October 15, 2024 • 18 mins
I HAVE BEEN A FAN OF VICKI LAWRENCE FOR MY ENTIRE LIFE Because I grew up with The Carol Burnett Show, which my mom and I watched religiously for a good part of my childhood. And Vicki Lawrence was a huge part of that show, and she's bringing herself and her iconic character Mama to town for a "two woman" show. She's coming to the Paramount next March and tickets go on sale THIS FRIDAY (I will remind you Friday) and I've got tickets to give away after I talk to her at 1pm. I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS INTERVIEW!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yay Bray, you're up because I'm so excited.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Okay, you guys, if you've been listening to the show
for any length of time, you know that I am
not a person who is motivated by jealousy. I want
to see everyone succeed. I want to see everyone reach
their full potential. But if there was ever a career
that I am jealous of, it is the career of
Vicky Lawrence, who has been a part of my life
since I was a child watching the Carol Burnette Show
(00:25):
with my mom. She has had a hit song, she
has performed on Broadway, she has worked with some of
the greatest comedic minds of our generation, and now she
is joining me on the show. Vicky Lawrence, thank you
so much for making time for me today.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Oh I'm happy to talk to you. I'm just trying
to get my rotten dog off the balcony.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Oh what kind of dog do you have?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Well, he's a little poodle mix that we rescued. Tobe,
come here right now. We're on the air, live, Toby.
I am time for this.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Toby doesn't care. He doesn't care about light's camera action.
Toby's got his own agents.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Who I am either by there you go.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Nothing like nothing like your dog to make you realize
that you're not as much of a celebrity as you.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Think you are right there.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
You know, in hearing my introduction, I hope you understand
that your career and the comedy you've created and has
just been such a huge part of my life. You've
even performed in a relatively obscure musical from the nineteen
seventies that I still sing songs to on a regular basis,
(01:32):
which is I'm taking my act and or getting my
act together and taking it on the road.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
So I've just been.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I've never seen it. My mom saw it in the
nineteen seventies, came home with the album, and we were
a Broadway musical family. That's what we listened to. So
I heard the record over and over and over again.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Loved the show.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
When I saw that in your bio, I was like, Oh,
my gosh, that's kind of special that I actually am
familiar with that show. Most most people are familiar with
your work on the Carol Burnett Show, where you created
probably one of the most iconic comedic characters in Mama,
and I'd love for you to talk to me a
little bit about what that was like because you were
(02:16):
the you were the baby on that show. You were
very young when you when you got onto Carol's show.
What was that experience like, I mean walking in the
first day, what were you thinking?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Well, I think it was like an out of body experience.
The first day on the Carol Burnett Show, we had
rehearsal halls on the third floor of CBS, and I
didn't have a lot to do because I was really
hired to play her sister in one sketch Carol and Sish.
So I went down to the floor where all the
stages are and I walked into Studio thirty three where
(02:51):
we were going to be shooting the Carol Burnett Show.
And at the time, Red Skelton was doing his show
in there. I mean, after jog your memory, Mandy, you
were that out of google, but he was doing his
show and I went into the that I just followed
the piano music and there was Red Skelton. He loved
(03:12):
a doodle on the piano. He asked who I was.
I told him what was going on, and he asked
invited me in, and he just kept doodling and doodling
and wanted to hear my story, and at the end
he wrote Vicky across the sheet music and signed it
and gave it to me and wished me good luck.
(03:33):
And I still have that sheet music. He shot for
maybe another season before the Carol Burnett Show kind of
really took over that stage. But CBS back in the
day was such an incredibly fun place to be and
Sonny to Share was next door. The Young and the
Restless was across the hall. The Smothers brothers were down
the hall. Well. I remember the night All and the
(03:55):
Family premiered distinctly because back in the day they had
a switchboard and they put like a bazillion girl on
a switchboard because they were pretty sure that, you know,
what was going to hit the fan when America met
Archie Bunker, and they were not wrong. They know they
weren't wrong, but yeah, because it was really groundbreaking and
(04:18):
television changing for sure. Anyway, that place was so special.
I'm not even sure there's any studio like that anymore.
