The Stunning Transformation Of Carol Burnett
Carol Burnett is an entertainer who needs no introduction. In her career, which extends back to the 1950s, Burnett has accumulated many television credits and she even had a few stints on the Broadway stage. It's not hyperbole to state that she pretty much ruled television comedy for a solid decade with her namesake variety show, which ran for 11 hit seasons, attracting an average viewing audience of 30 million while winning a staggering 25 Emmy Awards. Not surprisingly, she became one of the most beloved stars in America. And Burnett continues to delight audiences, as demonstrated by the 7.6 million viewers who tuned in to watch the 2023 network television special celebrating her 90th birthday.
Having celebrated that milestone birthday in April 2023, Burnett is a testament to the adage that you're only as old as you feel. "I can't wrap my head around it," Burnett told People of entering her ninth decade. "I still feel like I'm about 11, but I'm amazed. It sure went fast. But I'm glad because I've got all my parts — got my hips, I got my knees and I've got my brain, so I'm happy about that."
Into her 90s, Burnett continues to make viewers laugh and even has a bold new television project arriving in 2024. This is how she got to where she is today.
She was raised by her grandmother after her parents' divorce
On April 26, 1933, Carol Burnett was born in San Antonio, Texas. She was still an infant when her parents moved to Los Angeles to better their lives; however, that didn't quite happen. She was just 8 years old when her mother had a child with a man who wasn't Burnett's father, which led her parents to divorce. Sadly, Burnett blamed herself for her parents' split and their heavy drinking. "There was an awful lot they were going through that I, as a child, took personally. It had nothing to do with me, I didn't cause it," she said in a 1986 interview with UPI.
Burnett and her half-sister, Chrissie, were sent to live with their maternal grandmother, Mabel Eudora White, in a tiny apartment in Hollywood. "It was not a pleasant childhood," Burnett admitted, though she reasoned it could've been worse. "There are some that were happier and some that have been really miserable. Mine was not miserable."
Burnett may have grown up poor, but she was also in the epicenter of the entertainment industry. Despite being flat broke, her grandmother's one indulgence was taking the girls to the movies. Sitting in a darkened theater, watching stories that were a world removed from her own life, resonated with Burnett and imbued her with optimism. "I think those movies may be what did it for me — an imprint on a young mind and a young girl growing up that everything's possible. You can be happy," she told People.
She made her big break on Broadway
Bitten by the acting bug in college, Carol Burnett made her way to New York City to launch a career in showbiz. As the actor explained to the Paley Center for Media, she began performing comedy in a nightclub, where her big number was a parody song in which she feigned being starstruck by then-Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. She was invited to perform it on television and wound up singing the song, "I Made a Fool of Myself Over John Foster Dulles," on TV three times within a matter of days. Burnett became an instant sensation.
Before long, Burnett was cast in the leading role of Princess Winnifred in the musical "Once Upon a Mattress. Based on the fairytale story "The Princess and the Pea," the show opened off-Broadway in May 1959 for a six-week limited run. As that run came to an end, Burnett suggested that the cast picket the theater — in costume — demanding that the show move to Broadway. "And we did," Burnett told Broadway World.
Once it hit Broadway, "Once Upon a Mattress" proved to be a solid hit, running for a year and making Burnett a Broadway star. She reprised the role in a 1964 television version, and another in 1972. She also starred in a 2005 television adaptation — this time playing Queen Aggravain, the mother of her previous character.
She made a splash on television
While starring in "Once Upon a Mattress" on Broadway, Carol Burnett agreed to substitute for a guest comedian who had to drop out of an appearance on a hit television series, "The Garry Moore Show." Star Garry Moore was so impressed that he invited her to join the cast — and she did. This led to some hectic moments. With Moore's show taping on Fridays, Burnett would race from the set to the theater before the curtain rose. Once, in fact, Burnett became so exhausted from doing both Broadway and television simultaneously that she fell asleep onstage. "Maybe I was out for about 10 or 15 seconds and the stage manager in the wings was saying, 'Carol, Carol wake up!' The audience — they didn't know," Burnett recalled during an appearance on "Live with Kelly and Ryan."
While she charmed audiences on Broadway, she was reaching millions more via television, performing in sketches alongside Moore and co-star Durward Kirby. Her work on the show led to her first Emmy in 1962. During one episode, she even met Julie Andrews. Together, they performed a song. "After we finished the number, the television studio audience stood up and gave us a standing ovation, which was unheard of," Burnett recalled to Entertainment Weekly.
The success of that appearance not only kicked off a lifelong friendship between the two women, but it also led to them performing together for a 1962 television special, "Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall." The special won an Emmy for Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Music, and Burnette herself took home an Emmy for Outstanding Performance in a Variety or Musical Program or Series.
