Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Carol Burnett

Episode Date: March 31, 2024

On this week's episode, Willie sits down with the legendary Carol Burnett. They talk about her life in comedy, and her scene-stealing role in the new Apple TV+ series, "Palm Royale". Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks as always for clicking and listening along. I sincerely could not be more thrilled to bringing my conversation this week with an honest to goodness American icon. She is Carol Burnett. Carol Burnett. Unbelievable. Got a chance to spend some time with her in New York City. She's in town talking about her new series Palm Royale on Apple TV Plus in which she plays the matriarch of POM. Beach Society in 1969. A big, beautiful, colorful show. A dark comedy. It's funny, but it's devious and ugly in other ways, the way these women and men behave themselves in this society. She'll tell you, so I'm not giving too much away, but she starts the series in a coma,

does Carol's character named Norma. Series stars Kristen Wig, Allison Janney is in it, Laura Dern. Ricky Martin is really good in it. It's a great show. Apple TV Plus if you want to check it out. But Carol and I got together in New York just up the street from a place that used to be there called the rehearsal club where she arrived from Hollywood where she grew up in New York City in 1954, 70 years ago. She arrived and stayed at this club.

She'll tell you all about it. It's a place where young women who wanted to work in theater. or we're working in theater live together kind of communally on 54th street in New York City. And we were just up the block from there, which was so cool. We start talking here about Wirtle. I hope you play the Wurdle. If you don't, you should check it out. It's on the New York Times app.

It's a word game. She is a legend of Wirtle. It's kind of amazing. If you understand Wirtle, she has gotten it in one try seven times, which the rest of us are lucky if we do it once in our lives. But I digress. I'm not going to give you the big wind up. you know who Carol Burnett is.

11 seasons of the Carol Burnett show, 25 Emmy Awards. She's won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Mark Twain Prize, on and on and on. She's so loved and looked up to by so many people, and I must just say she could not have been more lovely in the room. Sharp as attack, a few weeks shy of her 91st birthday. You'll hear it. remembers every story, every detail, every date, every place, and every name, and is also just a wonderfully generous woman to be around as I think you'll take away from the interview. So I will step aside and turn it over now to Carol Burnett on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Carol, thank you

for doing this. Thank you for having me. I sense we could do an entire interview on Wordle, but maybe we shouldn't out of boredom for the audience. But let's just say you are something of an expert. Well, no, it's all random, you know, but I have the, what do I have, the nerve to, you know, I'm going to brag seven in one. Unbelievable. I know. Seven.

Yeah. So you got it in one seven times. For most of us getting it once is an occasion. Well, me too. The first time I got it, it was audio, and I went, yay. And then boom, boom, boom. And it's only been within the last three months. months, three or four months. The audio was a lot sooner, but the rest of them have been the past three

months. You're incredible. But it's all an accident. It doesn't take brains to get it in one. Right, that's a bit of a guess. It's yeah, totally. I just happened to guess right. Well, I'm impressed. Even if it's luck, I am very impressed. We were just talking and I was struck by the fact that a place that's very special to you, the rehearsal club, is just a couple of blocks or was a couple of blocks from where we're sitting right now. And for people who know, it's a place you kind of got your start and show business when you came to New York. Yeah, I got here and I was lucky enough to get a cot at the rehearsal club. And the rehearsal club was a boarding house for young women who wanted to be in the theater. And the rent, guess what the rent was every week?

$50. $18.18. Room and board. Wow. That was because some very rich ladies in New York, you know, the ladies at lunch. Sure. They sponsored the club, which then allowed it to charge just $18. So I moved in and we had a house mother. It was all very much on the up and up. There were rules, you know, no drinking. You had to be actively pursuing a career in the theater. You could hold down a part-time job to pay for your rent and everything, but you had to show prove that you were going to auditions and all that.