I know there's not. I know there's not.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
You know, what you guys did kind of, you know,
creating this incredible topical sketch comedy show that touched so
many cultural kind of touchstones, do you I wish there
was anything like this now, but it's almost like we've
moved on from that kind of comedy. I mean, do
(04:49):
you see any potential for any kind of revival of
the kind of stuff that you guys put together.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
I don't think so. I mean, I guess Saturday Night
Live is the closest thing, but I don't feel like
it's as consistent as we were. And a lot of
times you fall in love with somebody on Saturday Night
Live and then they're gone.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yeah, But I don't there are there's much speculation. We
had a live orchestra twenty five pieces, and a conductor
who arranged, and we had Bob Mackie, and I would
assume that one of his gowns for Carol would now
cost twenty grand, twenty five grand probably. We had a
(05:31):
huge staff of writers, We had a beautiful sets, and
it was a well oiled machine. It ran like a top.
I mean, if you if my schedule said that I
was going to be done at three PM, I could
make a three thirty appointment and keep it. And that
doesn't happen ever in television now, not ever. I mean,
(05:52):
Carol and I talk about it because we'll go out
and do comedy stuff. And she says, it doesn't matter
how funny you are. It's the picture in the back
with a little crooked on the wall. They'll do the
whole thing over, I guess because they think it's going
in a time ball. I said, well, we were in
a time ball. She said, I know. It's just very
(06:12):
different now. There are still you know.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
There are still a lot of clips of the Carol
Burnett Show, you know, cycling through the internet now. And
I can't tell you how much joy it gives me
when one comes across my social media feed and there's
one specifically, and it's a Mama's Family sketch where Tim Conway,
I guess, goes rogue with a story about Sime's elephants.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
And I've seen it. I've seen it a hundred times.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
If I've seen it once, and I still laugh out loud,
And that, to me is a testament to the to
the kind of comedy that hit everybody equally right. You
didn't have to, You weren't picking on one group, you weren't.
You weren't being political, you weren't sort of being mean.
It was just comedy that just went across the spectrum.
(07:00):
What were your experiences like working on a show where
it seems like to the viewer where sometimes things.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Appeared to go off the rails.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Did they really go off the rails or was it
sort of a planned off the rails like that Siamese Elephancy.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Ever, it was never planned. I'll tell you the night
of the Elephant sketch. It yeah, it was a family sketch.
It was the very last season Harvey had left, so
it was Dick van Dyke. But when Tim was written
into those family sketches, Care pulled us all aside and
she said, you know how much I love these characters,
(07:38):
I don't want us breaking the fourth wall, which means
she didn't want people to break it up and let
the audience in on a joke. So we were to
be very disciplined that particular night. Who is the first
person that loses it? It's Caroll. So what happened was Tim
didn't follow the script. He and I never knew until
(07:59):
he was gone that he was dyslexic, so he had
a hard time reading the scripts. So he wrote much
of his own material. But the family sketches he would
always I mean, he just lived to break people up.
You know, he was just a little dickens And we
used to have que cards like Carol was black, Harvey
was red, I was green. Tim was blue. If you
(08:22):
looked out in y where the cameras were on any
given night and you saw one of Tim's cards that
said savor, that meant here comes the joke that it's
going to save the sketch that nobody has heard before.
So you just kind of fasten your them. You think, well,
here we go. So on that particular night he launched
into an elephant story which was not in the script
(08:43):
at all. And we used to do two shows. Of course,
Carol was the first one who lost it. I'm just
looking at her. She was like in my lap crying
and I'm just g get it together, woman, trying to
be as disciplined as I can. So on it. We
would do an afternoon in front of an audience. We
would have a break. We would do an evening show
(09:03):
in front of a new audience. During the break, you'd
go get dinner if you wanted, You would get your
makeup touched up. You would take a damp if you
wanted it. They would have a big production meeting and
then the director would come by your dressing room and
give you any notes, like we've changed your mark during
the dance number, we have changed your joke in the
(09:24):
family sketch, We've done this whatever it was. He knocked
on my dressing room door that night and he said,
I have only one note for you, Vic, the elephant
story will be different and good luck and I by
this time, I'm married to my husband, Al, who was
the makeup man on the show, and he's sitting in
the corner reading a magazine and I said, how in
(09:47):
the heck does he get away with it? And I'll
just looked up from his magazine and said get him
and went back to reading. And I thought, get him,
get him. I'm not the one that ever hardly did
that stuff on the show, but I kind of decided
that I would get him. And I think it was
such a surprise to everybody that that's why it got
(10:08):
such a huge laugh. I think the crew, the audience,
tim everybody went down because nobody expected little Vicky to
do that.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Let's talk about Mama for a minute. Where did the
character come from?
