Lena Dunham and Carol Burnett - Summer Staff Picks

We are continuing our summer tradition at “Here’s The Thing” where members of the staff select their favorite interviews from the archives. This week, we revisit Alec Baldwin’s conversations with two amazing women in entertainment, Lena Dunham and Carol Burnett. Lena Dunham, creator and star of the ground-breaking “Girls” and writer/director of the recent film “Catherine Called Birdy,” spoke with Alec in 2013 about making her first film, “Tiny Furniture,” how her work evolved following its success and what it's like to play a version of herself. In 2015, Alec spoke with comedian and actress Carol Burnett about making 11-seasons of the Emmy-winning “The Carol Burnett Show,” navigating being a woman in show business in the 60s and creating her incredible performance as Miss Hannigan in “Annie.”

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to Here's
the Thing from iHeart Radio. It's officially summer, and that
means it's time for our tradition at Here's the Thing,
where our staff shares their favorite episodes in our Summer
Staff series. First up is executive producer Kathy Russo. Kathy's
been and Here's the Thing from the very beginning, so

(00:24):
when she's selecting a much loved episode, you know it
has to be good. Kathy, take it.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Away, Thanks Alec. My Summer Staff Pick is a show
that features two women that, in my opinion, changed the
face of TV. One a generation above me Carol Brunette
and one is a generation below me, Lena Dunham. These
are two smart women driven by their artistic dreams. They

(00:50):
could write, direct, and perform like no other in their generation.
They made me laugh and cry. They were funny without
being mean. First Lena Dunham. I met her at a
screening of her first movie, Tiny Furniture, and immediately became
a huge fan. When Girls came out in twenty twelve,
a show about four young women living in New York City,

(01:13):
I couldn't get enough and watched every episode at least
three times. Girls was spot on, so smart and so
brave and spoke to me in a way no other
show had before. Lena took chances, and I loved her
playing Hannah on the show. She had a way of
capturing moments I could relate to. Probably the best acting
I've ever seen on TV was one of the last

(01:34):
episodes of Girls in twenty seventeen. Hannah is single and
very pregnant. She spends a day with an old boyfriend
played by Adam Driver. Adam's not the father, but they
spend a blissful day in the city and consider getting
back together and raising this child. They end the day
sitting across from each other in a diner and come

(01:56):
to the silent, tears strained realization that their tumultuous relationship
will never work out. No words, just the expressions on
their faces says it all, and it's heartbreaking. Now listen
to Alex's interview with Lena. Just as Girls was making
it big, Lena.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Dunham has achieved an astonishing amount in just three years.
Her portrayal of Hannah Horovath and Girls recently won her
a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a comedy series.
This past October, she sold a book of essays and
advice to Random House, and her boyfriend is a rock star. Today,
she hardly resembles Aura, her character from Tiny Furniture. I

(02:39):
thought I wouldn't have much in common with Lena. She's
half my age and has been fiercely embraced by my
daughter's generation. But oh, how quickly we realized there was
common ground between us.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
Literally, my show's moving into the thirty rock stages.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
No, yes, we're taking there, moving to Silver Cup. Yes,
you and Michael harm.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
We were in Silver Cup. Then we went to Stey
because we couldn't get our stages back because some show
that has one word that's about murder took it. And
then we are coming back because you guys are leaving,
so we're going to be on your stages and in
your offices.

Speaker 4 (03:11):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Now, as I'm sitting here meeting you for the first
time and talking to you for the first time, you
are nothing like I imagined you would be. Really nothing. I'm
a bit thrown here because you play someone who is
I guess in your mind that I want to talk
about your vision of what kind of character you wanted
to create is a little bit a beat behind everyone else,

(03:32):
or I'll let you articulate that what you think she is, I'll.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
Put though the beat behind idea really speaks to me
because I'm always sort of saying when people ask about
Han and I'm always sort of saying, she's a version
of me, but she's a few years behind me, and
she's also sort of a few minutes behind everyone around her.
So you really picked up on a concept that I'm
sort of always thinking about a little bit when I
play her and when I write her.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
But she's who you used to be.

Speaker 5 (03:56):
You know.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
It's funny. I think I used to I think I
in order to convince myself that I should play this character,
or that I should even write this character, I had
to say, well, I'm just writing myself. It's that easy.
I'm just writing myself, because the idea of sort of
creating an entire other human can be so intimidating.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
And who are you though?

Speaker 3 (04:13):
In real life?

Speaker 1 (04:14):
In real life? Who are you?

Speaker 3 (04:16):
I think that Hannah is someone who I'm very capable
of being, who's wounded, ambitious but doesn't know where to
place it. Hannah sort of the version of myself. If
i'd had less understanding parents and sort of less drive
to get things done, And I think who I am
as a person who was always sort of if I

(04:37):
had to describe the war within myself that exists currently,
it's sort of the challenge of trying to reconcile the
part of me that that always thought I would be, like,
you know, a weird gender and women studies teacher who
occasionally showed movies at film festivals and hung out in
my strange apartment that was stacked high with books. Trying
to reconcile that with the part of me that has
to like figure out.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
A tress the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
Exactly, Shoot, the rolling cover of Rolling Stow magazine was
to figure out a dress to wear that for an
event that and everyone seems to be worried about whether
or not the dress is in stores because it has
to be my own dress. And so I'm dealing with
all these sort of this strange echosystem and all these
weird politics that I kind of never imagined would happen
to me in my lifetime.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
You never imagined, No, you really never imagined it.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
I think my dream situation was that I would be
someone who people thought, Oh, she's doing important work in
her own little corner.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Like a Ra's Chaste cartoon character.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
Exactly, like a ras Chast cartoon character, or like I
think because I went to pretentious private school, the biggest
dream you would have is you'd be like I'm going
to be Joan Diddyon. That was kind of where your
brain was allowed to wantry maybe Nora.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
E from maybe you'll make films, but you're not going
to be in films exactly.

Speaker 3 (05:45):
And I don't think when I first started acting, I
mean I never got parts in high school. I never
even I never was able. I think I had a
twofold thing about it. One is that it came from
a family of artists, and so the idea was sort
of like you made your work and then got out
of the way of it. Like part of what was
I think I internalized the idea that your work was
supposed to speak for you. You were not supposed to
speak for your work, And so I think I was

(06:06):
self conscious about the idea of being any sel self promoting.
And although that's not what acting is, it's it is
now it's become that. And then I also think that
I thought, well, there's people who are professionals who can
do this better than me. So I'm just going to
act until I have access to the people who should
be acting. And sometimes I still feel that way. Sometimes

(06:26):
I think, like, you know, I'll do this a little
longer and then Michelle Williams can play me every day
till I die. Something that's really nice about making the
show that isn't that is a comedy that isn't stuck
in any sort of I mean, thirty Rock was able
to bust out of a lot of network sitcom tropes,
but a lot of the time when you're on a
I think one of the biggest things that networks prevent,

(06:48):
besides curse words and showing your breasts is development. I
think that when you play, I think so many sitcom
characters end up playing the same version of themselves in
various area.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
This is the thing that we talked about in the
meeting to prep this thing with you, which was shows
I've seen where the protagonists male or female, they're going
through the same set of problems in season six that
they were in season one. It's just different lines in
different coastars. Yeah, and with you, I'm wondering, do you
have a bible on the show. Do you have an

(07:21):
arc in your mind, not even on paper, not even
approved with your other Could you do this with jud correct?