No drinking, of course. and no men allowed except in the parlor. And the men could stay until 10 o'clock every night in the parlor, then they had to leave. And so I moved in, and they put me in what they call the transit room, where I had a dresser and a cot and a little thing where I could put my suitcases at the foot of the bed. and four other roommates. Wow. Four of the women's other, five women in one room,

and one bathroom and one closet for five women. Wow. Wow. But we managed, and each one of my roommates, was like out of central casting, there was one, it was kind of tough. She'd been around the block a few times, and then there was another who was a method actress, who for some reason never based,

So, and then there was the ballerina who actually, she became, she wound up being bat girl on television, Yvonne Craig. Right. But when she was with us, she was a ballerina. And then there was a very cute, British kind of plumpish girl named Tinker who had curly hair and kind of sweet and always very cheerful. Well, and for some reason, she's British here. She's into Spanish dancing. Oh. Sure.

So it was a whole, it was like out at Central casting. You know, and I was the hick, you know, because I'd never been any further east in Texas. Right. I didn't know how to go about anything, but I learned from these girls, you know, how to pursue auditions and so forth. So we went all the way back to the beginning there,

which I love hearing about. talk more about your road here, but I want to talk about the here and now, which is Palm Royale. Yes. This incredible, vibrant, big, hilarious, dark series that you're in. People are going to love seeing you and this entire cast in 1969, Palm Beach, this wild society. So tell me, if you would, about Norma and what you love about her. My character, Norma. She's the matriarch.

of all of the Palm Beach Society. And she rules the roost because she knows everybody's secrets. And she even has a secret of her own, but we won't say what that is yet. But so she kind of blackmails everybody to be donating to her. Each year she has a ball that she puts on. But she kind of gets a lot of the money. When it's supposed to go to a charity, she kind of says, siphons off a bit for herself because, as I say, she's a blackmailer. And, of course, in the first

three episodes, poor Norma is in a coma. And we don't know why or how it happened or anything. But it was kind of strange for me as an actor. I get up at five in the morning, go to the set, get laid up, get all the stuff, you know, on and everything. And then go to the show. And then go back to bed. It was slam dunk, you know. I said, and I got paid. Easy money. Just to go, go.

Just to do this. Is it true that when you heard about the cast and the kind of show they were doing, you just said yes? I said yes before I read a script. Is that right? Once I heard, who was in it? Kristen Whig, come on. Allison Janney, Laura Dern.

And then Ricky Martin, who was. was Leslie Bibb, Josh Lucas, Julia Duffy. I mean, on and on and on, I thought, with the cast like this, I'm just going to have a ball. And then I read the script, and I thought, well, that really was the icing on the cake. And so we did, it was just, it was a joy to shoot. We had wonderful directors, and the script, of course, is kind of crazy.

Yes. I guess you, wouldn't you call it a dromedy or what is? I guess so. It's a comedy, but then it gets dark. There's a darkness, yes. Which is a lot of fun. And I'm not a very nice person. Norma is not, and I said this before, I think some of the people who aren't very nice,

it's kind of fun to play them. I bet. You know, I've only done two or three like Miss Hannigan and Annie. She wasn't nice, but I loved playing her. Was there, when you did get the script, and you said, hmm, I do put on the makeup, I go to the trailer, and then I go lay in a bed. Yeah.

Did you say, is there anything else for the character that comes later? Oh, yes, once I read the script. I mean, she does come out of it. And I love that when she starts to come out of the coma, she doesn't really want anybody to know. So she's the devious, the mind is going. And that was fun to do it. So that finally, but then when I was coming out of the coma,

I had to improvise the fact that she couldn't speak very well. So every time they said, okay, you've got to answer Kristen in the scene, I would need you, so all of that was improvised. Oh, really? Yeah, I mean, how could you write that? Right, right. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the fact, the way she comes out of it

or pretend she hasn't come out of it a little bit adds to the sort of the devious evil nature of her. But I have to imagine not just the cast, but the setting must have been so fun to be plopped back into those costumes in 1969. Unbelievable. I mean, the costumes and the scenery, it's like a trillion-dollar movie. movie, what they've done with it. It's just, even in the ball when we're sitting at the table, the placemats and the place settings that were there, you don't even see them on camera, but they're elaborate, I mean, unbelievably beautiful. And I said, nobody's going to see this. But it's for the actors to see that and feel that grandeur. You know, it's just,

Were you familiar at all, Carol, with Palm Beach Society? We were discussing before we sat down. It still has elements to it today. No way. That's not my background. I know that. There's something, though, about, I guess, the entitled, wealthy class that must be fun to sort of spoof. What was interesting to, is with all of these people, these characters, all they care about,

It's how they look, how much money they have, and how much influence they have. There is nothing in their wheel that's about the Vietnam War, about Nixon as president, about any of that. It's all about their, it's like they're in prison or something, but they're having a ball. They don't want to know anything. they don't care maybe about what's going on in the world. At that time, 1969, hello. But no, it was all about power and money and looks and clothes. And how shallow.