Speaker 2 (10:19):
And I know that for Carol a lot of times
her character development sort of was part of the costumes
that Bob Mackie provided, and they kind of gave her
this physicality of the costumes that she had. Was it
similar for you when you were creating Mama's.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Bob was always such a help with any character we were doing.
There were lots of times that we'd be struggling and
you'd get he would dress you on We'd start on Monday,
he'd dress you on Wednesday and he'd say, oh, well,
I know who I am now. He was just instrumental
in all of that. The family Sketches Mama was actually
(11:02):
written for Carol, and when she read the final draft
she didn't She loved units. She said, this is the
character that speaks to me, this is the character that
I want to play. Of course, the writers were very upset.
Then she said, I think Vicky would be great as Mama.
She said to Bob Mackie, don't you think we could Vicky?
We could make Vicky Mama. He said absolutely. The writers
(11:22):
now are doubly upset. Then we go into rehearsal on
Monday morning and Carol's decided she wants to do it
Southern because she just thinks it's like Tennessee. Williams on acid.
So now we're trying to do back. I'm trying to
find an older version of what Carol is doing because
(11:42):
I'm playing the mother. And Harvey's saying to me, boy,
did you get the part. The mother is the nuts
and bolts of any family kid, and you got the part.
So he was very encouraging. I went over to Bob
mckie's studio on Wednesday and when he dressed me and
I looked in the mirror, I went, oh, my god, exactly,
I am.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Well, I am from the Deep South.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
I'm actually from northern Florida, which is the Deep South
that is not Florida is not the Deep South, but
where I am from it is. And I I know
women just like Mama. And I knew women just like
Mama when I was a kid, So it resonated so
strongly with me and the culture that I was a
part of. But it was never disrespectful. It never felt
(12:28):
like you were making fun of people like Mama. You
were just having, you know, having a great time as Mama.
And it always came across that way, and as a kid,
I didn't get it, but as an adult I really
feel that way.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Well, if you could see my grandmother next to Mama.
We were separated at birth. She was from southern Missouri.
But ah, yes, yeah, you couldn't tell the part. I
think we went to the same hairdresser, the same uh
where we bought our dresses. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Tell me tell me about the show that you're bringing
to Denver in March of next year. It is Sunday,
March thirtieth at the Paramount Theater in Denver. It is
called Vicky Lawrence and Mama, a two women show. How
do you pull this off?
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Well? I knew when I'd put the show together that
everybody was going to want to see Mama because people
think of her like a real person. They'll ask me
all the time, where is she? Like I should run
in the phone booth and turn into her. So I
knew how popular she was. But I kind of wanted
to be me before I'm not anymore and wear some
pretty clothes and I think I'm kind of funny. So
(13:42):
we put my writing partner and I put the show
together where I basically I opened for Mama and I
get to my half of the show is largely autobiographical
because my life has been fairly comical. That all the
stuff that's happened to me. I mean, nobody gets taken
out of high school and put on national television when
(14:03):
they've never done any of that, and gets to, you know,
go to the Harvard School of Comedy in front of America.
I mean that just what happened to me doesn't happen. Ever,
we didn't even.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Get a chance to, yeah, to dip into your story,
which is absolutely incredible. It really is kind of a Hollywood,
you know, story that everybody dreams of.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
To your point, and that you were plucked.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
You were plucked at a very young age and had
a lot of incredible opportunities. But as I always say, Vicky,
if you don't take advantage of the opportunities, then you know,
as some people don't.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
You certainly did, absolutely did.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
So.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
I am excited about seeing this show and tickets go
on sale on Friday. But I wanted to ask you
if you and I always ask artists this, and some
artists will hedge and say, oh, I can't choose because
they're all like my children. But is there a favorite
sketch you have or is there a favorite moment that
you have from the Kraburnette show? And after you left
(15:02):
the show. What has been your favorite thing you've gotten
to do? You just had a great show with the
cool kids with some of my favorite comedians a few
years ago.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
And that's that show so much I thought, I thought.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
You know what, I don't know why it didn't last
very long. I just thought it was so topical because
we're all kind of aging together, and it spoke to
a lot of that at the same time.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
I love the show, but so fun, so fun.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Do you have a favorite moment from the Carol Burnette
Show and what was your favorite project after?
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Well? I have a several favorite moments from the Burnett Show.
