In Such Good Company, page 23
Dick talked about his wife, the actress Carrie Nye, who didn’t like making movies and preferred the theater because in the theater, there’s a camaraderie among actors who go out together afterward and talk about the play, etc.
DICK: “I got that feeling when I was around your TV show, when I came out [during Questions and Answers] and surprised you that time. There’s a feeling around your show that it’s more like a play, a repertory of actors who work closely together [unlike most TV shows].”
ME: “Well, we don’t put in all the hours that people do making film television. We’re on tape, and we rehearse all week and shoot in front of an audience and go straight through, changing costumes as fast as we can without stopping, and we almost never do pick-ups, or redo anything. If it goes wrong, it goes wrong! It’s more of a live feeling. And we go home! So that helps. I’m home more than I’m at work.”
As our tenth year was coming to a close, Harvey asked Joe and me to have dinner with him. He told us he had had an offer from ABC to star in his own sitcom, and he wouldn’t be coming back next year. My heart sank. An eleventh year without Harvey? I couldn’t wrap my head around it. He was obviously thrilled at the prospect of having his own show, and there was no way I was going to rain on his parade.
I said, “Honey, I’m sad for our show, but I’m happy for you. Anyhow, who knows how much longer we’ll last? Of course, you have to do your own thing, and now’s the time.” I hugged him, and he and Joe shook hands. Harvey had tears in his eyes and I’m sure he was relieved that the dinner ended on a positive note.
Joe and I drove home in silence.
—
For our final show that tenth year, we did a ninety-minute recap of some of our favorite moments over the past decade. Tim, Harvey, Vicki, and I sat on director’s chairs and reminisced while we showed a bunch of clips. At one point, I felt I had to address the fact that Harvey was going to leave us…and yes, I had a mega lump in my throat.
“Before we continue with the show, there are a couple of words I’d like to say right now to all of you. I’m sure most of you know this is Harvey’s last show with us. He’s going to have a show of his own next season on ABC and we’re very, very proud of him. I have mixed emotions. I’ve been with the most versatile, talented actor I’ve ever known, and I feel kind of like a parent. You know, when your kids get married, you wish and pray for them to have every success and happiness, but you’re gonna miss them like hell.” I turned to Harvey and we hugged. “I love you,” I said, and Harvey said, “I love you, darling.”
The eleventh season began. The wonderful Dick Van Dyke came on board, but as I said earlier, we didn’t do his talents justice and he left the show before Thanksgiving.
Saying goodbye after eleven magical years.
Our ratings were down because Fantasy Island, now opposite us on Saturday night, was a huge hit. CBS moved us to Sunday nights at 10:00, where our ratings improved a lot. But even though we did some pretty good shows that season, I was getting the feeling that it might be time to quit while we were ahead. I came to the tough decision that this would be our last year. It was a hard one, but I didn’t want to wait for CBS to say, “Stop doing this.” Joe and I talked about it and he agreed. We had several meetings where CBS executives tried to talk us into a twelfth year, but we stood fast.
—
Our last show was taped on March 17, 1978, and aired March 29. It was a two-hour special where we featured highlights from the entire run.
I was dressed as the Charwoman for the finale that took place on the empty soundstage. Along with our dancers and singers exiting, several friends surprised me as they walked by my Charwoman character and waved good-bye. There was my real kid sister Chris, Bernadette Peters, Jim Nabors, Roddy McDowall, Betty White and Allen Ludden, and then…Harvey! Vicki came out and we hugged…tightly. Tim entered and we hugged…tightly. After everyone had exited through the large studio door into the hall, I was left alone. This time I sat on the bucket and talked to our audience as myself, not the Charwoman. I hadn’t shared what I was going to say to anyone, not even Joe.
I was on the brink of tears, but I managed to keep it together.
“This is an evening of mixed emotions for me. Like graduation it’s a sad and a happy time. It can’t be possible that it was 1967 when Harvey, Vicki, Lyle, and I stepped on this stage for the first time, because it does seem ‘as if it were only yesterday.’ Those clichés really have a habit of punching you in the nose, don’t they?