Yes. How shallow they are. And they do live in this bubble. Yeah. It's a bubble. The outside world is not happening. Exactly. It's not taking place.

In any ways, did you go back to 1969? in your mind and consider what was going on in the world or it was going on in your own life even while you were shooting this? I was in the third year of doing my variety show. So, yeah, I was aware of what was going on. Yeah, yeah. I was reading, you know, Kristen Whig, Alice and Janney, the creators of the show. They were all, they talked to a woman and a man about what a thrill it was for them to work with you. Oh, that's sweet.

because they so look up to you and Kristen says you're one of the big reasons she wanted to be a comedian and all of those other things. What does that mean to you to hear that? Well, I'm very flattered, of course, but I have said this before. If I had never been born, they'd be doing what they're doing, you know, no question. But it's sweet to think. I do remember when I met Lucy, Lucille Ball. She was, I mentioned, as I just look up to you as a mentor or somebody. And she was, oh, kid, you'd be doing this anyway, you know. And I can understand what they're saying.

It's really a matter of age because I've been here for 100 years. And they're just starting out almost, you know, in comparison. Well, it's more than that. You had such an impact and maybe show them the way. Right, in the way that Lucy showed it for you? Well, maybe because they could see that a woman could host a show. Right. Which, a variety show, which had never been done.

You know, so I think that could run her own show and stuff like that, you know, which was kind of rare. And Lucy was the first. Did they seek you out? Did Kristen and others, if you're sitting around, I don't know, the craft services table or the makeup and just get stories out of you? Yeah, we just talk about story. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

How we got started and, you know, the breaks that came our way. Well, speaking of how you got started, it really is an extraordinary story for people who don't realize when you think about you living in that one-room apartment in Hollywood with your grandmother, I think with a Murphy bed even maybe. She slept on the Murphy bed and I slept on the couch. Yeah. I slept on a couch. for 21 years. And then I went to New York and got a cot. Moving up in the world.

I was thrilled. I never had a bed. And when I got to the rehearsal club, and it was a cod, which nobody would think was great. But I went, oh, my gosh, all for me? I've made it. Yeah, I loved it.

Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Stick around to hear more from K. Carol Burnett right after the break. Welcome back now more of my conversation with Carol Burnett. So when you think back, Carol, to your childhood, you talk a lot about the movies that you would go see all the time as being some kind of an escape. Do you look back fondly on your childhood? Yes. People read about it in the hill, poor thing, you know, because my parents were alcoholics and my grandmother raised me.

And she was a character. and we were poor. And we were on welfare at the time. But my grandmother and I, we would save our pennies and go to the movies. So that was my outlet, my fantasy, watching Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland up there singing and saying, we're going to put on a show and it'll wind up going to Broadway.

and all of those fantasy things. So I grew up watching those movies. And they were wonderful in the 40s because they weren't cynical. The good guys always made it, always got it. The bad guys got their just desserts. And so when I got my break to go to New York, it never occurred to me.

I was so naive that good things wouldn't happen because they always happened in the movies. And that gave me my, I was very naive, and that gave me my courage to look back and see it can be done. And, you know, so I never doubted that I wasn't going to somehow succeed whether or not I would be famous, but I wanted to at least have a job in the theater

where I could put clothes on my back and food on the table and pay the rent. I never thought of doing, well, I kind of, yes, I did think. I thought I wanted to be like Ethel Merman or Mary Martin and be on Broadway, like a musical comedy person. But again, I thought if I can't get that, at least I'll be somebody in the theater. And then I got lucky and got into a show called One Sputter Mattress, which kind of made my name. And then I was lucky enough to get cast on the Gary Moore show,

which is a very popular comedy variety show. Shot right here. Yes, right up the street. At Colbert's Theater. Yeah, Ed Sullivan Theater. Only then it was called Studio 50. And so then I was doubling. I was doing Gary's show every week.

