This Time Together Page 14

  I talked to Paula on Sunday, and she said Kathy had been sleeping a lot but seemed to be comfortable.

  We were all back at work Monday for our final week of the season. Had it only been one week since Rae had given me Paula’s phone message?

  Ken and Mitzie Welch had put together a lovely medley of lullabies for Vicki and me to sing that week, ending with the familiar song “Lullaby and Goodnight.” I said I wanted us to sing it into a tape recorder so I could send it to Kathy in the hospital. After we taped it, I called Paula to tell her I was sending, via a limo service, the tape and the recorder down to the hospital for Kathy to listen to. That night she called me at home and said she had put the recorder on Kathy’s pillow and that she had been listening to the medley all day.

  We rehearsed the show all day on Tuesday. I was having trouble concentrating. That night at home I couldn’t eat anything. The weirdest feelings started to come over me. I actually felt my insides vibrating. Joe and I put our girls to bed, and I decided to turn in early.

  I was still awake when Joe came to bed later, but I pretended to be asleep. I didn’t want him to know how revved up I was. All night my mind kept racing with the words, Hang on, Kathy … hang on, Kathy … hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, please hang on. I must have drifted off at some point, but I was still begging Kathy to hang on when I looked at the clock at five in the morning.

  Joe got up at eight and went to the office. Today was Wednesday, run-through day, one week to the day since I had met Kathy. My usual Wednesday began with costume fittings with Bob Mackie at ten, but I knew what I had to do. I had to drive down to the hospital to be with Kathy.

  I called our associate producer, Bob Wright, and told him I wouldn’t be going to Mackie’s or rehearsing that day, but I assured him I’d be back in time for the three o’clock run-through, and we could fit costumes after that. Bob was concerned, and I asked him to please tell Joe and everyone else not to worry.

  I left the house at ten. It would be a two-hour drive to the hospital. All the way down in the car, I kept talking to Kathy. Suddenly I felt an enormous presence in the car with me. I was not alone. And again my insides started to vibrate …

  I got to the hospital at noon, ran into the waiting room area, and saw Paula there with her parents. Paula hugged me. “I knew you’d be here.” She introduced me to Kathy’s grandparents. I told Paula I could only stay until 1:00 because I had to be back for the run-through by 3:00. She took me down the hall to Kathy. I learned that she had slipped into a coma the night before. Kathy was in the ICU, hooked up to all kinds of tubes. I sat down beside her bed and held her hand. The tape recorder was lying on the pillow next to her ear. Paula pressed the play button and I could hear Vicki and me singing the medley.

  “She’s been listening to it ever since it arrived. I know she can hear it now.” We sat there quietly for a while. I looked at the clock on the wall: twelve-thirty. Since the ICU would let only two people in the room at a time, when Paula brought her parents in, she and I went out into the hall. I told her that I had written a letter to Kathy and that even though I hadn’t actually sent it, I felt she must’ve known what I had written, because of the overwhelming feelings that had engulfed me all night and in the car driving down.

  I have always believed there is something more to this world than just us. I remember being four years old and lying on the grass in the backyard in San Antonio looking up at the clouds. I don’t know how much time passed before I felt my body merging with the sky and the ground. I was everything, and everything was me.

  Things had come my way over the years that I didn’t exactly pray for but which had come to me in a sort of vision. I’d seen myself on campus at UCLA, and it happened. I’d seen myself living in New York, and it happened. I’d seen myself performing on Broadway for director George Abbott, and it happened. I always felt that I was somehow being looked after, that there was a Higher Power in and around all of us.

  I saw myself being needed by Kathy and I wanted to embrace the connection between us.

  I said to Paula, “I had to come.”

  “I know.”

  Kathy’s grandparents joined us in the hall for a couple of minutes before Paula and I went back into the room. I would have to leave very soon, even though I didn’t want to.

  Paula and I sat on each side of the bed and held her daughter’s hands. The tape recorder was playing softly. It got to the end, “Lullaby and Goodnight,” and Kathy breathed a long sigh. She was gone. I looked at the clock.