She became TV's hottest star with her own variety show
When Carol Burnett exited "The Garry Moore Show," she signed a 10-year contract with CBS. As she recalled in an interview with the Academy of Achievement, a clause in her contract gave her the option to produce 30 one-hour episodes of a variety show within the first five years. Initially reluctant, she decided to pull the trigger on that option shortly before the clause was due to expire. Network execs, believing variety shows were best hosted by men, instead encouraged her to do a sitcom, "Here's Agnes." Burnett stuck to her guns, insisting on producing a variety show. "They had to put it on and they didn't want to," she said. "And they thought we would bomb."
"The Carol Burnett Show" decidedly did not bomb. It ran for 11 successful seasons as the cornerstone of the powerhouse CBS Saturday night lineup. While Burnett was undoubtedly the star, she was a member of a top-notch comedy ensemble that included Harvey Korman, Tim Conway, Lyle Waggoner, and Vicky Lawrence. "Ours was a true rep company," Burnett explained. "There were no second bananas."
The show's signature bit featured Burnett taking unscripted questions from audience members. As she explained, it was something she'd seen former TV boss Garry Moore do ahead of his show. Burnett decided to do the same thing, but she televised it. "It became a lot of fun, because it was total improv, but the audience was my partner," she explained.
She embarked on a successful movie career and departed from comedy
After her namesake show ended its run in 1978, Carol Burnett appeared in a few TV movies. One of these, the 1979 drama "Friendly Fire," was a big departure, with Burnett playing the anguished mother of a young soldier killed in Vietnam during a botched training exercise. Viewers had never before seen Burnett display her chops as a dramatic actor. When more than 60 million viewers tuned in, the door was opened for a drama career she hadn't even considered. "'Friendly Fire' was a big break for me, to be a whole person as opposed to just somebody who makes funny faces," Burnett told TV Insider.
She began branching into movies, including 1981's "The Four Seasons" and "Chu Chu and the Philly Flash." In 1982, she played wicked orphanage manager Miss Hannigan in the musical film "Annie." Further roles included reprising her Eunice character in "Mama's Family" from 1983 to 1984 and appearing in the 1986 soap-spoofing miniseries "Fresno," a TV version of Neil Simon's play "Plaza Suite.
Burnett returned full-time to TV with her 1990 series "Carol & Company." Despite what the title may have suggested, this was not a variety-show rehash of her earlier show. "It's an anthology," Burnett explained in an interview ahead of the premiere. "So we're doing different stories every week." The show lasted for just two seasons, a short run she predicted when she mused, "If it doesn't go, it will have been a noble try."
She realized a long-held dream when she was cast on All My Children
During her "Carol Burnett Show" audience Q&As, Carol Burnett would regularly gush about her fandom of the classic soap "All My Children." The soap's creator, Agnes Nixon, caught wind of Burnett's love for the show and got in touch to see if she'd be interested in guest-starring. "I said, 'Absolutely!' So on my hiatus, I flew back to New York and they had a whole story line for me," she told Vulture of signing up to play Verla Grubbs. According to Burnett, soap acting is not for the faint of heart. "Soap operas are the hardest work, because, oh my God, you get 19 pages at night, you have to study the lines, and then you go do it in the morning," she said.
Burnett returned as Verla a few more times over the years. Arguably, the character's most famous appearance was when Verla was confronted at a restaurant by a woman dressed precisely like Burnett's iconic charwoman character — played by screen legend Elizabeth Taylor.
She marked her final appearance as Verla in 2011, shortly after ABC announced it was canceling the long-running soap. "It is our honor and pleasure to welcome back Carol Burnett to Pine Valley," announced "All My Children" executive producer Julie Hanan Carruthers in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. "Verla Grubbs is a beloved member of the 'All My Children' family."
Her third marriage became her happiest
Carol Burnett has been married three times. Her first marriage to college boyfriend Don Saroyan ended with a quickie Las Vegas divorce in 1962. In 1963, she married Joe Hamilton. They were partners, both personally and professionally (he produced "The Carol Burnett Show"), until their divorce in 1984.
Burnett remained unmarried until 2001, when she tied the knot with a man 23 years her junior, musician Brian Miller, whose main gig is being the principal drummer with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. "We have a terrific relationship," she said of her husband, in an interview for a PBS "American Masters" documentary about her. "And I feel so fortunate at this time of my life to be with him. And all of my friends have just totally embraced him. And he loves all of my buddies, so it works out great."
Speaking with People, Burnett addressed her and Miller's unconventional age gap. "He's funny and not easily intimidated," she said. "As we get older, the gap between our ages narrows. If you were 40 and married a 20-year-old, I don't think you could communicate like [we do]." In more recent years, Miller has worked alongside his wife, having served as the music contractor on her 50th-anniversary TV special and producer on her 2023 birthday special.