I mean I loved when the family played games, like
when we played Sorry or when we played Sorry was
just fabulous. And there are a lot of outtakes from
that skitch because it was just so hilarious. It was
really hard to keep it together. So I love those.
(15:55):
But I think because I was so young, I was
the only I was I think the only cast member
that knew a lot of the musical people that they
would book on the show right to kind of keep
it topical. Like when Bobby Gentry came on, I was
beside myself and nobody else knew who Bobby Gentry was,
but O to Billy Joe was my story song when
I was a teenager. And when she came on the show,
(16:18):
Actually she was late to rehearsal the first day and
the stage manager called down to the front gate and
he said, has Bobby Gentry come through yet? And the
guy at the guard gate said, I haven't seen him.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Well go ahead.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Nobody had any idea who Bobby Gentry. Was like, oh
my god, you guys. And then the Jackson five. I
got to dance with all of those boys. I mean
that was just so special. Yeah. I liked a lot
of the musical guests.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Well, Vicky, we're almost at a time, but I just
wanted to ask. My husband has asked me to request,
are you going to be doing a rendition of the
night the lights went out in Georgia at this show
because he feels like that's really that that should be
the pinnacle of the program because he still loves the
song so much.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Well love it's the pinnacle. But yes, if you have
a juggernaut from the seventies, you lost sing it? You know?
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Oh of course, Oh so you do sing it? Okay? Great?
Now I want to let people know. After we get back, we're.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Going to give away some tickets to see the show Sunday,
March thirtieth. Tickets go and sale on Friday, and I
will remind everyone that they can buy these tickets because
I just want I think this is going to be
a sellout. I just I am predicting it, because if
you could see our text line from our listeners, so
many people are so excited.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
They want to know.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Have you written a book that they can buy? Like
they can't get enough of you? Vicky Lawrence.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Well, I wrote a book a long time ago, but
good heavens, I need to write another one now because
so much has happened since I wrote that one.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
We'll do it, and we'll have you on again.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Okay, good, I've written a couple of books.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah, Vicky Lawrence. It has been an absolute thrill for
me to be able to talk to you. I can't
tell you what a huge part of my life you've
been from far away and how much I appreciate all
that you guys provided in terms of just joy and
comedy and laughter for all of these years. I so
appreciate it, and I'm just so grateful that you are
(18:20):
still out there, and I hope that I get to
meet you and March when you come for the show.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
I would love to see that help you.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Do too, Yeah, Vicky Lawrence me thank you for your
time today.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
All right, thank you
Yay Bray, you're up because I'm so excited.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Okay, you guys, if you've been listening to the show
for any length of time, you know that I am
not a person who is motivated by jealousy. I want
to see everyone succeed. I want to see everyone reach
their full potential. But if there was ever a career
that I am jealous of, it is the career of
Vicky Lawrence, who has been a part of my life
since I was a child watching the Carol Burnette Show
(00:25):
with my mom. She has had a hit song, she
has performed on Broadway, she has worked with some of
the greatest comedic minds of our generation, and now she
is joining me on the show. Vicky Lawrence, thank you
so much for making time for me today.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Oh I'm happy to talk to you. I'm just trying
to get my rotten dog off the balcony.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Oh what kind of dog do you have?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Well, he's a little poodle mix that we rescued. Tobe,
come here right now. We're on the air, live, Toby.
I am time for this.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Toby doesn't care. He doesn't care about light's camera action.
Toby's got his own agents.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Who I am either by there you go.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Nothing like nothing like your dog to make you realize
that you're not as much of a celebrity as you.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Think you are right there.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
You know, in hearing my introduction, I hope you understand
that your career and the comedy you've created and has
just been such a huge part of my life. You've
even performed in a relatively obscure musical from the nineteen
seventies that I still sing songs to on a regular basis,
(01:32):
which is I'm taking my act and or getting my
act together and taking it on the road.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
So I've just been.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I've never seen it. My mom saw it in the
nineteen seventies, came home with the album, and we were
a Broadway musical family. That's what we listened to. So
I heard the record over and over and over again.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Loved the show.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
When I saw that in your bio, I was like, Oh,
my gosh, that's kind of special that I actually am
familiar with that show. Most most people are familiar with
your work on the Carol Burnett Show, where you created
probably one of the most iconic comedic characters in Mama,
and I'd love for you to talk to me a
little bit about what that was like because you were
(02:16):
the you were the baby on that show. You were
very young when you when you got onto Carol's show.