  It was 1:00.

  Higher Power filled the room.

  The End of the Run

  At the end of our tenth season, ABC offered Harvey a chance to star in his own sitcom. We knew we’d miss him like crazy, but it was an offer he couldn’t (and shouldn’t) refuse.

  During the decade that we’d worked together, the network had moved our show around a lot. We’d started out on Mondays, were moved to Wednesdays (where we did poorly at eight-thirty), and then hit our stride on Saturdays at ten following All in the Family, M*A*S*H, Mary Tyler Moore, and Bob Newhart. Years later we were moved yet again, this time to Sundays.

  Our eleventh year went well enough. Tim and Vicki were still on board, and we had some terrific guests to help fill the huge hole that Harvey left: Dick Van Dyke, Ken Berry, Steve Lawrence, and James Garner, to name a few. Once again Jim Nabors was our first guest at the beginning of the season. Our good-luck charm was still working, but change was in the air.

  Even though CBS asked us to come back for a twelfth season, I felt that it was time to hang it up. This was not an easy decision by any means. But we had put on 280 shows, which involved roughly 2,520 sketches and musical elements. We were starting to repeat ourselves in some instances, and I had always felt that it was a good idea to leave a party before the host starts to turn off the lights.

  Tim, me, Harvey, and Vicki (our tenth season).

  COPYRIGHT © SHELLEY GAZIN/CORBIS

  The last show was bittersweet. It was 1978 and our creative family had been through so much together over the years: marriages, divorces, births, deaths, bad times, and good times. We were all blubbering when the final strains of “I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together” were being played. I sang, “Comes the time we have to say so long,” pulled my ear for the last time, and it was all over.

  We had a blast of a party that night. Laughter and tears flowed like champagne. So did the champagne.

  Several years later, sadly, Joe and I parted. The marriage was over, but we would always be friends.

  He died in 1991 after a long and brave struggle with cancer.

  Annie and John Huston

  In 1981 I got a call from producer Ray Stark, asking me to play Miss Hannigan in the film version of the Broadway hit musical Annie. I jumped at the chance. The girls and I had been spending a lot of time in Hawaii, and I think I might’ve been suffering from island fever. Besides, I had never had the good fortune of being in a movie musical, and the idea of it thrilled me, especially when I heard that my friend Bernadette Peters was going to play Lily, along with Tim Curry (star of The Rocky Horror Picture Show) as Rooster, and the brilliant actor Albert Finney as Daddy Warbucks. The producers had conducted a massive talent search and discovered the adorable ten-year-old Aileen Quinn to play Annie. To top it all off, the movie was to be directed by the one and only John Huston.

  John Huston rarely did more than two takes for a scene. He knew what he wanted, got it, and that was that. My kind of guy. He made the ladies feel very special, too. I’d never had my hand kissed before, and I’ll never forget it. He also wanted his actors to have fun experimenting during rehearsals. He was definitely an actor’s director!

  My very first day I asked him for direction in the scene I was about to do. He simply said, “Cavort, dear, just cavort.” Okay. Got it. He hired me to cavort, so I’ll cavort away.

  After a few days of shooting, some of us felt that the movie was being overproduced. Although Mr. Huston was always gra
ciously encouraging his actors to discuss how to play a scene, it wasn’t our place to make any comments to our director on our feelings about producer Ray Stark’s production values or how he wanted to spend his money. Personally, I think Mr. Huston was interested in the more intimate scenes rather than in the extravagant musical numbers being choreographed by Broadway veteran Joe Layton.

  However, because of my television training, I couldn’t get over the huge amount of money that was being lavished on the street set. Along with Annie’s orphanage, Easy Street was home to dozens of storefronts and old town houses complete with fire escapes. There were fishmongers with pushcarts, selling fish wrapped in old newspapers. There was an organ-grinder with a scary spider monkey sporting eyelashes, lipstick, and long red-painted fingernails. There were stores selling old clothes, dolls, and dishes. There were pawnshops galore. It was a monumentally beautiful set that (in my mind, anyway) could’ve cost a lot less than the many, many thousands of dollars being spent.