She suffered a tragic loss in 2002
Carol Burnett was hit with tragedy in 2002 when her daughter, Carrie Hamilton, died of complications from lung cancer at age 38. The mother and daughter had experienced a tumultuous relationship due to Carrie's drug use, which ultimately landed her in rehab. Afterward, Burnett and her daughter had grown closer and had completed writing a play together, "The Hollywood Arms," shortly before Hamilton's death. The play was based on Burnett's childhood living with her grandmother. When the play opened in Chicago just three months after her daughter's death — it would later run on Broadway — it was a bittersweet experience for Burnett.
More than two decades later, Burnett still struggled with her daughter's death. "There's not a day or almost a moment goes by that she's not with me," Burnett told People in 2023. "We worked together, we laughed together, we cried together. She was a force."
In that interview, Burnett also shared the enduring lesson that her daughter had left her with. "When she got sick, I remember she was in the hospital and I would go to see her every day," the actor remembered. "One day, a nurse at the hospital said, 'Carrie cheers us up.' I asked Carrie why she was always cheerful, and her reply was, 'Everyday I wake up and decide.' That's the key word, decide. I say that to myself every morning."
She was a frequent television guest star in the aughts and beyond
Retirement is not a word that's ever been associated with Carol Burnett. Even in the 2000s and beyond, she remained a frequent fixture on television screens. In addition to her high-rated reunion specials, Burnett was a sought-after guest star in TV series that ran the gamut.
In 2006, she appeared in several episodes of "Desperate Housewives" as the nasty stepmother of Marcia Cross's Bree Van de Kamp. For a soap fan such as Burnett, the role was right in her lane. "I've watched 'All My Children' for a hundred years, and this, too, is a very campy soap," she told People. In 2009, Burnett delivered a darkly dramatic performance in "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," and guest-starred on "Glee" the following year. She also made several appearances on "Hawaii Five-O," playing the aunt of lead character Steve McGarrett; the show brought Aunt Deb's storyline to a conclusion with a 2016 episode in which she reveals a terminal brain tumor diagnosis.
In 2019, Burnett joined the Pixar universe in "Toy Story 4," voicing a small plastic chair named Chairol Burnett. Burnett told Entertainment Weekly that she planned to see the movie with her 12-year-old grandson — but she wasn't planning on telling him that she was in the film. "When he sees it, I want him to be surprised. I'm pretty sure it's going to raise my credibility in his eyes."
She fought to become her grandson's guardian
Nearly two decades after the death of her daughter Carrie Hamilton, Carol Burnett found herself facing another difficult family situation. This time, it was surrounding her other daughter, Erin Hamilton. As CNN reported in 2020, Burnett and husband Brian Miller filed to obtain legal guardianship of Erin's teenage grandson. In court documents obtained by CNN, Burnett and Miller alleged that Erin had long been in the throes of addiction and had serious issues with substance abuse. Their goal, the documents stated, was to extract her grandson from an environment that was allegedly "unstable, unpredictable, and unhealthy."
The couple issued a statement to CNN, which read, "Due to addiction issues and other circumstances that my daughter, Erin, has been struggling with impacting her immediate family dynamic, my husband and I have petitioned the court to be appointed legal guardian of my 14 year old grandson."
A few weeks later, Burnett and her husband were appointed temporary guardians for one year. In 2023, RadarOnline reported that Burnett and Miller were seeking to have their guardianship made permanent. Until that could be resolved, they enlisted Jodi Montgomery, who served as Britney Spears' co-conservator, as the fiduciary guardian for her grandson.
Carol Burnett returned to TV in Better Call Saul and Palm Royale
In 2022, Carol Burnett appeared in several episodes of the swan-song season of "Better Call Saul," portraying an elderly woman who enters the orbit of "Gene" (the alter ego of Bob Odenkirk's shady lawyer character, Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman). Looking back at all the various guest-starring roles she'd had over the decades, Burnett felt that her experience on the "Breaking Bad" spinoff had exceeded all of them. "I have done a lot of work. A lot of different shows. A lot of guest appearances," she said in an AMC interview. "Some were 10s and some were 5s, if you want to rate them. I would say this was an 11."
Burnett's next role was an even juicier one — a Palm Springs high-society maven in the 2024 Apple TV+ comedy "Palm Royale," starring "Saturday Night Live" alum Kristen Wiig. Appearing on a panel for the Television Critics Association press tour in February 2024, Burnett revealed that she signed on before even seeing a script. "All I had to do was hear who was going to be in it: Kristen [Wiig], Laura [Dern], Ricky [Martin] — it's just an incredible cast," she said, as reported by Deadline. "I wanted to work with these people and get to know them." She continued, joking, "Of course, in the first few episodes, I'm in a coma and I still got paid. So it was a slam dunk."