“Recently, a lot of people have been running around expressing their own opinions as to why I decided to quit at the end of this season and I think I should be the one to tell you, seeing as how I’m the one who really knows.
“In our eleven years we have had four different time slots and we’ve had our share of being up there in the ratings and down there in the ratings. Ratings do not have anything to do with my decision. If they did, I would’ve called a halt to the proceedings a long time ago, because there have been many, many times when they’ve been a lot lower than they’ve been this season. I do think it’s classier to leave before you’re asked to, and the fact that CBS picked our show up for a twelfth year, and was quite adamant about it, is very flattering to all of us here on the show. However, I’m adamant, too. I’m so proud of our show, and quite simply, I’m no dummy, now is the time to put it to bed and go on to other things, because change is growth. It’s hard because all of us around here truly did become like a second family. We’ve been through marriages, divorces, deaths, and births, and I know the love that we have shared can never be measured by time.
“Our first director, Clark Jones—our first year—just wonderful. Dave Powers, who has been our director the past ten years—and he is going to other things. He’s going to direct Three’s Company next year. I would like to thank our various producers, Arnie Rosen, Bill Angelos, Buz Kohan, our present producer Ed Simmons, our executive producer Joe Hamilton, whom I happen to love very much.
“Our technical crew, our stagehands, the gang upstairs in the office. Our entire creative staff are the best anybody could have ever had. I know they know all of the love and admiration I have for each and every one of them.
“No one could feel more grateful than I do tonight for having had the opportunity to work with and learn from the brilliant talent of Harvey Korman, who has no creative limits. And we have all watched Vicki Lawrence blossom and grow from a green kid just out of Inglewood High into one of the finest young character actresses and comediennes in the industry. I’m so proud of her. Tim Conway—defies description. His brain never slows down. Those little wheels are constantly churning out original chunks of genius that amaze us all. And the fact that he is even nicer than he is talented is the best thing that you could know about him.
“On behalf of all of us, I want to thank you here tonight and all of you who have been watching us for making these years possible. You brought us together and we’re all so very grateful. I love you.”
I cued Pete in the band shell, and the orchestra started playing our theme. For the last time, I sang:
I’m so glad we had this time together
Just to have a laugh or sing a song
Seems we just get started and before you know it
Comes the time we have to say “so long”
There’s a time you put aside for dreamin’
And a time for things you like to do
But the time I like the best is any evening
I can spend a moment here with you
When the time comes and I’m feelin’ lonely
And I’m feelin’ oh so blue
I just sit back and think of you only
And the happiness still comes through
That’s why I’m glad we had this time together
Just to have a laugh or sing a song
Seems we just get started and before you know it
Comes the time we have to say “so long”
I pulled on my left earlobe. Now it was time for me to exit through the large studio door, which closed behind me, leaving only the mop and bucket as the last camera shot…
Reminiscing with Tim and Vicki.
When we finally hung it up, our show had won twenty-five Emmy awards and was listed by Time magazine as one of the “100 Best TV Shows of All Time.” A terrific accomplishment, thanks to all the gang who contributed their talents, and love.
How did we get here from there? August 26, 1967, before I walked out on stage for our first taping, I got Harvey, Vicki, and Lyle together for a “Kumbaya” moment. We all hugged each other and I said, “Look, we don’t know if we’re going to last. CBS had to put us on the air, and they don’t have a lot of faith in us, so I figure what we have to do is go out there and just have fun. If we have fun, the audience will. And whenever the time comes for us to leave, we can walk away knowing that we had one hell of a great time.”
I didn’t think it at the time, but looking back I see that we were charmed from the start. Everything miraculously fell into place with little or no angst!
As I said earlier, the head writer, Arnie Rosen, took a big chance to uproot his family and move to California. Also risking a move out from New York were Ernie Flatt, our brilliant choreographer; Harry Zimmerman, our orchestrator and conductor; and Don Crichton, our lead dancer. They all gave us a leg up at the start. Because of them, we amassed several fine comedy writers, musicians, and twelve of the best dancers in the business almost immediately!