  Okay, maybe none of the above sounds overboard, but consider that the fish wrapped in old newspapers were real fish. Only the tails stuck out, and you really couldn’t even see them in the final shot. As far as I was concerned, at most all they needed was a fake rubber tail sticking out, for cryin’ out loud. (I don’t know how much money that would’ve saved, but it sure would have cut down on the smell.)

  I took a look in the windows of the faux pawnshops and saw dozens, no, dozens and dozens of authentic pieces of antique jewelry and watches on display, which you also couldn’t see in any of the shots. The porcelain dolls were collectibles. What was that all about? You never saw any of this in the final movie.

  Then it came time to shoot the “Easy Street” number. In the original Broadway show the number featured only Hannigan, Rooster, and Lily, all thrilled about finding the other half of Annie’s locket, which would put them on Easy Street for the rest of their lives. The number took place in a room in the orphanage with only the three characters. It was simple, and it had been a showstopper onstage.

  Now here comes the movie version. With its four hundred dancers, “Easy Street” rehearsed for weeks. We swung and climbed on the fire escapes. We danced up the street. We danced down the street. With all these dancers, the original intent of the number was completely lost—the whole thing looked like a big bucket of worms. As far as I could tell, there was no point being made other than BIG.

  We had to call a halt for a while because the monkey with the nails dug them into my underarm and I had to hit the studio nurse’s office for a tetanus shot. (I hated that monkey.) Bernadette, Tim, and I just shook our heads and soldiered on. This number was going nowhere, and if I wasn’t mistaken, it was costing upward of a million dollars.

  The filming was over. Mr. Huston kissed my hand and we gave each other a big hug. We all said our goodbyes and headed home: me to Maui, Bernadette to New York, and Tim to England.

  Once I was back in Hawaii, I decided to go for something special: a chin.

  I had always wanted a chin. I was born with a weak one, which may explain why I went into comedy. I remember the wonderful comedy writer Larry Gelbart saying in some article, “Carol Burnett is almost very pretty.” And I remember being quoted as replying, “That was almost very nice of him.”

  John Huston and me, as Miss Hannigan, on the set of Annie.

  COURTESY OF CAROL BURNETT

  Anyhow, now I had a chin, thanks to an oral surgeon in Honolulu who had corrected the problem. Even though I still wasn’t very pretty, I was very thrilled. I could feel the Maui rain on my chin without having to look up. It wasn’t a huge difference (three millimeters, to be precise), but it made a big difference to me.

  The phone rang. It was Ray Stark calling from California. “We’re going to re-shoot ‘Easy Street’ with just the three of you: Bernadette, Tim, and you. It’ll be so much better this way.”

  Yep. Agreed. But why didn’t they think of this in the first place?

  “Um … there’s one little problem, Ray. I have a chin.”

  “What?”

  “I have a new chin. Oral surgery. I was operated on a month ago in Honolulu. The doctor added about three millimeters, and … ah … gosh, it might be noticeable.”

  Slight pause. “No problem. There won’t be any scenes where we go from close-up to close-up. No one will notice a thing. Plus, you’re in all that costume and makeup. There’ll be a lot of scenes in between. Nobody’s gonna be lookin’ at your chin, trust me.”

  Okay by me.

  It was great to be reunited with Tim and Bernadette and Mr. Huston. And it was great to know that they had decided to scrap the “Easy Street” four-hundred-dancer debacle and simplify the number, with all of it taking place inside the orphanage.

  We were getting ready for the first shot when Mr. Huston said: “All right. I want to back up the scene a little and pick it up where Carol comes out of the closet waving the locket.”

  I approached him cautiously.

  “Mr. Huston?”

  “Carol, when are you going to call me John?”

  “Uh … John … excuse me, but two months ago, when we shot this scene, I went into the closet with no chin, and now I’m coming out of the closet with a chin. I just want to call that to your attention.”