Speaker 3 (07:26):
I do it with Judd and a woman named Jenny Connor,
who's the other executive producer. And we have a great
little writer's room. But our writer's room doesn't really work
like It's not like we write a script and then
all sit together punching it up. It's much more we
sit together at the beginning of the season and really
talk through. It's like a giant therapy session where we
work out the emotional arc and then we go to it.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
And when you work out that emotional arc, do you
think to yourself, are the things that she's going through now?
Your character and the other characters where you're saying to yourself,
let's make sure they're not going through this, that there
is growth a season from now or by the end
of the season completely.

Speaker 3 (07:59):
And that's why I feel like it's okay for me
to cut my hair, It's okay for me to start spinning,
or it's okay for me, you know, whatever I whatever
to change to change, because I feel as though so
much of what this show is about is about seeing
these girls off into their adulthood. Like in my Bible,
the ideal finale to the show would be a feeling like,
you know, they don't have to have kids, they don't

(08:20):
have to have husbands, but you look at them and
you kind of go, they're on their way. They're more
okay than they were when they started, or they're less okay,
but we have an understanding of what kind of adult
we think they're gonna be.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
So describe to me, how does it start? How does
whose idea was girls? Was it yours?

Speaker 3 (08:36):
It was mine because I basically I went in, I
made this movie Tiny Furniture, and I made it. You know,
my mom and sister starred. We shot it in my
mom's house, my mom and dad's house. We it was
totally populated with friends, some of whom have made their
way to Girls with me.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
And what motivated you don't want to do Tiny Furniture.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
I had always wanted to be a writer, and I
used to think I wanted to be a playwright, and
then in college I sort of had this revelation where
I thought, like plays you rehearse, and you rehearse, and
then they happened twice like I just felt so frustrated
by the lack of permanence, Like I'd always been sort
of turned on by the fact that when my parents
as artists made work, like they had these material items
that would outlast them. And I was frustrated that that

(09:17):
wasn't a part of the theater experience. So I started
making short films, and I made my first feature and
went to south By Southwest Film Festival with it, and
then I just had and I'd been making web TV,
and I just had this itch to sort of tell
the specific story, and I wrote the script and the
kind well, that's.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
What I want to talk about, is is that itch
meaning beyond the arc of the shooting and the and
the career aspects of it or the burgeoning career, what
was it about what was going on in your life
that you want to do that movie?

Speaker 3 (09:45):
On a practical, real life level, I wanted to talk
about that moment between college and adulthood that felt so
floundering and so every day I felt like I was
walking through the strangest, most surreal soup. That would mean
that on a deeper level, I kind of wanted to
talk about chain, which is what I always think is
sort of the most interesting place to find characters is
in a time of intense change. And so I sort

(10:08):
of also wanted to capture this moment where I was.
I knew that I wouldn't live at home forever, that
my little sister wouldn't be sort of seventeen and ambitious
but also stuck in her bedroom forever, that my mom
was sort of looking in this beautiful moment where she
kind of was I mean, she'd murder me for saying this,
but she looked that kind of beautiful way where it's
like you're not quite old yet and you just look

(10:29):
kind of she just looked kind of perfect to me,
and I just.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
Look a great car.

Speaker 3 (10:32):
Yeah, And I just thought, my mother's what I could
say exactly, And I just thought, I want to capture
all of this. I want to capture our cats, I
want to capture our house. I want to remember all
of this.

Speaker 1 (10:42):
And so, so you really love your mom.

Speaker 3 (10:44):
I'm obsessed with my mom. Okay, I love my mom.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
But I'm saying, that's interesting that you have that feeling
and that's what makes you survey what's around. You wouldn't
want to capture that because I find typically people who
are not happy they got to wait a while until
they can negotiate the pain to go back and talk
about that.

Speaker 3 (11:03):
It's one of the biggest things that inspires me to
make work is this feeling of looking around and going,
even if you're not perfect, you're all so perfect right now,
let's let's capture this and then, you know, I'd love
the feeling. I was just watching like Panic and Needle
Park last week, that movie which is you know it,
Kitty Win, Kitty Gosh, she's so good. Where did Kitty
Win go?

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yeah, let me get that vile out for Kitty Win.
She's incredible.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
But so I was watching that and I was just
thinking about how exciting it was to be able to
watch sort of like al Pacino at that first moment
when he was sort of like he still almost looked
a little adolescent and he was still and he was
learning his craft.

Speaker 1 (11:37):
And just behaving on film.

Speaker 3 (11:39):
Yeah, and I just love capturing that. And that's something
that I've tried to do with girls too, is sort
of grab people and go, let's just let's just see
you as you are right now.

Speaker 1 (11:48):
Now. The so the film did well, So then how
does girls Happen?

Speaker 3 (11:55):
Girls happened? Because so then I went to LA and
kind of did that. I went like, Okay, I guess
what you do next is get an agent, and I
guess what you do next is try to figure.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
Out what I mean. You're on the runway now, Yes.

Speaker 4 (12:07):
I was.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
I was on the runway, and I was going around
LA doing the sort of what I call the couch
and water bottle tour of LA where you meet everybody
and have those kind of general meetings where and I
remember it was so funny because at first I didn't
understand that everybody says to you at the end of
the general meeting, oh, I'd love to find a way
to work with you. And so I would call my
agent after ones and go, oh my god, it was amazing,
and he said he wants to find a way to.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
Work with me, and he meant he what should come
clean his pool?

Speaker 3 (12:29):
Yeah, basically, so you're on the sofa water bottle tour
and what happens on self a water bottle tour and
my agent, who I feel like, you're not supposed to
say you love your agent because it makes you sound
really Hollywood.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
And I have everyone.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
I love everyone, and also I have the best agent.
He's like, really been at it for a long time.
He's like a cigar smoking you know, He's what I imagined
in age. His name's Peter Benedek, and he said to me.
I was sort of saying to him, like maybe I
could get I just wanted to move out of my parents' house,
and I thought and make more movies. And I was like,
maybe I could should write a spec how I met
your mother, and I could get staffed on a show.