What was that experience like, I mean walking in the
first day, what were you thinking?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Well, I think it was like an out of body experience.
The first day on the Carol Burnett Show, we had
rehearsal halls on the third floor of CBS, and I
didn't have a lot to do because I was really
hired to play her sister in one sketch Carol and Sish.
So I went down to the floor where all the
stages are and I walked into Studio thirty three where
(02:51):
we were going to be shooting the Carol Burnett Show.
And at the time, Red Skelton was doing his show
in there. I mean, after jog your memory, Mandy, you
were that out of google, but he was doing his
show and I went into the that I just followed
the piano music and there was Red Skelton. He loved
(03:12):
a doodle on the piano. He asked who I was.
I told him what was going on, and he asked
invited me in, and he just kept doodling and doodling
and wanted to hear my story, and at the end
he wrote Vicky across the sheet music and signed it
and gave it to me and wished me good luck.
(03:33):
And I still have that sheet music. He shot for
maybe another season before the Carol Burnett Show kind of
really took over that stage. But CBS back in the
day was such an incredibly fun place to be and
Sonny to Share was next door. The Young and the
Restless was across the hall. The Smothers brothers were down
the hall. Well. I remember the night All and the
(03:55):
Family premiered distinctly because back in the day they had
a switchboard and they put like a bazillion girl on
a switchboard because they were pretty sure that, you know,
what was going to hit the fan when America met
Archie Bunker, and they were not wrong. They know they
weren't wrong, but yeah, because it was really groundbreaking and
(04:18):
television changing for sure. Anyway, that place was so special.
I'm not even sure there's any studio like that anymore.
I know there's not. I know there's not.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
You know, what you guys did kind of, you know,
creating this incredible topical sketch comedy show that touched so
many cultural kind of touchstones, do you I wish there
was anything like this now, but it's almost like we've
moved on from that kind of comedy. I mean, do
(04:49):
you see any potential for any kind of revival of
the kind of stuff that you guys put together.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
I don't think so. I mean, I guess Saturday Night
Live is the closest thing, but I don't feel like
it's as consistent as we were. And a lot of
times you fall in love with somebody on Saturday Night
Live and then they're gone.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yeah, But I don't there are there's much speculation. We
had a live orchestra twenty five pieces, and a conductor
who arranged, and we had Bob Mackie, and I would
assume that one of his gowns for Carol would now
cost twenty grand, twenty five grand probably. We had a
(05:31):
huge staff of writers, We had a beautiful sets, and
it was a well oiled machine. It ran like a top.
I mean, if you if my schedule said that I
was going to be done at three PM, I could
make a three thirty appointment and keep it. And that
doesn't happen ever in television now, not ever. I mean,
(05:52):
Carol and I talk about it because we'll go out
and do comedy stuff. And she says, it doesn't matter
how funny you are. It's the picture in the back
with a little crooked on the wall. They'll do the
whole thing over, I guess because they think it's going
in a time ball. I said, well, we were in
a time ball. She said, I know. It's just very
(06:12):
different now. There are still you know.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
There are still a lot of clips of the Carol
Burnett Show, you know, cycling through the internet now. And
I can't tell you how much joy it gives me
when one comes across my social media feed and there's
one specifically, and it's a Mama's Family sketch where Tim Conway,
I guess, goes rogue with a story about Sime's elephants.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
And I've seen it. I've seen it a hundred times.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
If I've seen it once, and I still laugh out loud,
And that, to me is a testament to the to
the kind of comedy that hit everybody equally right. You
didn't have to, You weren't picking on one group, you weren't.
You weren't being political, you weren't sort of being mean.
It was just comedy that just went across the spectrum.
(07:00):
What were your experiences like working on a show where
it seems like to the viewer where sometimes things.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Appeared to go off the rails.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Did they really go off the rails or was it
sort of a planned off the rails like that Siamese Elephancy.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Ever, it was never planned. I'll tell you the night
of the Elephant sketch. It yeah, it was a family sketch.
It was the very last season Harvey had left, so
it was Dick van Dyke. But when Tim was written
into those family sketches, Care pulled us all aside and
she said, you know how much I love these characters,
(07:38):
I don't want us breaking the fourth wall, which means
she didn't want people to break it up and let
the audience in on a joke. So we were to
be very disciplined that particular night. Who is the first
person that loses it? It's Caroll. So what happened was Tim
didn't follow the script. He and I never knew until
(07:59):
he was gone that he was dyslexic, so he had
a hard time reading the scripts. So he wrote much
of his own material. But the family sketches he would
always I mean, he just lived to break people up.
