: nudist colony, right. So one of the lines was Harvey said,
Speaker 1: so tell me how how do you new this? What
Speaker 1: do you do for recreation? And my line, well, we
Speaker 1: have dances every Saturday night, you know. And he said, oh,
Speaker 1: how do you new this dance? And my line was
Speaker 1: very carefully well for some reason the higher ups Charlie
Speaker 1: didn't mind that line. They said, no, that's too too suggestive.
Speaker 1: Come up with something else. Are you ready? So this
Speaker 1: is what we came up with, and this is what
Speaker 1: went on the air. Uh So, what do you do
Speaker 1: what we have dances every Saturday night? Well, how do
Speaker 1: you it? A stance? Cheek to cheek and they left
Speaker 1: and that was funnier. You know, there's material that gets
Speaker 1: uh um revived and it comes up and none more
Speaker 1: so than Annie and you are the miss Hannighan as
Speaker 1: far as I'm concerned, Thank you. And who directed that film?
Speaker 1: John Houston? Was that like for you? Well, it's very funny. Um,
Speaker 1: you know he was not really uh into musicals, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have a theory. Race Start produced it, okay, and
Speaker 1: I have a theory. Race Start never liked to get
Speaker 1: a no out of anybody. I think this is all
Speaker 1: in my mind that Ray called John Houston to play
Speaker 1: Daddy Warbucks. That's my theory. And because he would have
Speaker 1: been wonderful daddy, and uh, he didn't. Mr Houston didn't
Speaker 1: want to do it. So Ray, not wanting to get
Speaker 1: a no, said well then how about directing it? That's
Speaker 1: my theory, you know. But Henny did the movie. Finny
Speaker 1: did the movie. Yeah, and Tim Curry and Bernadette Peters.
Speaker 1: We were the villains, the three villains, and uh, I
Speaker 1: love doing it. I loved doing uh. And something that
Speaker 1: was just great fun was we would sing live. I
Speaker 1: sang Little Girls live. It was not prerecorded. The orchestra
Speaker 1: was previously was not. They would play and I sang
Speaker 1: they played a track and you sang when I sang
Speaker 1: live and great number you and him doing are you
Speaker 1: doing that? And him doing easy streets two takes. I said, print,
Speaker 1: that's it. Yeah, he knew what he wanted, had the
Speaker 1: right people. One of the funniest pieces of direction I
Speaker 1: ever got was when I went to him and I said, uh,
Speaker 1: I talked to him. I said, you know, I think
Speaker 1: she should drink, because she's really drink. I mean that
Speaker 1: she should have a little you know, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: knock him back every so often because she's miserable, you know,
Speaker 1: and Ncy's kids and so forth. So the only kind
Speaker 1: of solace she gets is to knock them back a
Speaker 1: little bit, you know. And so he said, well that's
Speaker 1: a very good idea, dare Yes, that's good. And so
Speaker 1: I said, okay, so I'm not gonna play her drunk,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna play her like she you know, she
Speaker 1: kind of she needs one. As the first scene was
Speaker 1: with Hannighan and um the secretary who was coming in
Speaker 1: to get to get Annie, you know, And so I said,
Speaker 1: Mr He called me John, Dear, Mr John, how do
Speaker 1: you see this? How do you want me to do?
Speaker 1: He said? He said, just cavort, Dear. I had we finished, uh,
Speaker 1: we wrapped. But what they did they made a big mistake.
Speaker 1: They filmed Easy Street with four dancers and singers on
Speaker 1: the Easy Street with Monkey Grinder and we would jump
Speaker 1: on on fire escapes and jump all. It just was overkill.
Speaker 1: At that time, they spent a million dollars on that
Speaker 1: one number. It took a week to shoot, and Tim
Speaker 1: and Bernardette I said, this is just it should just
Speaker 1: be the three villains in the orphanage because that's the
Speaker 1: way it was in the original, and they are killing
Speaker 1: this song. So but okay, So it wrapped. So I
Speaker 1: went back to Honolulu and I had um a procedure
Speaker 1: done on my chin. I had always wanted a bit
Speaker 1: because I had a weak chin. And so this oral surgeon,
Speaker 1: no no, he pulled it somehow. He pulled this out
Speaker 1: three millimetersn't have the full John Delorian implant. No, no implant.
Speaker 1: So anyway, so I had a little more of a chin,
Speaker 1: which I felt it was good. It wasn't Kirk Douglas.
Speaker 1: It was just a little more of a chin, okay.
Speaker 1: So I had that done by this oral surgeon in Honolulu.
Speaker 1: Now two months later, uh, I get a call from
Speaker 1: Ray Start. We're gonna re shoot the Easy Street number.
Speaker 1: I said, well, that's great. I said, but great. You know,
Speaker 1: now I have a chin and he said, oh, and
Speaker 1: I explained it to him and he's, oh, with all
Speaker 1: that Hannigan drag, you Are'm not gonna gonna worry about it. Also,
Speaker 1: it's not going to be picture to picture. It'll be
Speaker 1: a totally separate thing. So but we're just going to
Speaker 1: do it with the three of you in the orphanage
Speaker 1: and it is great. So we all flew back and
Speaker 1: we report to work and there's John Houston sitting here
Speaker 1: and so forth, and we're gonna shoot it. And he said, well,
Speaker 1: this is what I want to do. He said, I
Speaker 1: would like to take it from when Carol ran into
Speaker 1: the closet to get Annie's locket when she comes back out,
Speaker 1: that's where we'll pick it up. And I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: So I went up and I said, Mr Hugh called
Speaker 1: me John, Mr Houston, Uh, two months ago, when I
Speaker 1: ran into the closet, I didn't have a chin exactly.
Speaker 1: Now you're picking up where I come out of the
Speaker 1: closet and I have a chin. I just thought I
Speaker 1: would call that to your attention. And here is what
Speaker 1: he said. He thought and thought, and he said, oh, well, well,
Speaker 1: dear than just come out looking determined. Is that a
Speaker 1: great piece of direction? I remember that. That's clever. Um.
Speaker 1: I want to say this. You know who you are
Speaker 1: to all of us who grew up watching TV then,
Speaker 1: and I can say to you from the bottom of
Speaker 1: my heart and without equivocation, what people think it was
Speaker 1: they think of you, when they think of you was
Speaker 1: You're the most talented woman that was ever on TV.
Speaker 1: You really are. Because there's a lot of people who
Speaker 1: are like you, and they did some things that were great,
Speaker 1: but none of them did as much as you did
Speaker 1: as well as you did, and had the warmth and
Speaker 1: the sweetness and the nut and the insanity. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm assuming there's some therapists out there who must know
Speaker 1: something about you out there in Beverly Hills. You won't
Speaker 1: get into that, but you are the most talented woman
Speaker 1: that was ever on TV ever. Excuse me, I've got
Speaker 1: to go now and buy a bigger hat. Just look determined,
Speaker 1: Just look to just look determined today. Just Cavort, just
Speaker 1: Cavort out there in New York. I'm so glad we
Speaker 1: had this time together, just to have a laugh. Horse.
Speaker 1: If you've seen the Carol Burnett Show, then you recognize
Speaker 1: this tune. Carol ended her show each week singing this
Speaker 1: song that her former husband and then producer wrote for her.
Speaker 1: So the Screen Actors Guild will bestow the two thousand
Speaker 1: fifteen Life Achievement Award upon Carol Burnett early next year.
Speaker 1: Dream this is Alec Baldwin. You're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: thing at a time. Four things you have to do.
Speaker 1: But the time I like the best is any evening
Speaker 1: I can spend a monde. You