(13:01):
I mean, I didn't know any I didn't know how
any of this worked. And he said that I should
go for a meeting at HBO, and I did, and
I said, well, here's what I'd want to see, is
like a show about all my girlfriends, like sort of
like Tiny Furniture, but there's more of us, and we
don't live with our parents anymore, but it's still about that.
It's like it was pitched so weekly, like a year
after my movie, but there's more of us and it's

(13:23):
a TV show.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
So the conversation wasn't coming out of and Tiny Furniture
in the indie and in the festival world had a
very good buzz. There was no conversation, but you just
going right into films and making more films. Normally they're
gonna want to steer some especially your age was very young,
They're gonna go, let's just keep making movies.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
Well, you know, there was a conversation, but I think
I picked up on the fact very early, going on
the Couch and Water Bottle tour, that the kind of
stories that I wanted to tell were not really being
funded on a larger scale.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
And film Tina says that sometimes the Tina I just
finish working. Yeah, it seems like it's more difficult to
a to have the control you want in the film
business and be to say what you want to say.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
It is, And the fact is I could have kept
saying what I wanted to say, you know, making twenty
five thousand dollars movies, but I wanted It's weird. The
reason that I like having some budget is not because
you know, I want to stage car crashes or I
want to have you know, ten makeup artists on set,
although those things would will would be lovely, But but
it's more because of the fact that I do so

(14:26):
many jobs, so so exciting to not have to worry
anymore about answering the doorbell, about returning the equipment, about
making sure that people had the pizza. Also, that's going
to happen in TV. And what I has money and
has HBO is Time Warner. But they have money, but
they use it in this kind of amazing it's this
amazing model, which is that they don't have to answer
to advertisers in the same way, so HBO can sort

(14:48):
of fulfill its odd little interests. And that's what I
started out as, and I what I didn't predict was
how much I would love the opportunity to develop characters
in this way and the kind of the fiber of
TV itself.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
I mean, for me, one thing that I noticed when
I went to college an interesting number of people they
really knew what they wanted to be. They weren't quite
sure how to get there. They had a dream. I
want to become a lawyer. I want to become a doctor.
I want to go into politics. I want to go
into and now people today, it seems like younger people,
they really they think they have more time to figure
it out. They're turning twenty five and they really don't

(15:24):
have that picture and focus. Do you agree?

Speaker 3 (15:26):
I do agree, And I think a big part of
it is being I think the word the Internet has
cracked things open in a way that's both beautiful and
that it helps you find. There's so many things that
I never would have even known about, things that have
been huge for me that have existed because of the Internet.
And I think that I've been able to partially, you know,
connect with people who would be fans of the show

(15:46):
because of the Internet. I think, you know, it's always
exciting when like there's this website called rookiemag dot com
that's run by this girl, Tavi Jevinson, and it's a
like a smart teen magazine that exists only on the Internet.
And I just think if when I was a teenager
there had been that place and that message board, I
would have felt like the world was my oyster like
just meeting other weirdo girls who had the same who like,

(16:07):
you know whatever. At the time, I just wanted to
talk to someone about Connor Oberst or something on the Internet,
and that would have been possible. But I think now
the fact that like the Internet has created so many
strange specialized jobs and so many things where it's like,
you know, I'm a brand consultant, slash blog enhancer or whatever.
People are like suddenly the world feels wide open, but

(16:30):
there are less jobs available, and so it's a really
confusing moment to make any decisive choice about what you
want to do.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
It's interesting you say that the Internet is responsible for that,
and then idea of having too many choices than you
need you wind up bout.

Speaker 3 (16:42):
That could also be a metaphor for like men in
their twenties dating. I feel like men in their twenties,
like I once had dated a guy who told me
that he didn't feel like he could be serious about
anyone in New York because it would be like eating
at the same restaurant every night in New York. Right,
there's so many amazing choices. It's New York.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
I hope he choked some whate a restaurant. He goes,
I shouldn't say that. That's me. That's wrong.

Speaker 3 (17:04):
I feel like that. So it's helpful to have it
backed up by Alec Baldwin.

Speaker 1 (17:11):
This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to here's the
thing more in a minute. Lena Dunham didn't have to
look far to come up with her character on Girls.

Speaker 3 (17:33):
Physically, I'd say, Hannah is I mean she's me because
I play her? But she's it's funny because she's chubby,
but she doesn't that's not where her anxiety comes from.
Like she's just not I like playing a character who
isn't doesn't have a perfect body, but that's not the
main source of their anxiety. I feel like we have
very few female characters on television who don't look like

(17:54):
models and aren't constantly discussing it. So, of course Hannah
has her moments of self consciousness, just like every woman does,
but that's not She sort of doesn't notice that her
clothes don't quite fit. She sort of doesn't think about
what she eats.

Speaker 1 (18:07):
It's and I have closed her just to cover you
up and keep you warm, exactly. They have some degree
of style to the great, but let's.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
Like a character exactly. And I like she's more interested
in like whether her clothes are funny and witty, Like
I don't think she really cares about being sexy. She's
more just like, oh, this dress like has owls on it?
How sweet I used to be much in college, I
dressed like a complete loon. I feel like my dad
always told me I look like a lion tamer all
the time. I've calmed down just because I realized that
you could vests so many vests, red vests, so many

(18:33):
red vests, so many like you know, strained boots, pulled
over my weird leggings with a three flounced skirt. I
could never accessorize enough. It was oppressive.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
Now, how many seasons of the show are you signed
on to do? Well?

Speaker 3 (18:45):
You know, it's not clear. I mean HBO contractually has me,
I think as an actor for six years, but as
a writer, and I wish I should pay more attention
to my deals, but I'm just so excited to have
my job. I just go, okay, whatever you say. But
I think my dream world is, you know, I want
to kind of follow like you know how British shows
always know British shows and thirty Rock always know just

(19:05):
when to get off the air.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
The question becomes how you can maybe you know, do
that TV show? And the schedule is how many months.

Speaker 3 (19:16):
We do it?

Speaker 1 (19:16):
Well, how many episodes we've been doing?

Speaker 5 (19:18):
Ten?

Speaker 3 (19:18):
So i shoot four and a half months out of
the year, then I'm editing, then I'm doing press, then
I'm writing, then I'm back. So so it's not four
and a half months. So it's not it's safe months
it's actually more like twelve months. And so would you make.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
A movie during the breakfast now?

Speaker 3 (19:34):
No, I couldn't because there was just no time. I
finish shooting in August. I was editing.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
Why don't you make a deal with HBO with they'll
finance your films, so you're working for them and it's
all in house.

Speaker 3 (19:43):
It's very smart. I mean, I really want to make
a movie. I have two features scripts that I've been
working on that I just I want to make another
before I make like a big, massive, ambitious movie. I mean,
I want to make a creatively ambitious movie, but I
want to make another small movie I have. I have
small movie ideas.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
Do you have a massive ambitious movie inside you?

Speaker 3 (20:01):
I do. And I'm also I'm writing a book. So
that's something that was.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
Really weird about that.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
It's something that was really important to me to start
doing at this point in my list.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
Star and you write and produce your own TV show
and you're writing a book. Hmm, who did that remind
me of? What are you going to write a book about?

Speaker 3 (20:18):
I'm writing a book. Well, I guess it's about me,
although it's a little less about me because it also
has advice an advice component, but it's like personal essays.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
So is it like Paula Pell's Hey Young Girls.

Speaker 3 (20:28):
Oh my god, I love Hey Young Girls. Makes me
so happy. Paula Pel is funny. Paula Pel is someone
who's funny and not mean.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
Yeah, Paula Pel's I mean to the right people.

Speaker 3 (20:37):
She's just a dreamy person. But you know, the thing
that's been so great about writing the book is I've
always loved writing prose, and I wanted to make it
a part of my career sooner rather than later. Because
I didn't want it to be like when I decided
to write a book in ten years, it was like, oh, look,
here's a celebrity memoir number fifty seven. I wanted it
to really feel like I'm a person who writes prose
and that it's a part of my life and career

(20:59):
for a long time.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Like other people that are writing books, they don't have
TV shows that they're starring in and writing. When you're
done doing now not just ten but twelve episodes, what
do you have left to go into the book?

