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Biography - Born 04/26/1933
Versatile and enormously popular queen of TV revue comedy with large, expressive eyes, a famously prominent chin and a brash eagerness to entertain. Burnett's longevity on TV attests to her unique gifts as a multi-dimensional, wacky yet poignant comedienne and actor.
Early in her career, Carol Burnett and her producer/husband Joe Hamilton discovered the perfect format to showcase Burnett's comic genius--the musical variety show, a TV equivalent of the cabarets and clubs in which she had honed her timing and audience rapport. Burnett's natural warmth and apparent friendliness, her gift for mimicry and all-stops-out spoofing (especially the now classic "Mildred Fierce", "From There to Eternity", "Torchy Song" and "Yonder Went the Wind" parodies of well-remembered Hollywood features), supplemented by her ability to gather around her a "family" ensemble of talented comic actors (Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence, Tim Conway, Lyle Waggoner), catapulted her series into a top-rated and award-winning hit and made her an audience favorite for twelve consecutive years.
Turning from an early interest in journalism to theater Burnett hit the cabaret circuit in the mid-1950s, winning notice for her rendition of the comic song "I Made a Fool of Myself Over John Foster Dulles" which led to appearances on the Jack Paar and Ed Sullivan shows in 1957 and a stint as a regular on the variety series, "The Garry Moore Show" (1959-62). (Burnett had made her TV debut in 1955 portraying dummy Jerry Mahoney's girlfriend on ventriloquist Paul Winchell's children's show, and had also co-starred on the short-lived sitcom "Stanley" 1956 opposite Buddy Hackett)
In 1959 Burnett conquered the New York stage (first off and later on Broadway) as Princess Winifred the Woebegone in the delightful Marshall Barer-Mary Rodgers fractured fairy tale musical, "Once Upon a Mattress". The play aptly showcased her eager puppy-dog friendliness, comically braying voice, gently self-derogatory humor and penchant for outlandish slapstick, all later used to brilliant effect on her TV show. Besides her spoofs of Hollywood's classic films, Burnett was also memorable on her TV show in recurring sketches, as the ever-dense and tight-skirted secretary Mrs. Wiggins, as the argumentative, Southern-fried Eunice in "The Family" segments (which later inspired their own sitcom), and as the beleaguered heroine of "As the Stomach Turns", a soap opera spoof.
Burnett's personal warmth and immediacy have not translated as well to the big screen where, since her debut in the sex farce, "Who's That Sleeping in My Bed?" (1963), she has acquitted herself with moving performances in melodramas ("Pete 'n Tillie" 1972) and serious comedies ("The Four Seasons" 1981), but all too frequently comes across as strident and manic (in the equally strident "The Front Page" 1974 and "Annie" 1982). Robert Altman did, though, use her well in his variably received but intriguing satire, "A Wedding" (1978). Although she proved a capable dramatic actress in the Vietnam-themed TV movie, "Friendly Fire" (1979), and continued on with occasional TV-movies including "Hostage" (1988) and "Seasons of the Heart" (1994), Burnett's forte remains sketch comedy, for which she has been honored with numerous Emmys and audience popularity awards for more than two decades.
Over the years, Burnett frequently returned to her stage roots, appearing in the 1970s in Los Angeles productions of "I Do! I Do!" opposite Rock Hudson (which toured the US the following summer) and "Same Time, Next Year" opposite Dick Van Dyke. In the 80s, she was featured in the two-night run of an all-star production of Stephen Sondheim's "Follies" at Lincoln Center, NYC and in the Long Beach Civic Light Opera production of Sondheim's "Company". In October 1995, after nearly three decades, Burnett returned to the New York stage opposite Philip Bosco in the comedic farce "Moon Over Buffalo". While most critics lauded Burnett and her comic gifts, most felt the play itself was not worthy of her abilities.
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