Then along came Harvey, fresh off The Danny Kaye Show. The fact that Danny’s show was going off the air just as we were coming on strikes me now as a minor miracle. Had Danny continued, we never would have had Harvey.
Following Carl Reiner’s advice to hire a handsome announcer, we found gold in Lyle.
What are the odds of finding a talent like Vicki because of a fan letter sent by a seventeen-year-old? What made me sit up and take notice that afternoon when I was reading my mail? What was it? Something simply “spoke” to me. Whatever it was, I’m grateful I listened.
Tim. What can I say? We should’ve been smart enough to hire him after his very first appearance, but eventually we wised up and he came on board every week. He had had several shows of his own before, each of which wound up being canceled, causing him to have his license plates read: 13 weeks. Our show allowed him to fly, and boy did he! As I’ve said a million times before, the sketches he did with Harvey should go in the time capsule. Again, if Danny Kaye’s show had remained on the air, and if Tim’s shows hadn’t been canceled, we never would have had the experience of enjoying their phenomenal chemistry.
In his interview with the Television Academy, Tim was asked about reviving The Carol Burnett Show:
There’s no question about the fact that we could probably fire the whole thing up again in a matter of moments. You know if Carol ever said, “I think we’re going to do this again,” I don’t think we would skip a beat.
But I’d only want to do it if we did it the way we did it, you know. Somebody had enough trust in us to know that it was going to be funny the way we were going to do it. I think nowadays we have four or five producers and six or eight assistant producers and eighty-four writers who all want to hear their lines. All the fun goes out of it. You have to have fun in order to do it the way we did.
After our show went off the air, Harvey and Tim took to the road with a show of their own, performing all over the country doing some of their favorite sketches for sold-out crowds. However, we were never parted for long. Whenever Joe and I had dinner with Harvey, Tim, and their wives, Debby and Sharkey, we’d wind up laughing so hard that I really hoped somebody in the restaurant would know how to do the Heimlich maneuver!
—
In the summer of 1978, we thought it would be fun to come back and do four shows. We got in touch with Tim and Vicki and they came on board, along with comic actors Kenneth Mars and Craig Richard Nelson. Our guests in order were: Cheryl Ladd, Alan Arkin, Penny Marshall, and Sally Field. CBS couldn’t do the shows at that time, so they aired on ABC.
In 1992, Harvey, Tim, Vicki, Lyle, and I got together for a twenty-fifth reunion show airing on CBS. We sat in director’s chairs, fielded questions from the studio audience, and showed some of our favorite clips. In 2001, we got together again and did another special, Show Stoppers, which went through the roof ratings-wise. That led to another one, Let’s Bump Up the Lights, in 2004.
Just before Christmas of 2007, Harvey got very sick. He had several operations, and pulled through every one of them. He was a fighter, but he lost the battle in May 2008. His wife, Debby, and his family were at his side.
I will remember and love “Mr. Happy Go Lucky” forever.
In 1998, Studio 33 in Television City, where we had taped all eleven years of my show, had been renamed “The Bob Barker Studio,” in honor of the long-running host of The Price Is Right, who had also taped his show there.
The plaque on the wall in the entrance moved me to tears.
Early in 2015, a suggestion was made by CBS to put up a plaque at the foot of the stage in Studio 33. The plaque would read THE CAROL BURNETT STAGE. I was thrilled with the whole idea. However, it wasn’t well received by Bob, so it was shelved out of respect for his wishes.
What happened, as a result, was that CBS decided to rename the Artist Entrance. For me, it was an even better suggestion!
On September 28, 2015, at Television City in Hollywood, I was pretty much close to tears when CBS president and CEO Leslie Moonves unveiled a plaque and also a large photograph of me, with the cartoon version of the Charwoman, on the walls in the entryway. Outside, the entrance doors read: CAROL BURNETT ARTIST ENTRANCE.
At the dedication: What an honor!
Asked to say a few words, I talked about all the wonderful times when I had walked through those doors on the way to rehearse and tape our show…about how much I loved Harvey, Vicki, Lyle, and Tim…about how much the crew meant to me…and about how absolutely overwhelmed I was with this honor.