Speaker 3 (21:09):
There's stuff that's just for the book.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
There's still an example. Well, topic wise, I.

Speaker 3 (21:12):
Write a lot about my childhood. In the book, I
write a lot about my parents. I write a lot
about college and sort of like that. I write a
lot about that period. I write a lot about sort
of the beginning of being sexual person. I write about relationships.
I'm writing a lot about sort of female role.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
I want to say about sexuality.

Speaker 3 (21:29):
It's interesting. I've had to become more conscious about what
I say and what I promote, not in a way
that stifles me, but just in a way where I
realize now that there are seventeen year old girls who
come up to me and tell me that the show
means a lot to them.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
And this is one percent of your audience is influenced.
This is what I learned from someone. One percent of
your one percent is genuinely and in any way influenced
by what you do and say. That's still tens of
thousands of people.

Speaker 3 (21:54):
It's amazing. It's an amazing thing. And it's like it's
a platform that you have to take seriously.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
So you are as a role model. What won't Hannah
or the other girls in the quartet do.

Speaker 3 (22:04):
Jenny and I talk about this a lot. We won't
fuck someone because they have a nice apartment. There's not
going to be any version of sort of like prostuding yourself.
There's not going to be any version of dating somebody
because he can take you out to nice dinner.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
Now, two things that I think are kind of connected,
which is how do men present themselves? You have a boyfriend,
and I don't want to prior to your personal life,
but you how do men present themselves too differently? You
said that Hannah was this and that and a chubby
girl who did and now you're now the name Lena
Dunham means something else to people. How do men present
themselves to you now different from the way they used to?

Speaker 5 (22:37):
It's interesting.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
I mean, I'm so bad at knowing if anybody's hitting
on me, Like someone literally has to like beat me
on the head with a drumstick and drag me back
to their cave for me to understand that it's going on.
But you know, the thing is is that sleezy people
are attracted to and sleazy people and not sleezy people
are attracted to any sense of GRAVI toss that someone

(22:58):
might have. I So I definitely have had more. I mean,
I definitely have had felt less ignored by the opposite sex.
But I'm also so bad at perceiving any of it.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
And so did you know your boyfriend liked to Well,
we got sat.

Speaker 3 (23:12):
Up on a blind date, so I knew he liked well,
I didn't.

Speaker 1 (23:14):
Know he liked me, but he was predisposed.

Speaker 3 (23:16):
He was predisposed to like me because what we were
going on was a date. And then that was a
special situation because I went, oh, I think he likes
me and I like him.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
And tell me if don't want to answer this question,
but I just find it charming. Where did you go
on your first date with your boyfriend?

Speaker 3 (23:28):
We went to Blue Ribbon Bakery in the West Village.
And the reason I was happy is because I find
picking a restaurant so anxiety producing, because I feel like, yeah,
because it really is to death star. Also, what if
I choose the wrong restaurant and you have a bad
association with it or you think I'm.

Speaker 1 (23:45):
Sleepy poor on me?

Speaker 3 (23:47):
Exactly, it's just the worst. And like what if we
go there and you don't like brand muffin? Exactly? So stressful,
so he said, before I even had to say anything,
He said, if it's stressful for you, I can pick
the restaurant. And I felt like, okay, I'm going to
be in great hands.

Speaker 1 (24:01):
Where did you pick?

Speaker 3 (24:02):
And then you picked Blue room Maker? And then I
ate a cheese and then I ordered a hamburger and
he said, I think you should get cheese on it.

Speaker 5 (24:07):
It's not nice.

Speaker 3 (24:08):
I was so glad he's a very very great person.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
To meet you and tell me if I'm onto something here.
You seem like someone that regardless of what you look
like or didn't look like, or what you had or
didn't have, whoever you were, you have a very very
healthy and kind of guileless sense of who you are,
and you presented yourself to people your entire life, going
this is who I am, and if you like me, great,
and if you don't, there's another six point five billion

(24:33):
people out there to go for it. Am I right?

Speaker 3 (24:35):
I mean that's my stress to me. That's the most
lovely way of putting it. I mean, I think I
think I always had a feeling like if you just
stick around and continue to be yourself, the correct people
will find you. And that's something that's been so wonderful
about the show is that it kind of confirmed that
for me, which is not everyone watches it, but the
people who watch it, understand it, and that feeling I'm
sure you've had this before of uniting with your appropriate

(24:56):
audience and sort of uniting with your people is like
about as comforting as feelings get.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
Saturday Night, eight pm, nineteen sixty seven to sometime in
the seventies, I'm a young girl sitting with my family
in front of our black and white TV watching the
Carol Brunette Show. It was an hour long variety show,
and the comedy sketches still make me laugh to this day.
Carol's comedic timing along with her cast mates was pure joy.

(25:29):
Tim Conway would always add libs something in a skit
and they all would laugh so hard you thought they
were wetting their pants on stage. Carol said she never
broke up on purpose, and at the end of each
show the laugh stopped, but the warmth grew. Carol would
sing the closing theme song that began with I'm so
glad we had this time together. When she finished singing,

(25:52):
she would tug on her ear, which I later found
out was a silent message for her grandmother that raised her.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
My guest today is Carol Burnett.

Speaker 5 (26:03):
What brings you to terror?

Speaker 4 (26:07):
You?

Speaker 1 (26:08):
You vixen, You Starlet, I love you. That gown is gorgeous.

Speaker 5 (26:14):
Thank you Salt and the Wind, and I just couldn't
resist it.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
That's Carol as Starlett O'Hara making a grand entrance wearing
a set of curtains as a dress with the rod
still attached. Harvey Korman is smitten as Captain Ratt Butler
in this Gone with the Wind parody on the Carol
Burnett Show. The chemistry between the players on this show Burnett, Corman,

(26:38):
and also Vicky Lawrence, Tim Conway and Lyle Wagoner is legendary.
The show ran for eleven seasons. The first five seasons
have been recently released on DVD. They haven't been seen
since airing over forty years ago.

Speaker 5 (26:53):
It is incredible and you see them and it's the
first time we did the soap opera take off, the
first I'm you know, Vicky, and when we started out
and we were pretty raw, pretty raw.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
We're going to get to that because when I watched
the show, I saw so many little tells and so
many little things about how you guys crack each other up. Obviously,
oh yes, and there's things you guys do to each
other and you can just see you almost with joy
and almost loathing that they're like, you're kind of torturing.

Speaker 5 (27:25):
It's just like getting the giggles in church.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
Yes, you know.

Speaker 5 (27:28):
But Alec, when we started the show, I wanted to
do it as a live show. We couldn't really do
it live because the studio, which I loved that studio
because it was like a TV TV City Studio thirty three,
which is like a little theater, you know, it's like
senium and the seats are down. It's not like the

(27:50):
tiered things that you have, you know when when other shows,
you know, and so I loved that, but we couldn't.
There were no flies in the theater. By that I
mean where you could fly the scenery in and out
and really do a live show. But I wanted it
to go fast because we had a studio audience there
and I couldn't stand to keep them waiting because if

(28:12):
they get bored and sit there for a long time
while we take our time changing clothes and so forth,
we lose them. So we lose that energy and enthusiasm
that you get when an audience is hot. So I
would have a bit with the stage hands that I
could do a skin out change faster than they could.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
Lose that sofa across the rough.