So I'd work every day and mattress every night. Wow. So I was young. And what happened was I never thought I would be a television person at all. It was Broadway. It was, you know, but when I started doing Gary's show, I thought, This is more fun than doing eight shows a week doing the same thing. With Gary, we would do every week would be different.

I would have different songs to sing. I would have different sketches to do, different characters to play, different wigs and books. And this is more fun than Broadway. And it was only because of Gary. And so it was, and he was one of, I've spoken about this before. People said, what was he like and what did you learn from him?

And I remember when, like, we would be, now his name was on, it was the Gary Moore Show, right? But we'd be reading the script for that week, and Derward Kirby, who was the second banana, and I was the second banana, recall that because we support the star. But we'd be reading a script and Gary would see something. He said, there would be a punchline or a joke and he would say,

you know, give this to Carol or Durwood. They can say it funnier than I can. How about that? So what he wanted was a rep company. And I took that advice and that was what my, it might have my name on it. But there were sketches where I'd be supporting Harvey Corman. Vicki would be supporting Tim. Tim would be with Harvey.

Harvey would support me. It was a true rep company. And I think that's what made it successful. Yeah, it's, I mean, for you to go from loving movies as a little girl in Hollywood, I mean, it's one thing to love a movie. We all love a movie. But it seems to me like you were determined to make a career out of this. From the time you were young, to do this.

in some form or fashion. Actually, no. Really? I wanted to be a journalist in school. I was editor of my junior high and high school, Hollywood High News, and then I wanted to go to UCLA and major in journalism.

But when I got to UCLA, they didn't have a school, a major in journalism. You could take a course and join the Daily Brew in the newspaper. So I thought, well, what am I going to major in? And I looked at the catalog, and there was a thing called Theater Arts English, where you could take the playwriting courses because I always wrote.

And I thought that would be interesting, too. And because they had, in the theater department, they had Theater Arts English, theater, theater arts film, theater. So I took Theater Arts English. But I didn't realize as a freshman. that every freshman, whether they wanted to be in the film or the theater part or writing, had to take an acting course, a scenery course, costume course, aside from all their other subjects. So I got into this acting class.

I was late in arriving a couple of weeks late. So everybody had kind of paired off and they were doing scenes. and I was terrified. And the teachers said, okay, I'm going to give you a choice of two monologues to read, and you pick one, and then you do one. So she gave me scenes from the country girl and Mad Woman of Shio.

And I read the one. So I picked the Mad Woman of Shio because it was shorter. And that's how I could memorize it. So now everybody's getting up. They're doing their scenes. They're crying. They're doing dramatic. I was just really scared.

Then I got up and I did my monologue from, oh, I said, this is from the mad woman of Chalot. I didn't, it didn't even occur to me to learn how to print out or read the play. All I did was. The scene. Yeah. So I remember she said, Ms. Burnett, I'm giving you a. D only, you're not getting an F, but you're getting a D only because you memorized it. I totally bombed.

It was, why am I in here? I don't want to be here in the first place. So then the next, we assigned some more scenes to do, and I was teamed up with this guy, a fellow, and we chose Red Peppers, which was Noel Coward. And they even sang, they were a couple, like vaudeville or something like that, and we had to do a little song. And now I pictured that I was Betty Grable with a cockney accent. Betty Grebel was my favorite movie star. And so we did it, and I had fun.

I was channeling the movies that I loved. and I got an A. Then I did a couple more things, and I started to get laughs in some scenes where they should laugh. And then some kids came up and introduced themselves to me on campus and said, we saw you and how did you want to have lunch?

And all of a sudden this nerd who was in Hollywood High, I started to get popular. And it never happened to me. And I thought, this is kind of nice. And then I decided that's, I wanted to be in show business. I wanted to be an actress.