Wow.
And, in closing, I just want to add…
WRAPPING IT ALL UP
Fifty years have passed since we “pushed the button” to do the show. Sure, I’d like to be younger, but then I could never do today what we did back then. Sadly, variety shows like ours have gone the way of the dodo bird. A variety show today can never duplicate what we did. Why? Money. The cost of clearing the songs and music alone would sink the Titanic. Sixty to seventy costumes a week? No way. A twenty-eight-piece orchestra? Twelve dancers? A rep company of five? Six to eight sketches a show? Major guest stars? Block the entire show and rehearse with the orchestra in one day? The following day tape the whole shebang in two hours? Dream on.
We all get older, if we’re lucky. So, if I had to choose, I’m happy I was there at that time…to have a laugh or sing a song.
—
Our show had gone into syndication while we were in our last season. The syndicated show, Carol Burnett and Friends, was cut down to a half hour, showing only the sketches and none of the musical features. Recently, because several of the entire one-hour shows have been released on DVD and also as a result of us being on YouTube, we’ve garnered a whole new generation of viewers.
Every so often I go around the country and do a Q&A evening. I’m thrilled that the audiences’ ages can range from nine to ninety. Not too long ago, I was performing in a theater in my hometown, San Antonio, and a little boy in the second row raised his hand and I called on him.
ME: “Hi there! What’s your name?”
LITTLE BOY: “Andrew.”
ME: “How old are you, Andrew?”
ANDREW: “Nine.”
ME: “And you know who I am?”
ANDREW: (Pause) “Surprisingly, yes.”
How lucky am I?
SEASON 1
1. #001. First taped show. Airdate: January 1, 1968. Regulars: Harvey, Vicki, and Lyle. Guests: Lynn Redgrave and Mike Douglas.
2. #002. Airdate: November 20, 1967. Regulars: No Vicki (no “Carol and Sis” sketch). Guests: Martha Raye and Juliet Prowse.
3. #003. Debut. First air show. Airdate: September 11, 1967. Regulars. Guest: Jim Nabors.
4. #004. Airdate: September 18, 1967. Regulars. Guests: Sid Caesar and Liza Minnelli.
5. #005. Airdate: September 25, 1967. Regulars. Guests: Jonathan Winters and Eddie Albert.
6. #006. Airdate: October 2, 1967. Regulars. Guests: Lucille Ball, Tim Conway, and Gloria Loring.
7. #007. Airdate: October 9, 1967. Regulars: Harvey and Lyle (no Vicki because there was no “Carol and Sis” sketch that week and we hadn’t started using her elsewhere yet). Guests: Imogene Coca and Lainie Kazan.
8. #008. Airdate: October 16, 1967. Regulars. Guests: Phyllis Diller, Gwen Verdon, and Bobbie Gentry.
9. #009. Airdate: October 23, 1967. Regulars. Guests: The Smothers Brothers, Diahann Carroll, and Richard Kiley.
10. #010. Airdate: February 5, 1968. Regulars. Guests: Jack Palance and Liza Minnelli.
11. #011. Airdate: November 6, 1967. Regulars: No Vicki. Guests: Sonny and Cher, and Nanette Fabray.
12. #012. Airdate: November 13, 1967. Regulars. Guests: Richard Chamberlain, Gloria Loring, and Kay Medford.
13. #013. Airdate: November 27, 1967. Regulars: No Vicki. Guests: Don Adams and Lesley Ann Warren.
14. #014. Airdate: December 4, 1967 (Christmas theme). Regulars. Guests: Jonathan Winters and Barbara Eden.
15. #015. Airdate: December 11, 1967. Regulars. Guests: Mickey Rooney and John Davidson.
16. #016. Airdate: March 18, 1968. Regulars. Guests: Tim Conway and Jack Jones.
17. #017. Airdate: December 25, 1967. Regulars: No Vicki. Guests: Sid Caesar and Ella Fitzgerald.
18. #018. Airdate: January 8, 1968. Regulars. Guests: Lana Turner and Frank Gorshin.