Speaker 5 (28:34):
And also I didn't want I didn't want to stop
and do pickups something went wrong. I figured, you know,
unless the scenery fell down and knocked us out ahead,
I wanted to keep going. So when somebody would add
lib or do a bit that we had not done before,
we never broke up on purpose ever. Ever, I just well,

(28:56):
let's right, it.

Speaker 1 (28:57):
Was understood that you would add lib. It was understood.
That was well, we.

Speaker 5 (29:01):
Never said it. It just started happening, so we just
let it go.

Speaker 1 (29:05):
Who was the bad boy in church? Usually? Do you
have comedy insurance?

Speaker 5 (29:12):
He asked, yeah, yeah, because Harvey was trying to put
him on, and then Tim came up and topped him.
I don't suppose you have comedy insurance down there, do you?

Speaker 1 (29:23):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (29:23):
It was brilliant.

Speaker 1 (29:25):
I don't believe when you watch this shows, when you
watch these shows, your lost episodes, so that audiences from
our show understand that it was sixty seven through seventy eight, correct,
Those eleven years and the first five years are the
shows you're referring to as the lost episodes. And when
you see so this is the crowd young yes, and

(29:46):
you see over eleven years people get older. Yes, Harvey
has a nice kind of auburn color to his hair,
and then Harvey has like a steel color to his hair.
VICKI and Vicky grows older. Everybody, not in any bad way,
but everybody. Eleven years is a long time. You don't
see that on TeV. Be matured, be matured. But I
will say with all sincerity that I don't think you'd

(30:08):
have to go to Fred Astaire and Jeene Kelly in
my mind to find someone who is as trim and
fit and lithe as you on stage. You never had
to exercise a day in your life. The show was
your work out. The things you do when you're scissoring
your way across the floor during the fire scene because

(30:31):
you think the fire is happening. I look at you
and going, my god, look at this woman, what she's
doing to herself. Was it physically as demanding as it seemed?
I never felt that you didn't know.

Speaker 5 (30:42):
I just in it. Well, you know, the adrenaline starts
pumping when you're performing and everything, and I'm really not
that live. I mean, I still can't touch my toes
without bending my knees. I'm not that good, but I
was able to do a lot of stunts and things
like that. I don't know, I just threw myself into it.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
You don't think about it when you're doing it.

Speaker 5 (31:04):
And I never hurt myself. I got a few bruises
here and there once in a while, but I never
broke a bone jumping out of windows, falling downstairs.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
It crashing through doors with Burt Rentals exactly. Yeah, it's
always funny. I can do it if the characters doing
that you know that I'm saving a baby from climbing
into a well.

Speaker 5 (31:20):
I totally agree. And in fact, I never knew sometimes
how I was going to do a character until I
got into the outfit. Interesting, I worked from the outside in.
You know some actors work from the inside out. There
were lots of times I had no idea what I
was going to do until I went into the costume

(31:40):
fitting and saw what Bob Mackie had created for me.

Speaker 1 (31:44):
How did that union with him and that collaboration with
him begin Where did you first meet.

Speaker 5 (31:49):
Bob Well when we were getting ready to do the show,
and we said, you know, costuming is going to be
really important because the costume designer isn't going to just
design for me. That costume designer is going to design
for everybody you see on the screen, dancers, singers, guest stars,
rep company. Everything you see has to be coordinated by

(32:13):
the one person. So we had seen Alice in Wonderland
on television. I remember Carol Channing was a Queen of
Diamonds or hearts or something like that, but fantastic, wonderful costuming.
And then I'd seen Mitzi Keener I think was in Vegas,

(32:35):
and aside from the gorgeous gowns she wore, she also
did a lot of fall down humor and you know,
fat suits and crazy outfits and so forth. And the
common denominator was Bob Mackie, and we said, you know,
we've got to meet Bob Mackie and see if maybe
he would be the one. So we got in touch
with him and he came over to our house bing bong.

(32:58):
I opened the door and there stood this guy that
looked like he was twelve years old. Yeah, just fresh
and adorable, and he came in. He was about twenty four,
twenty four to twenty five years old, and we just
liked him right away. We knew he had the talent.
So we hired him right then on the spot, and
it was one of the best decisions. You see me,

(33:18):
who was we my husband? Just talk about your husband, well, Joe,
Joe Hamilton. I was the producer of the Gary Moore Show.
That's where we met. And so when I was going
to do my show, of course he was going to
be the producer.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
So we were and you were on Broadway.

Speaker 5 (33:34):
I had been. And then we moved to California. How
was that for you, moving to California? Yeah, well already
I was raised there. Oh yeah, I was raised in
your grandmother in Hollywood.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
I didn't know that. Yeah, I'm mean, I know you
grew up in San Antonio.

Speaker 5 (33:47):
No, I grew up. I was seven years old. And
then we left and moved to Hollywood.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
We at a granny's house. That's right, We're in Hollywood.

Speaker 5 (33:55):
A one room apartment, one block north of Hollywood Boulevard.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
The one Now this is you pulled on your ear. Yeah,
that was to say hi, to say hello to her. Yes, yes,
she And where was she at the end of her life?
Still in California.

Speaker 5 (34:08):
She was still in Californa.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
Did she come and see? Well?

Speaker 5 (34:11):
She she died before I got my show, but she
had seen me do the Gary Moore Show, in the
Sullivan Show and so forth.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
I'm just thrilled by what you accomplished. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (34:21):
Well, at first, when I got the chance to go
to New York from California, because I wanted to be
on Broadway, I wanted to be ethel Merman and Mary Martin,
you know that. And she was not for it. She said,
your bloodstooth and you'll be dead in a week in
New York.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
Why do you think she said that?

Speaker 5 (34:39):
She didn't want me to go.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
She was trying to talk you out of that. Yeah,
she didn't want to lose you. Correct to show business.
Correct is the sodom and gomorrow. She just didn't want
me to be away from her.

Speaker 5 (34:50):
Yeah, to leave her. But when I got my first show,
it was a Paul Winchell Kitty TV show. I auditioned
and I got a gig on that, and I called
Nanny and I said, Nanny, I'm going to be on
Paul Winchell's show Saturday. And she said, we'll say hello
to me. I don't think they're gonna let me say Sanny. Yes,
So we we figured out i'd pull my ear which

(35:14):
meant hi, Nanny, I love you. And then later when
I got successful, it meant high nanny, I love you. Your
checks on the way.

Speaker 1 (35:23):
Yeah, and when you go how would you describe when
you're on Gary Moore Show? You're one of a company, yes,
and you come to Los Angeles to do your show
and you're part of a company, but you're not just
part of a company. You're the star of the show.
It's your show. However, I remember transition, but.