You know, he was just a little dickens And we
used to have que cards like Carol was black, Harvey
was red, I was green. Tim was blue. If you
(08:22):
looked out in y where the cameras were on any
given night and you saw one of Tim's cards that
said savor, that meant here comes the joke that it's
going to save the sketch that nobody has heard before.
So you just kind of fasten your them. You think, well,
here we go. So on that particular night he launched
into an elephant story which was not in the script
(08:43):
at all. And we used to do two shows. Of course,
Carol was the first one who lost it. I'm just
looking at her. She was like in my lap crying
and I'm just g get it together, woman, trying to
be as disciplined as I can. So on it. We
would do an afternoon in front of an audience. We
would have a break. We would do an evening show
(09:03):
in front of a new audience. During the break, you'd
go get dinner if you wanted, You would get your
makeup touched up. You would take a damp if you
wanted it. They would have a big production meeting and
then the director would come by your dressing room and
give you any notes, like we've changed your mark during
the dance number, we have changed your joke in the
(09:24):
family sketch, We've done this whatever it was. He knocked
on my dressing room door that night and he said,
I have only one note for you, Vic, the elephant
story will be different and good luck and I by
this time, I'm married to my husband, Al, who was
the makeup man on the show, and he's sitting in
the corner reading a magazine and I said, how in
(09:47):
the heck does he get away with it? And I'll
just looked up from his magazine and said get him
and went back to reading. And I thought, get him,
get him. I'm not the one that ever hardly did
that stuff on the show, but I kind of decided
that I would get him. And I think it was
such a surprise to everybody that that's why it got
(10:08):
such a huge laugh. I think the crew, the audience,
tim everybody went down because nobody expected little Vicky to
do that.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Let's talk about Mama for a minute. Where did the
character come from?
Speaker 2 (10:19):
And I know that for Carol a lot of times
her character development sort of was part of the costumes
that Bob Mackie provided, and they kind of gave her
this physicality of the costumes that she had. Was it
similar for you when you were creating Mama's.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Bob was always such a help with any character we were doing.
There were lots of times that we'd be struggling and
you'd get he would dress you on We'd start on Monday,
he'd dress you on Wednesday and he'd say, oh, well,
I know who I am now. He was just instrumental
in all of that. The family Sketches Mama was actually
(11:02):
written for Carol, and when she read the final draft
she didn't She loved units. She said, this is the
character that speaks to me, this is the character that
I want to play. Of course, the writers were very upset.
Then she said, I think Vicky would be great as Mama.
She said to Bob Mackie, don't you think we could Vicky?
We could make Vicky Mama. He said absolutely. The writers
(11:22):
now are doubly upset. Then we go into rehearsal on
Monday morning and Carol's decided she wants to do it
Southern because she just thinks it's like Tennessee. Williams on acid.
So now we're trying to do back. I'm trying to
find an older version of what Carol is doing because
(11:42):
I'm playing the mother. And Harvey's saying to me, boy,
did you get the part. The mother is the nuts
and bolts of any family kid, and you got the part.
So he was very encouraging. I went over to Bob
mckie's studio on Wednesday and when he dressed me and
I looked in the mirror, I went, oh, my god, exactly,
I am.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Well, I am from the Deep South.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
I'm actually from northern Florida, which is the Deep South
that is not Florida is not the Deep South, but
where I am from it is. And I I know
women just like Mama. And I knew women just like
Mama when I was a kid, So it resonated so
strongly with me and the culture that I was a
part of. But it was never disrespectful. It never felt
(12:28):
like you were making fun of people like Mama. You
were just having, you know, having a great time as Mama.
And it always came across that way, and as a kid,
I didn't get it, but as an adult I really
feel that way.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Well, if you could see my grandmother next to Mama.
We were separated at birth. She was from southern Missouri.
But ah, yes, yeah, you couldn't tell the part. I
think we went to the same hairdresser, the same uh
where we bought our dresses. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Tell me tell me about the show that you're bringing
to Denver in March of next year. It is Sunday,
March thirtieth at the Paramount Theater in Denver. It is
called Vicky Lawrence and Mama, a two women show. How
do you pull this off?