Wow. It was all, had there been a major in journalism, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you now. Isn't that amazing? Yeah. And the fact that you channeled the movies you love to get yourself into that. That's just amazing. And then you get a little help from a, I guess, anonymous benefactor at UCLA who says,

I'm going to help you get what you're looking for, get you to New York. Yeah, I was in a class called Musical Comedy Workshop, and all of a sudden I started to be able to sing. I used to sing with Mama and my grandmother in the kitchen with the ukulele, that my mother would play. But somehow I got interested in the music department and I was in the chorus of a scene

but all of a sudden I started to belt loud like Ethel Merman. And the director said you shouldn't be in the chorus because you're too loud. And he said, I want you to do a scene from guys and dolls. I said,

seeing alone? You know, a solo? Yeah. And it was a wonderful song called Adelaide's Lament in Guys and Dolls, and the character has a cold. And I thought, well, that's not bad, because if I hit a wrong note or a sour note, I can blame it on the fact that the character has a cold. So that gave me my Dumbo's feather, which was, I knew I could do it, you know.

And then I started getting interested in musical comedy. You know, and so I was in this class, and the professor was going to be in a part, have a Bon Voyage party for him and his wife, and it was going to be a black tie affair in San Diego. And he said to all of us in the class, I'm only nine of us. Why don't your kids come down, be the entertainment for the evening, and I'll grade you there instead of, you know, in the classroom. So we all drove down, and I did seen from Annie

Get Your Gun and finished, and then I went over to the hors d'oeuvre table, and I'm kind of napkin down, and I'm stealing horser to take home to my grandmother, and I'm phone, and there's a tap on. I said, oh, my God, I'm busted. And it was this gentleman, and his wife, it was a black tie affair, all dressed him.

He said, well, I like what you kids do. what do you want to do with your life? Well, someday, New York, he said, where are you there now? And I said, well, I'm hoping to save up, you know. They said, I'll lend you the money. And I thought it was a champagne talking. And his wife said, no, he means this.

And he gave us his card. And he said, be in my office next Monday, 10 o'clock. and we'll see what we can do. So as a result, I went to his office. He said, what do you want to do? I said, this is what, yes, what are you? He said, okay, I'm going to lend you $1,000. Now, that $1,000 today would have been like giving me $100,000.

Our rent was $30 a month, a dollar. a dollar a day. And we could barely make that. He said, there's stipulations. You pay it back if you can within five years. You never reveal my name. You must go to New York with this money. And if you're successful, you must promise to help others out. So that was my ticket to New York. Wow. Yeah. Is that amazing? And then I got home, and I had cash to check just so that I could get gas to drive back.

And I, my grandmother, you know, the Murphy bed, and I put all this cash on Murphy. I thought she was going to have her. Oh, my God. Oh, oh, that's wonderful. Look what we can do with all this money. And I said, nanny, I'm going. to New York. She said, you're crazy. You can't do that. What are you talking about? I said, that's what it's for. And I, she was very upset and didn't want me to go and all of that.

She said, it's too cold back there. You'll be dead in a week. Your blood's too thin. Not the encouragement you were looking for necessarily. And she called it a pipe dream and all of that. Really? Oh, yeah. But I, I, Anyway, I got on the plane. Now, here's where the naivete comes in. I had no idea where I was going to go and stay in New York. I'd never been there. I was like, but, okay, it's going to be good.

Something's going to have. So I'm reading the New Yorker on the plane, and there's an ad for the Algonquin Hotel. So I, and I'd heard about that with the round table and all. So I thought, okay, so, and it's raining. I'd get off and I'd find my way to the Algonquin Hotel. One room, $9 a day. I go, oh, my God, you know, our rent was $1 a day.

And plus I had, you know, I'd money for the plane, and I'd had to have two wisdom teeth pulled before I got. So money wasn't, I didn't have that much left. I thought, what am I going to do? Anyway, I got up to the room, called home collect, and my mother and my grandmother and my kids are saying, come home, we missed you, I just got here. And anyway, I said, I'm going to be fine, I'm going to be fine.