Speaker 5 (35:44):
I remember Gary Moore, and I learned a lot from him.
He was so wonderful and it was his show, The
Gary Moore Show, and it was very popular, variety comedy
variety show. And Derberd Kirby was a sidecar. Gerbert and
Me and I'm Mary and Laura were the second bananas,
but he never treated us as second bananas. For instance, Alec,

(36:06):
we would come in on a Monday to read the
script for that week, and he'd look at it and
he said, and he'd have a joke or something. He said,
you know, I can't I can't give this joke to
Dirward he can do it better than me. Or give
this line to Carol. She she can say it funnier
than I can't. So it was a true rep company.

(36:26):
And that's what I learned about my Showmple. He set
a true you know, so his name was on it.
But we were a true rep company. My name was
you know, at the head of it. We were a
true rep company. Because when that happens and you don't
want to hog it, you know, the show gets better.

(36:46):
You give it to Tim, you give it to who's
got yeah and do it?

Speaker 2 (36:52):
You know.

Speaker 5 (36:53):
Oh, you know, years ago when I was doing the
Garrymore Show, one of the guests that week one week
was ed Wynn, you know, the old wonderful Vaudevillian comedian.
And so we were sitting around lunch one day and
he was regaling us with stories and stuff, and he
said he started to talk about the difference between a

(37:13):
comic and a comedic actor, and Gary said, what is it?
He said, Well, a comic says funny things like Bob Hope.
A comedic actor like Jack Benny says things funny.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
Well, is that good? Who was the woman you're in
a sketch, the one with the French Revolutionary sketch February She.

Speaker 5 (37:40):
Was on our show nineteen times. She's still with us,
Nanny's about. She's in her nineties now, and she was
wonderful to work with, absolutely wonderful.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
You are You see you're talking to someone who you know.
Back then, show business was show business. He did Broadway,
did sitcoms and variety shows like yours, the old great
variety shows you don't see as much anymore. You did
game shows. Password, they passed Alan Ludden, Yes, you saw.
You saw Jean Rayburn with that antenna like microphone.

Speaker 5 (38:16):
The match game. Richard Dawson was.

Speaker 1 (38:20):
Oh my gosh. And who was the one that was
Klugman's wife. Oh, oh, Brett Brett, Summers, Brett, those people,
because you knew they all had like a flask underneath
the desk were having a drink. It was a party.

Speaker 5 (38:34):
Well, they did that with the Hollywood Square.

Speaker 1 (38:36):
Hollywood Square, it'd.

Speaker 5 (38:37):
Have they would have breaks and everybody would.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
Get snucker exactly. We would do. Paul into my house
to harass my mother. I had a childhood that was
just immersed. It was just a wash in this comedy.
I watched you, I watched Gleason, I watched Alan Funt.
I mean, I'm a kid born in nineteen fifty eight,

(39:00):
grew up in the sixties watching TV. Pretty much abandoned
TV after that. And then I go and I go
to acting school, and of course everyone wants to do
O'Neill and check Off and Ibsen and we all want
to plumb the depths of our soul, and rightfully so.
But then I do a sitcom and I realized I'm
stealing from all those people that I saw, And no
one more than Corman, no one more than Mean. He

(39:23):
is so talented. He was one is timing and his
tone he could.

Speaker 5 (39:30):
When he did Zachary Scott in Mildred Fears, you know,
unbelievable how he was, smarmy he was, and he channeled
Clark Gable. I mean, I swear he didn't know how
he was. He was so nervous that week when we
were going to do Win with the Wind and he said,
I can't do Gable. Okay, But the minute he got

(39:51):
into the drag, he became again.

Speaker 1 (39:54):
What I was talking about.

Speaker 5 (39:55):
He became costume led the way, yeah, and that wig
and the mus sash and the whole outfit and everything.
He became Clark Gable.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
The show is, of course, I mean I want to
talk about it in terms of not how things have
changed because I think people beat that to death a
little bit. But I mean, you're a woman, it's your show.
And did everybody treat you the way you wanted to
be treated back then? Or was all like yeah, yeah, sure, honey,
put Joe on the phone.

Speaker 5 (40:24):
That's about right.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
They did well.

Speaker 5 (40:26):
I it was my doing too, you know. I in
that era, the only one who really would speak up
was Lucy. She was very strong. But it's not in
my nature to take over confront or anything. You know,
if a sketch wasn't working or something, instead of like

(40:46):
gleaes and or Sid would say, look, guys, this stinks, now,
come on, you got to fix it. But but you
know they would do that. I would say, I'd call
the writers down into the rehearsal hall and I'd say,
you know, guys, I'm not doing this too well. Do
you think maybe you could help me out with a
different line here or there, because you know, otherwise I

(41:08):
would have been a bitch in their other way, you know.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
And yeah, and I hired the writers. Joe, how many
writers did you have.

Speaker 5 (41:16):
Well, we had about seven for the comedy, and we
had three special material writers who did all the original
music and songs in medley and finales.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
And sofa Like SNL house, they have a music department.

Speaker 5 (41:30):
Right, and so that was fine. But I would have
a say and I'd walk into the writer's room. Ernie
Rosen was our head writer, and I say, you know,
I'd love to do Mildred Peers. Can we do Mildred
Pierce someday? Or I want to do Postman Always Rings twice,
Double Indemnity, African Queen Love Story, all of those you got, well,

(41:50):
we never did that. Let me go back and do
that one, you know. And so they would do that.
But I did dream a sketch once.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
I dreamed can you say it on the air?

Speaker 5 (42:01):
Was sure it was. I dreamed it, and we put
it on the air. I was in a shower, I
mean the door covered me, you know, and the water
was coming down. I was, you know, getting wet and
washing and I'm singing. Well in the moment I wake up,
I dream a little dream of you and I'm singing.
The band is playing so forth and then I turned

(42:25):
the water off, get a towel, kind of dry off,
wrap it around myself, open the door, exit and the
camera pans in and there are three musicians and tuxedos
playing ringing.

Speaker 1 (42:38):
Wet is there.

Speaker 5 (42:41):
It worked, It was very funny.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
So you had those writers, and how much writing did
you do? I did expand over the years where you
became more confident. So how about this and about this one?

Speaker 5 (42:51):
We wrote on our feet. When we'd get the sketch,
we'd start to rehearse and Harvey would say, you know,
can I I just feel like saying this and instead
of that, so we do it. I would do it
tim so forth, and I have to compliment our writers.
They never complained. They came down and if it was
funny and working, they said, great, keep it in.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
Carol tells a story about her friend Lucy hall Ball
addressing the writers of The Lucy Show when the pilot
wasn't working. Lucy wasn't afraid to speak her mind. She
told her kid, that's when they put the S on
the end of my last name. Explore the here's the
thing archives. I talk with Kristin Wigg, who early on

(43:38):
preferred her scenes unscripted.

Speaker 4 (43:41):
For some reason. It was less scary to me than
having words in front of me, because I think when
you're handed a script, you know that you're supposed to
do it in a certain way, and people will think like,
how is she reading this? But when you're improvising, there's
nothing to compare it, tou and you can do whatever,
Blanche Dupi.

