Carol Burnett: life, career, and television legacy

Carol Burnett

Carol Burnet was one of the best-loved comediennes of the 20th century who set the standard for variety shows in the 1960-1970 decade (Purdy 2002). Her show, the Carol Burnett Show, offered a mix of music and comedy and presented the popular stars of that time. It ran from 1967 to 1979 (Purdy).

Carol was born on April 26, 1933 in San Antonio, Texas but was raised with a younger sister by their maternal grandmother (Purdy 2002). In her autobiography, "One More Time: a Memoir by Carol Burnett," she recounts a life of poverty and disillusionment. She points to her grandmother as the strongest influence in her life. By some strokes of luck, she managed to move to New York with her sister. In her pursuit of success, she married her college boyfriend Don Soroyan in 1955 but they divorced in 1962. She realized her dream of performing in Broadway in 1959 in the play, "Once Upon a Mattress." She then appeared as guests in variety shows, such as the Steve Allen Show and the Garry Moore Show. But her biggest break was singing a comedy rendition of "I Made a Fool of Myself Over John Foster Dulles" on the Ed Sullivan Show. When Garry Moore acquired a prime time spot, he invited Carol to appear regularly from 1959 to 1962.In 1962, she won an Emmy. This was the beginning of her career. She won another Emmy for a joint appearance with Julie Andrews at the Carnegie Hall in 1962. In 1963, she married producer Joe Hamilton. They had three daughters. Their marriage also ended in divorce, although they remained close friends until Joe's death (Purdy).

Her type of comedy was said to be the self-depreciating kind assigned to women who were not ravishing beauties (Purdy 2002). But the inner beauty and talent of the slapstick comedienne soon overshadowed the cruelty of the jokes she had to tell and emote. In 1962, CBS signed her to a long-term contract under the supervision of her producer-husband. In 1967, CBS premiered the Carol Burnett Show, patterned after Garry Moore's format. She always had the courage to fight for what she deemed important. As a young actress, she called agents and producers whenever she was into "something." As an established actress and entertainer, she filed and won a court suit against the tabloid, "The National Enquirer," which published that she got drunk in public. And as a mother, she fought to save one of her daughters from drug addiction. She also extended help and eased the pain of others by involvement in charitable causes, including AIDS (Purdy).

The highlight of the show was the opening wherein Carol answered the audience's questions (Purdy 2002). Some of her characters have become television entertainment legends. They include the char lady, Eunice, Norma Desmond and the wise-cracking and gum-chewing secretary. Carol's most popular and successful skit was where she played Scarlet O'Hara opposite Harvey Korman who played Rheet Butler. She wore green velvet curtains with the rods on them and demonstrated that she was the queen of comedy. The skit, at the same time, brought out Carol's past and allowed her to laugh at painful childhood memories. It is public record that she was torn by the constant quarrels between her mother and her grandmother who raised her (Pundy).

Comedian Judy Gold said that comedy was "so unfeminine (Wilson 2007)." She thought that society was not yet comfortable to women with that power to make an audience laugh. They may have something interesting and funny to say but they were to keep it to themselves and then shut up. Her documentary on the role of women in comedy was a study on six comedians and the limited, prescribed roles for women. They were confined to having children and, sometimes, drink martinis because they were miserable. People did not expect women to make them laugh. Boys thought that girls' sense of humor made them weird and anomalous. They just could not be feminine and funny at the same time. Another study found that society did not sanction girls' being funny. Boys could crack jokes and be the class clowns, but girls would look strange if they did this (Wilson).

Comediennes had to strive harder than their male counterparts to do their job well (Wilson 2007). The audience was not sure comediennes could be funny. Comedians were uncomfortable with women cracking jokes and controlling the conversation. Doing so belonged only to men. Women and girls were supposed to be quiet and well-behaved, according to a magazine about feminism and pop culture. Many people still felt threatened by funny women as women were socialized to play nice, not to use comedy as a form of power. Simply speaking up was already considered subversive if women did so. Funny women made great contributions for feminism, according to advocates. Comedy possessed a subversive nature, they said. It was and still is a powerful way of saying what they wanted to say. It also made people hear it and even led them to change their minds on the matter (Wilson).

Andi Zeisler, co-founder and editor of *****, a magazine on feminism and pop culture, said there was need to determine who defined what was funny (Wilson 2007). If a woman said the joke and a man did not laugh, the joke may not be funny. Yet women were perceived to have a good sense of humor if they laughed at men's jokes and not when they told the jokes themselves. Professor Gina Barreca of the University of Connecticut also said that a sense of humor was defined differently between men and women. If someone told a man that a certain woman had a great sense of humor, that man would imagine her to look fat or have some physical abnormality. But if a woman was told that a man had a great sense of humor, she immediately imagined him to be cute and would be a great lover or fun to have as company. People in general perceived desirable women as quiet or spoke infrequently. The assumption was to speak little to be desirable (Wilson). Loud and funny women, then, violated this time-honored social perception.