Hung up the phone. And I started to cry because here are what. Also, now there was, that was, this was the first bed I slept in. at the Elton Gondwin. The cot was the next one. And so I thought, then it started to rain. And I love rain. Not flooding, but I love rain. And good things had happened to me a lot when it rained. So I said, and I, what am I going to do? And it started to rain. And I turned on the radio. And it said, Hurricane Carol is hitting New York. No.

Look it up. Come on. August, 1954. You are kidding. And I went, well, okay. I had one phone number to call, and it was a gal that had gone to UCLA, was ahead of me, and her boyfriend, she's told her boyfriend, if Carol ever comes to New York, give her my phone number.

So Larry gave me her phone number. I called her. Her name was L.A. E.B. She said, where are you? I said, at the Algonquin Hotel. She said, get away from there. Come up here. Gave me the address.

It was the rehearsal club. So that's how, if I hadn't had her phone number, I don't know what I'm ordered on. So it's just like the gods were smiling. Yes. Yeah. I love that you. started with the Algonquin.

It's just the one you'd heard of. Right. But then you begin to have some success. You mentioned some of the shows you did. And I think the Moore show, is it fair to say, was the catalyst for your own show? Right. Because you had the deal with CBS. Do I have that right?

And you basically had the power to kind of launch your own show off of that. Right. And so at what point did you say, I'm ready for my own thing? It was when I signed a 10-year contract, and that was 1960-something, that would allow me to do one special and two-guessots a year on CBS, and also then, if I decided within the first five years of that contract to do my own, variety show, comedy variety show, I could say, I push that button and say, I want to do that, and they would have to put it on, whether they wanted to or not,

for 30 shows. Wow. You're a good negotiator. His name was Ted Ashley. He was a great agent. I don't think anybody ever got a contract like that before it. Yeah. So it was the last week of the five years.

and between Christmas and New Year's. And my husband and I decided, let's push that button. And I called New York and got one of the vice presidents. Hi, Carol, Merry Christmas. You know, great. I said, Mike, I'm calling because I want to push that button. And it was his pause. What button?

I said, you know where I get to do 31 hours? a variety show. He didn't remember. And he said, I'll get back to you. So I always say, I guess they got a lot of lawyers out of Christmas parties that night. And he called me back the next day. And he said, yeah, I see that. And this is classic. But you know, Carol, comedy variety is a man's game. Was Sid Caesar, Milton Burl, Jackie Gleason, Dean Martin it just started. And I said, well, this is all I know. From Gary's show, I learned.

And that's what I know. He said, well, we've got this sitcom we would like you to do. Like, here's Agnes. Can you picture it? I said, I don't want to be Agnes every week. I want to have music. I want to have guest stars. I want a rep company.

I want sketches. I want big orchestra, all the whole nine yards. and they had to put us on. They didn't have any faith in us because they thought, okay, it's only going to be 30 shows. But they wound up being 270-some on shows, you know. And it was just a great break. Stick around for more of my conversation with Carol Burnett

right after a quick break. Welcome back now to the rest of my conversation with Carol Burnett. At what point did you realize you were doing something right, that the audience was responding? I think when they renewed us, you know, that they gave us the second season, and then the third season, and I thought, well, okay. So, you know, and we went 11 seasons, and they wanted me to do a 12th. But Harvey had left after the 10th year to go do his own show on ABC. And we did the 11th year, which was good. But I kind of missed Harvey.

And then I figured after 11 years, we're kind of repeating ourselves a little bit in some of the sketches. And I just wanted to leave before they knocked on the door and say goodbye. I wanted to be the one to make that choice. It's a hard thing to do sometimes, isn't it? Because you could keep going to the well. Right, right. But I think I made the right decision. Yeah, without question.

I was just saying to when we were taking a break that watching clips of the show, it just seems so genuinely and sincerely like you all were just having fun. We were. Hilarious friends having fun together. Yeah, absolutely. Is that what it amounted to for you? Oh, yeah. I lucked out with the cast, too. I mean, to get Harvey Corman was one of the best comedy actors I've ever seen.

I wanted someone like Carl Reiner that Caesar had, and I got Harvey, and then Tim wasn't a regular until the ninth year. Is that right? Everybody thinks he was on all the time, but he was a guest a lot of times because he had a couple of shows of his own while we were doing ours. And then Vicki, I got her after I saw her in a contest. Really? Yeah. What happened was because we knew we were going to do kind of a. sketch every so often where Harvey and I would be a married couple raising my kid's sister.