Speaker 1 (43:59):
Yeah, Now take a listen at Here'sthething, Dot Org. This
is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
The Carol Burnett Show was an ensemble show that welcomed

(44:19):
the biggest stars of television and film as its guests.
Burt Reynolds, Jerry Lewis, Phyllis Diller, the Jackson Five Share.
Everyone wanted to work with Carol.

Speaker 5 (44:30):
That was what we talked about, you know, at the
get go, I said, you know, aside from having a
rep company, I want to have guest stars. But I
don't want to have a guest star, say like a
Steve Lawrence who would come on and just sing a
song and maybe we'd see him next in the finale.
I wanted to integrate everybody into the show so many times,

(44:51):
I mean almost every sketch, Almost every guest star we had,
we put in sketches, so they were throughout the.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
Show, remember of the company.

Speaker 5 (44:59):
Yeah, correct, And so that's certainly what Burt.

Speaker 1 (45:02):
Was without naming names. When people came out, were some
better than others? Yes? What did you do when they
came on? Did you just kind of diminish the role
for the show?

Speaker 5 (45:10):
No? No, they were all pretty good, but some were.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
You guys have knows for that.

Speaker 5 (45:14):
Fabulous Steve Lawrence is one of the funniest human beings
in the world and hysterical, and he was one of
my favorite sketch performers. We did Postman Always Drinks twice,
We did African Queen together, we did Double Indemnity together,
we did From Here to Eternity together.

Speaker 1 (45:33):
I mean.

Speaker 5 (45:34):
And he was brilliant. And so when we first went
into syndication many years ago, we had to cut all
the music out, so it was only a half hour
in syndication of the sketches because of cost of clarences
and all of that. So Steve, of course all of
his music was cut out and so forth. But one
time during this time, he and Edie were in an

(45:57):
airport one day and these teenage girls ran up up
to him and said, you're that funny guy on the
Brunette Show. And he used to say, if you're long
cut my song, don't.

Speaker 1 (46:07):
Cut the cut my song. I can sing anytime, yeah,
but I can't do this anytime. Who were some of
the other ones that came on that you Ken.

Speaker 5 (46:16):
Barry wonderful, wonderful, but sing dance. He was in Chris Well.
He's a great dancer, great hoofer, and he sings and
he's funny. He was adorable and so we used him
a lot. Bernadette Peters was the first.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
She was a kid.

Speaker 5 (46:34):
She was the first person we asked, we signed. She
wasn't on our very first show, but she was the
first person we asked to be on our show.

Speaker 1 (46:42):
Who was some of that surprised you? Oh gosh, if
you remember who was a movie star, maybe they came
on that surprised you.

Speaker 5 (46:49):
Betty Grabel. No, we had Betty because I was raised
in the forties and so you know, she was my
favorite movie star and so I was thrilled when we
got her on the show. She was funny, very very sharp, funny,
wonderful sense of humor. And at the same time on
that show was Martha Ray. So we had Betty Grabel

(47:11):
and Martha Ray. And that was the first time we
ever did the soap opera as the Stomach Turns, and
they were in it.

Speaker 1 (47:18):
Yeah, your show plays during a time of incredible political
upheaval in the country, the late sixties in the early seventies.
It doesn't get any more tumultuous, pretty heavy. And was
that something that you cast an eye toward or did
you decide to ignore it completely?

Speaker 5 (47:39):
Well, I don't know if it was a decision to
ignore it, but we just didn't do it. Nothing political, No,
because I don't know. I'm a clown and I just
wanted to a lot.

Speaker 1 (47:50):
I'm going to ask you about it.

Speaker 5 (47:51):
I just want belly laughs. That's what I wanted, you know,
like a Sid Caesar. You know, I loved his show,
And so that's really.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
You consider yourself a comic or a comic comedic actor,
comedic act, right exactly, because for you that range I
want to get back to the Vietnam era thing. But
for you, you see you come in and of course
the wardrobe and the wig and the eyebrows make it
in Mildred fierce the moment you walk in. But also
you have that core of Joan oozing out of you

(48:24):
when you walk on. Oh, I just and then you
dump out of it. And you can go from one
extreme to the other and then you're a clown and
then you're doing voices and you're the character's collapsing in
that way and.

Speaker 5 (48:36):
Kind of you know, in the family sketch, Eunice and
Mama and Ed you know.

Speaker 6 (48:42):
Sorry, sorry, Well we did a little We did about
thirty five of those, and one time we had Maggie
Smith on the show, and so the sketch was with
the family.

Speaker 5 (48:53):
Maggie Smith was a school teacher and she called Eunice
and Ed and Mama in to talk about the fact
that Unison Ed's son was a bully. Bubba was you
never saw him, but was a Bubba in school, and
she wanted to discuss it with us. Well, during the
course of the sketch, she discovers why poor Bubba is

(49:15):
that way. It's because of this horribly dysfunctional family.

Speaker 4 (49:19):
Right.

Speaker 5 (49:20):
So, I don't know whose idea it was in rehearsal.
Might have been Harvey's, it might have been mine, I
don't know. We decided, just as an acting experiment, let's
not do it as these characters. Let's do this sketch
as if it's a one act And so we did it.
We didn't go over the top with the screeching and

(49:41):
all of that. We did it very straight. Now, those
sketches never had jokes in them. They were all about character.
So when we did that, it was devastating. It was
like doing a very serious one act when Eunice is
trying to to defend her role as a mother. It

(50:06):
was very very serious. So that was really great writing.
And then we topped it off with the way we
talked and all of that scream like that you and
then it became funny. It was a great piece of
writing and a great acting experiment. We just did it
in rehearsal.

Speaker 1 (50:23):
You partnered with your then husband. Yes, no, you didn't
stay married to him.

Speaker 5 (50:27):
We were married for almost twenty years.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
Right, and you got divorced. But during the time you
were married, that was a good thing.

Speaker 5 (50:34):
We were doing the show.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
Yeah, you're doing the show, and you're doing a show
with your husband, day in, day out with your husband. See,
I love that idea, And some people think that's anathema
to them. They never want to do that.

Speaker 5 (50:43):
Well, is that like, Well, I kind of liked the
extent you want to say, I let him be the boss.
He protected you. Yeah, he totally protected me. And you know,
I could just come in and have fun. Right, he
worked with the writers and the this and the that
you know that I would work with the writers was
when we were staging it.

Speaker 1 (51:04):
And that's when do you think you were funny?

Speaker 5 (51:06):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (51:06):
Did you crack him up?

Speaker 5 (51:08):
I'm not really that way in person, as they say
in real life. Don't you love that term? What's somebody
like in real life? I'm very kind of quiet?

Speaker 1 (51:17):
And was he honey?

Speaker 5 (51:19):
Yeah, he had a great sense of him.

Speaker 4 (51:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:20):
He wasn't a performer in any way.

Speaker 5 (51:22):
Well, he actually was a member of the Skylarks, which
was a okay, The Skylarks was a great musical group
like the High Lows and so for you know, and
he started out writing special material music material for the
Dinoshaur show years ago.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
Wow, you know your show was done in a different
era in terms of standards and practices. What was that like?
Did you sit there sometimes they go, No, they left
us alone, They left you alone. We had when you
stick that sword in Harvey Korman's crotch? What do they
say about that? It was an accident? Was it an accident? Oh?

