Burnett remembers humble beginnings

By Amber Noizumi
DAILY BRUIN SENIOR STAFF
[email protected]

  Daily Bruin File Photo

Former Bruin Carol Burnett holds a photo from
the collection she donated to the UCLA Film and Television
Archives.

Carol Burnett has reigned as an American queen of comedy for
over two generations. She certainly wasn’t born with a crown
on her head or a scepter in her hand, but she has emerged to show
that a peasant can become royalty, even in the brutal kingdom of
show business.

With six Emmys, five Golden Globes, numerous People’s
Choice Awards and an electric sense of humor that could power a
small country, Burnett has kept America laughing. Her reunion
special that aired last fall topped the ratings with a blowout
audience of 30 million.

Some may best remember her from the CBS hit “The Carol
Burnett Show” which earned a remarkable 22 Emmys during its
11-year run. Or perhaps others recall Little Orphan Annie’s
oppressor Miss Hannigan, or even more recently, Helen Hunt’s
neurotic mother on “Mad About You” (for which Burnett
won an Emmy). But, do they know that her journey to success began
at UCLA?

Burnett was very poor growing up in Hollywood, and was raised
mainly by her grandmother, the person to whom she still dedicates
her trademark ear-tugs. Even though tuition in 1950 was $42 a
semester, finding a way to pay for UCLA was no easy task for
Burnett.

“We didn’t have the money for the tuition for me to
go. We were on welfare growing up,” Burnett said. “Some
money appeared out of the blue. Someone had given me the
tuition.”

But for Burnett this type of luck and human kindness was just a
precursor for later generosity, and the beginning of her own
humanitarian acts. Even though she got the first payment covered,
she still had to work for the rest.

“While in college, I worked at a movie theater on
Hollywood Boulevard part-time in the box office,” she said.
“I was paid 75 cents an hour, I saved it all up and after a
while, $42 accumulated for my tuition.”

Burnett didn’t always know that she wanted to be an actor
““ she had no theater background going into college, though
her grandmother did take her to the movies and often sang at home
with her.

Having been editor of both her junior high and high school
newspapers, Burnett began college with dreams of being a
journalist. After she got to UCLA, she briefly joined the Daily
Bruin staff, but soon shifted her focus to a major that was of
interest to her: Theater Arts English, which provided her first
acting experience.

“I remember I was in the acting class. I was scared to
death. I went up and did a monologue. It didn’t even occur to
me to read the play to know what the heck this person was. It just
wasn’t in my background,” Burnett said. “She (the
teacher) gave me a D-minus and the only reason I didn’t get
an F was because I had memorized it.”

But the fledgling thespian didn’t let that stop her. The
next time she had to do a scene, it was a musical duet from Noel
Coward’s “Red Peppers.” This time she tried
employing some of what she learned watching movies with her
grandmother.

“I just pretended to be Betty Grable with an English
accent and we got an A.” Burnett said. “We got some
laughs and that had never happened with me. All of a sudden I
started thinking, “˜This is kind of fun.'”

After her success doing a duet, she soon turned to solos when
she went onto the stage to sing “Adelaide’s
Lament” from “Guys and Dolls.”

“All of a sudden I realized, this is what I wanna
do,” Burnett said. “I want to go to New York and be on
Broadway and be like Ethel Merman. I had all these dreams, so I
pursued them. UCLA was a starting point for me.”

With theater, Carol Burnett was transformed from an average girl
with a humble background into a vibrant, magnetic entertainer.

“At Hollywood High, I wasn’t a nerd exactly, but
certainly not one that anybody would think would have the nerve to
get up and do what I did at UCLA,” Burnett said. “So
years later, I got some letters from kids I went to Hollywood High
with, and they would say “˜Is that really
you?'”

Burnett knew she ultimately wanted to try her luck in the Big
Apple, but her obstacle again was lack of money. However, someone
else’s generosity again aided Burnett in her pursuits when
she encountered a wealthy man at a dinner party where she was
performing a scene from “Annie Get Your Gun.”

“He lent me $1000 and said “˜this is payable in five
years and there are stipulations: you must never reveal my name,
and if things happen for you, then you should help other people out
too. I quit school and went to New York,” Burnett said.

Burnett left before graduating and felt it was time to put her
UCLA education to the test. She eventually achieved prominence in
New York, but never forgot the promise to her benefactor. For over
20 years she has given $1,000 each year to an outstanding UCLA
student in musical theater.

Burnett also directed “Once Upon a Mattress” at UCLA
in 1999, the same musical comedy that brought Burnett to the
Broadway stage 40 years before.

“I think it’s wonderful that (UCLA) is respecting
musical comedy more. That’s one of the reasons I started the
scholarship was to encourage that particular art form because
it’s truly American,” Burnett said.

Burnett has shown the world that with some luck, talent and
resiliency you don’t need to be a Barrymore or a Coppola to
make it in the world.

“There are a lot of people who are in the position I was
in who don’t have money. So you make your own choices. If you
really want to do it, you will find a way to do it,” Burnett
said.