So we hadn't started the show yet. I'm reading fan mail. This was in January of 1967, and we were going to go on in the fall of 1960. I'm reading fan mail. And there's this letter from this girl, 18 years old. Everybody says, I remind and a view, and it was a very sweet, intelligent letter. And then she enclosed a newspaper article that also had her picture, and it's saying she was going to be one of nine girls in the Miss Fireball contest of Englewood, California. And the picture, it looked more like me than I did at 17 or 18. I thought, well, maybe there's something.

And then, now reading this article, I look at the date and it's going to be tonight because the fan letter had been written three or four weeks. Right. But then finally got to me through CBS. So it's tonight. Wow. And I thought, hmm. I said, my husband came downstairs. I said, don't get too comfortable.

We're going to go see them as fireball contest tonight. He said, what are you talking about? Wow. I said, well, and I said, well, maybe, but don't you think you ought to call her and you find if she would be okay with our coming? Okay, so her father's name was listed in the article, Howard Lawrence, called the operator, got their phone number, ring, ring, lady answered. She said, hello? I said, hi, is Vicki Lawrence there? And she said, this is her mother.

Who's calling? And I said, it's Carol Bennett. Vicki! She just broke. Vicki got on, said, oh, yeah, hi, Marshall. I said, it's not Marsha. I'm not putting you on. I got your letter.

Would you be okay if we came to see the contest? She said, yeah, okay. So we went, we saw she won the contest, went backstage, talked to her a bit. And I said, I'll be in touch with you. So come that fall, no, the summer, we called her, and then there was another girl to audition who had a lot of experience. Vicki had none, except high school. But she came in and she read the sketch and all.

And I just said, let's hire her. Now, today, no network would let you do that. Right. Because here she is 18 years old. And she learned, look how. She started out as my kid's sister and wound up being my mother. I was going to say, she's 18. I know, I know.

And she just had, get this, last week, her 75th birthday. Did she really? Wow. I mean, what instincts you have that she was up to it, that she could do it out of the fireball contest. I remember, but what was nice to, even though she was kind of raw at first, one of the CBS executives called, he said, don't you think she's a little rough, and this whatever? I said, so are diamonds at first, but they let me keep her on. And as a result, she grew, she did sketches, wonderful.

created mama, you know, and she's brilliant, 24 years old when she did that, you know, and it was like seeing a bloom, a blossom. It was just that made my heart feel so good when she won her Emmy. All from a fateful letter and an invitation. Absolutely. That's amazing. I've had such wonderful luck, crazy, crazy luck, you know. I don't know if there's something out there, boom, boom, boom, but whatever it is, I'm grateful. Little talent helps, too, Carol. Little talent. Yeah, I mean, your show went off the air, gosh, 45, 46 years ago, but I'm struck by how

you have worked so consistently since then. I mean, we're talking about Palm Royale, this big splashy series you're starring in and Better Call Saul. Oh, I love doing Better Call Saul. I mean, you found your way into whatever the moment is, you find yourself there. Is that important to you to take these roles and do? still be doing what you love? If it's going to be fun. I'm not one that says, I've got to keep working or else. That's not it. But what happened was Saul came along, and I love the show

and the people in it. And so I said, absolutely. And then Palm Royale. And look at that. So I don't know if this one, if they have a second season, and if I'm in it, that may be the last thing I would do. I don't know. You never know. We're hoping for a second season. It deserves one for sure. Have you seen over the years, obviously, times change and what people view as funny changes, I guess. But is there something central to comedy

that's always been funny? Is there something that was funny when you started in 1954? That's funny today. Look at the dentist sketch that Tim and Harvey do. That's maybe 45 years old. and I dare anybody to watch it today and not lose it. Funny is funny. You know, and what I never did, and I'm not knocking anybody who did,

I never wanted to be in the news. In other words, because I wanted our sketches to not be dependent on what was happening today, you know, in the news or anything. So very seldom, do we do anything like that. I wanted just overall sketches about the human condition. Some were really silly, and then some got a little serious, like the family, with Eunice and Ed and Mama. Those were so beautifully written, and there wasn't one joke in them. It was all about character.

and so that's and I really enjoyed doing those characters. I watched the dentist sketch this morning. Did you? It's funny. As a minute you mentioned, I said, it's just on the top of my mind. It's just, you can't help but laugh. Well, of course, Harvey didn't know Tim was going to do all of that. With the leg and the whole thing.