Speaker 5 (52:03):
Yes? You oh, you know one time though we were
doing we had this wonderful censor that sat and you
know Charlie Petty John, God bless him, and he was
a hoot. We just loved him anyway. He never bothered
with anything. So Harvey and I were doing a sketch
where I was a nudist and I was being interviewed
by him like Edward R. Murrow, you know, and I'm

(52:25):
behind a fence that says keep out and a bare
shoulder and you know, I'm leaning on the fence bare
legs with high top sneakers on. So it was jokes
about a nudist colony, right. So one of the lines
was Harvey said, so tell me, how how do you
new this? What do you do for recreation? And my line, well,

(52:45):
we have dances every Saturday night, you know. And he said, oh,
how do you new this dance? And my line was
very carefully well. For some reason the higher ups Charlie
didn't mind that line. They said, no, that's too too suggestive.
Come up with something else, are you ready? So this
is what we came up with, and this is what
went on the air. So what do you do, Well,

(53:08):
we have dances every Saturday night? Well, how do you
knew this dance?

Speaker 1 (53:13):
Cheek to cheek?

Speaker 5 (53:15):
And and that was funnier.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
You know, there's material that gets revived and it comes up,
none more so than Annie and you are the miss
Hannigan as far as I'm concerned.

Speaker 5 (53:33):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
And who directed that film? John Houston? Was that like
for you?

Speaker 5 (53:37):
Well, it's very funny, you know. He was not really
uh into musicals or right.

Speaker 1 (53:45):
King.

Speaker 4 (53:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (53:46):
I have a theory. Race Stark produced it, of course, okay,
And I have a theory. Race Dark never liked to
get a no out of anybody. I think this is
all in my mind that Ray called John Hugheston to
play Daddy war Bucks. That's my theory. And because he
would have been wonderful Daddy Warbucks, and uh, he didn't.

(54:09):
Mister Houston didn't want to do it. So Ray, not
wanting to get a no, said well then how about
directing it? That's my theory, you know. But he was
find the movie. Finny did the movie. Yeah, and Tim
Curry and Bernadette Peters we were the villains, the three villains,
and I love doing it. I loved doing uh. And

(54:31):
something that was just great fun was we would sing live.
I sang Little Girls live. It was not pre recorded.
The orchestra was previously you.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
Were I was not living. They would play, they would
and I sang, they played a track, and you sang,
I sang live and great number you and him doing
you doing that and him doing easy Street?

Speaker 4 (54:53):
Right?

Speaker 1 (54:53):
How was John to work two takes?

Speaker 5 (54:55):
That said print?

Speaker 1 (54:56):
That's it. He knew what he wanted, had the right people.

Speaker 5 (55:00):
One of the funniest pieces of direction I ever got
was when I went to him, I said, Uh, I
talked to him. I said, you know, I think she
should drink, because she's really drink. I mean, she should
have a little you know, you know, uh knock him
back every so often because she's miserable, you know, and

(55:21):
asy's kids and so forth. So the only kind of
solid she gets is to knock him back a little bit,
you know. And so he said, well that's a very
good idea there, Yes, that's good. And so I said, okay,
so I'm not going to play her drunk, but I'm
going to play her like she you know, she kind of.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
She needs one.

Speaker 5 (55:37):
She needs one. And so the first scene was with
Hannigan and uh the secretary who's coming in to get
to uh get Annie, you know. And so I said, mister,
he call me John. Dear, Uh, mister John, how do
you see this? How do you want me to do?

Speaker 1 (55:56):
He said?

Speaker 5 (55:56):
He said, just covort, dear, for I had we finished,
We wrapped. But what they did, they made a big mistake.
They filmed Easy Street with four hundred dancers and singers
on the Easy Street with a monkey grinder, and we

(56:17):
would jump on fire escapes and jump all It just
was overkill. At that time. They spent a million dollars
on that one number. It took a week to shoot,
and Tim and Bernadette and I said, this is it
should just be the three villains in the Orphanage, because
that's the way it was in the original. They are
killing this song. But okay, so it wrapped. So I

(56:41):
went back to Honolulu and I had a procedure done
on my chin. I had always wanted a bit because
I had a weak chin. And so this oral surgeon, no, no,
he pulled it somehow. He pulled the out three millimeters.

Speaker 1 (57:01):
Didn't have the full John DeLorean implant.

Speaker 5 (57:03):
No, no implant. So anyway, so I had a little
more of a chin, which I felt was good. Wasn't
Kirk Douglas. It was just a little more of a chin. Okay,
So I had that done by this oral surgeon in Honolulu. Now,
two months later, I get a call from racetar we're
going to reshoot the Easy Street number. I said, well,

(57:24):
that's great. I said, but Ray, you know now I
have a chin And he said oh. And I explained
it to him. He said, oh, with all that Hannigan drag,
you know, not gonna worry about it. Also, it's not
going to be pictured a picture. It'll be a totally
separate thing. But we're just going to do it with
the three of you in the orphanage. And it is
a great So we all flew back and we report

(57:45):
to work and there's John Houston sitting here and so forth,
and we're going to shoot it. And he said, well,
this is what I want to do. He said, I
would like to take it from when Carol ran into
the closet to get Annie's lock it. When she comes
back out, that's where we'll pick it up.

Speaker 1 (58:04):
And I thought, oh oh.

Speaker 5 (58:05):
So I went up and I said, mister Hugh called
me John, mister Houston, Uh, two months ago, when I
ran into the closet, I didn't.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
Have a chin, Brave exactly.

Speaker 5 (58:21):
Now you're picking up where I come out of the
closet and I have a chin. I just thought I
would call that to your attention. And here is what
he said. He thought and thought, and he said, oh well, well,
dear than, just come out looking determined. Is that a
great piece of direction?

Speaker 1 (58:40):
I remember that. That's clever. I want to say this.
You know who you are to all of us who
grew up watching TV then, and I can say to
you from the bottom of my heart and without equivocation,
what people think of when they think of you, when
they think of you as you're the most talented woman
was ever on TV. You're the most talented woman that

(59:03):
was ever on TV. You really are. Because there's a
lot of people who are like you, and they did
some things that were great, but none of them did
as much as you did as well as you did
and had the warmth and the sweetness and the nut
and the insanity. I mean, I'm assuming there's some therapists
out there who must know something about you out there

(59:25):
in Beverly Hills. We won't get into that, but you
are the most talented woman that was ever on TV. Ever.

Speaker 5 (59:33):
Excuse me, I've got to go down and buy a
bigger hat.

Speaker 1 (59:38):
Just look determined. Just just look determined today. Just cavort,
just cavort out there in New York.

Speaker 5 (59:45):
I'm so glad we had this time together, just to
have a laugh.

Speaker 1 (59:57):
If you've seen the Carol Burnett Show, then you wreckon
nies this tune. Carol ended her show each week singing
this song that her former husband and then producer wrote
for her. The Screen Actors Guild will bestow the twenty
fifteen Life Achievement Award upon Carol Burnett early next year.
This is Alec Baldwin you're listening to. Here's the thing