  He thought for a moment and then said, “All right then, dear. Just come out looking determined.”

  Turbulence

  I’ve never been crazy about flying. I do it, but I’m not crazy about it. But I am crazy about Harry Connick Jr., so when I was invited to his wedding to Jill Goodacre in 1994 (I was also friends with Jill’s mother, Glenna), I booked a first-class flight to New Orleans, Harry’s hometown, where they were to be married.

  I boarded the plane and found my aisle seat. I like the aisle seat because if I have to get up for any reason, I don’t have to crawl over a stranger. I had my crossword puzzles with me and was all set. When I looked around, I was surprised to see that I was the only one seated in the first-class cabin. I asked the flight attendant about it, and she said they were waiting for a bus to unload the rest of the passengers due for this flight.

  They finally arrived—all young Japanese businessmen, in suits and ties, carrying briefcases—and suddenly I was the only one in first class who wasn’t a young Japanese businessman. My window seat partner scooted in, sat down, and put his briefcase under the seat in front of him. I glanced at him. He stared straight ahead. There was lots of talking before we taxied, all in Japanese. Once we were airborne, my fellow passenger opened up his computer, and I was up to my ears in New York Times crossword puzzle torture. I looked around the cabin and they all had their computers lit up and were clicking away.

  The flight attendant served drinks. Occasionally I looked over at my seat companion, but he made no effort at communication; it’s not that I particularly wanted any, but sometimes it’s nice to acknowledge the presence of another human being. He was buried in his work. Oh well. I went back to trying to come up with a four-letter word for “homologous.”

  Then came a sort of bump. My drink bounced a little on the tray. As I said, I don’t like flying, and I definitely don’t like bumps. Nobody else seemed to notice, though. The flight became smooth again.

  Lunch was served.

  Then there was a lurch. The plane lurched. Lunch started to slip from side to side on the tray. Whoa …

  The flight attendants took away our lurching lunches.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we have some slight turbulence ahead, due to the weather conditions in this part of the country. Please fasten your seat belts.”

  I looked at my seat partner. He had closed up his computer. I folded up my puzzle and tightened my seat belt.

  Another lurch sent the flight attendant flying up to the ceiling and back, almost landing in my lap. Not a good sign. The captain asked the flight attendants to take their seats and buckle up. Another bad sign.

  Then the plane started to go up and down. Way up and way down. I looked at the fli
ght attendant who sat facing the cabin, buckled up in her seat. Her face was without expression—or color. I knew she was scared out of her wits, along with the rest of us. The wings began to tip this way and that, and the plane began making creaking noises.

  There was screaming coming from the back of the plane, but up front we were strangely silent. All the young Japanese businessmen were staring straight ahead, quiet as hell.

  The next thing I knew, we had gone into a steep nosedive. The noise was horrific. I figured we’d bought the farm. We were going down. It occurred to me that the young man I was sitting next to would be the last human face I’d ever see, the last human being I’d ever touch. I reached over and squeezed his hand. He squeezed back, and then turned and looked at me for the first time since we took off.

  Our eyes locked. I smiled weakly, and what came out of my mouth was “Sayonara.”

  Obviously, we survived.

  Living in a High-Rise All Alone

  In the early 1980s the girls and I decided to move back from Hawaii to the mainland and re-settle in Los Angeles. Joe was there, and we wanted the girls to be closer to him. Since he was living in an apartment on Wilshire Boulevard, I looked in that area and was able to find a two-bedroom place on the eighteenth floor in a brand-new high-rise called the Wilshire House, a few blocks away from Joe’s building.

  At that time “the Corridor,” as Wilshire Boulevard is often called, had a lot of construction going on. Apartment buildings were springing up all over the place, but not too many people were buying. In fact, the girls and I were the first and for a time the only residents of the Wilshire House. Living there could’ve been the basis for a sitcom. There I was, with no neighbors, six valet parking attendants, Chauncey the handyman, and Ruth the telephone operator.