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Well? I knew when I'd put the show together that
everybody was going to want to see Mama because people
think of her like a real person. They'll ask me
all the time, where is she? Like I should run
in the phone booth and turn into her. So I
knew how popular she was. But I kind of wanted
to be me before I'm not anymore and wear some
pretty clothes and I think I'm kind of funny. So
(13:42):
we put my writing partner and I put the show
together where I basically I opened for Mama and I
get to my half of the show is largely autobiographical
because my life has been fairly comical. That all the
stuff that's happened to me. I mean, nobody gets taken
out of high school and put on national television when
(14:03):
they've never done any of that, and gets to, you know,
go to the Harvard School of Comedy in front of America.
I mean that just what happened to me doesn't happen. Ever,
we didn't even.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Get a chance to, yeah, to dip into your story,
which is absolutely incredible. It really is kind of a Hollywood,
you know, story that everybody dreams of.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
To your point, and that you were plucked.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
You were plucked at a very young age and had
a lot of incredible opportunities. But as I always say, Vicky,
if you don't take advantage of the opportunities, then you know,
as some people don't.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
You certainly did, absolutely did.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
So.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
I am excited about seeing this show and tickets go
on sale on Friday. But I wanted to ask you
if you and I always ask artists this, and some
artists will hedge and say, oh, I can't choose because
they're all like my children. But is there a favorite
sketch you have or is there a favorite moment that
you have from the Kraburnette show? And after you left
(15:02):
the show. What has been your favorite thing you've gotten
to do? You just had a great show with the
cool kids with some of my favorite comedians a few
years ago.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
And that's that show so much I thought, I thought.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
You know what, I don't know why it didn't last
very long. I just thought it was so topical because
we're all kind of aging together, and it spoke to
a lot of that at the same time.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
I love the show, but so fun, so fun.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Do you have a favorite moment from the Carol Burnette
Show and what was your favorite project after?
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Well? I have a several favorite moments from the Burnett Show.
I mean I loved when the family played games, like
when we played Sorry or when we played Sorry was
just fabulous. And there are a lot of outtakes from
that skitch because it was just so hilarious. It was
really hard to keep it together. So I love those.
(15:55):
But I think because I was so young, I was
the only I was I think the only cast member
that knew a lot of the musical people that they
would book on the show right to kind of keep
it topical. Like when Bobby Gentry came on, I was
beside myself and nobody else knew who Bobby Gentry was,
but O to Billy Joe was my story song when
I was a teenager. And when she came on the show,
(16:18):
Actually she was late to rehearsal the first day and
the stage manager called down to the front gate and
he said, has Bobby Gentry come through yet? And the
guy at the guard gate said, I haven't seen him.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Well go ahead.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Nobody had any idea who Bobby Gentry. Was like, oh
my god, you guys. And then the Jackson five. I
got to dance with all of those boys. I mean
that was just so special. Yeah. I liked a lot
of the musical guests.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Well, Vicky, we're almost at a time, but I just
wanted to ask. My husband has asked me to request,
are you going to be doing a rendition of the
night the lights went out in Georgia at this show
because he feels like that's really that that should be
the pinnacle of the program because he still loves the
song so much.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Well love it's the pinnacle. But yes, if you have
a juggernaut from the seventies, you lost sing it? You know?
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Oh of course, Oh so you do sing it? Okay? Great?
Now I want to let people know. After we get back, we're.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Going to give away some tickets to see the show Sunday,
March thirtieth. Tickets go and sale on Friday, and I
will remind everyone that they can buy these tickets because
I just want I think this is going to be
a sellout. I just I am predicting it, because if
you could see our text line from our listeners, so
many people are so excited.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
They want to know.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Have you written a book that they can buy? Like
they can't get enough of you? Vicky Lawrence.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Well, I wrote a book a long time ago, but
good heavens, I need to write another one now because
so much has happened since I wrote that one.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
We'll do it, and we'll have you on again.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Okay, good, I've written a couple of books.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah, Vicky Lawrence. It has been an absolute thrill for
me to be able to talk to you. I can't
tell you what a huge part of my life you've
been from far away and how much I appreciate all
that you guys provided in terms of just joy and
comedy and laughter for all of these years. I so
appreciate it, and I'm just so grateful that you are
(18:20):
still out there, and I hope that I get to
meet you and March when you come for the show.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
I would love to see that help you.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Do too, Yeah, Vicky Lawrence me thank you for your
time today.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
All right, thank you
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