And the fly. The fly's lying around and he goes, boom. Yes. It seems to me, Carol, you are, I don't know if uncomfortable is the right word, but when people talk about you as an icon and a legend and all that, I mean, I'm sure that's not an easy thing. What do you say when someone says that to you? But is it gratifying in some way to know the mark that you have left? Oh, yes. Yeah, I'm really thrilled now. I'm getting fan mail from 10-year-olds, teenagers, because of, you. YouTube, Me TV, Shout, all of the stuff. And it just makes me feel so good. And, you know, they ask for advice.

And sometimes I'll call them. Really? Yeah, if they're young. I mean, I don't, like kids, if they call like, one little girl just recently, got the lead in Once Upon a Mattress in her grammar school. Gracie was her name, and she wanted to know if I had any tips on how to play Winifred, which was the role I created, and she left her phone number and addressed.

So I thought, instead of writing her, I'm just going to pick up a phone call her. And we had, she was shocked. Of course. You know, but we had a nice conversation. And I even called her when I knew that the show was going to go on. And I said, good luck tonight, have some fun, you know. And she was very sweet. And so I haven't heard back.

I said, write me and let me know how it went, you know. How wonderful of you to do that? Well, I put myself back into maybe when I was eight or nine or ten or whether. And if somebody that I looked up to connected with me, what I feel. It's no big deal to call. It's easy to do. It's easier than to sit down and write advice. It's much easier to talk.

And sometimes I get, people say, how do you deal with rejection? You know, I want to be in show business. Well, how do I stand? not getting the job, getting a no every time. And I don't know. I said, there was one time, and I can't remember exactly what it was, but I did have an audition,

and another girl and I were kind of up for the final callback. And I thought I had it, but I didn't. She had it. And what saved me, I don't know how I came up with this, but it worked. I don't, wait a minute, it's her turn. Wow. It's not my turn. It's her turn.

My turn will come, but it's not today. It's for her. And that kept me from being disappointed. And I think that's good advice. It's pretty mature too. Yeah. To be able to do that in that moment. Well, it was a gift.

It just came to me. Yeah. So that's when, you know, a young actor, comedian comes to you, or even someone like Kristen Whig or somebody, and they say, what's the advice? How do I get to where you are right now? Is that part of it? Just the show business part of it, but also the, the purpose. person. Chris and Wigg wouldn't need to do that. But they love you so much.

They seek you out anyway. If I were to say to you, Carol, your legacy, not just in comedy, but in American culture is blank. How would you answer? Oh, okay. There's a quote, and I don't remember who it is,

but people may forget what you said, forget what you did, But they'll never forget how you made them feel. So I'm hoping that I made them feel good at times when they were down. They needed a laugh. So that's what I would like, yeah. You've done that. Isn't that a great quote?

In bunches. I know that quote. It's beautiful. I don't know who said that, but it is, I think about that too. I love it. Yes. Carol, thank you so much for the time. This was a joy. Thank you, sweetheart. Thank you so much.

You know what I love about you? Uh-oh. We had a conversation. Yeah. There are no notes. You know, I mean, you did your homework. Well, home. I don't you think it's better than if you don't want it to be an interrogation or a list of questions, right?

I just love it. Oh, good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This was so fun. My immense thanks to Carol Burnett, it honestly was a thrill, a joy, and honor to spend that time with such a wonderful person who has impacted so many

people. Thank you, Carol Burnett, and do check out Palm Royale streaming now on Apple TV Plus. It's really good. And my thanks to all of you for listening again this week. If you want to hear more of our conversations with our guests every week, be sure to click follow so you never miss an episode. And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on a Sunday Sit Down Podcast.