This Time Together Read online

  “Please forgive me,” I said sweetly (but projecting so that every customer could hear), “but I have a wooden leg, and I’m too embarrassed to wear a skirt.”

  Dead silence. I felt the entire restaurant getting ready to line the hostess up in front of a firing squad. She felt it, too. She led us to a back table. I dragged my wooden leg all the way across the room without bending my knee and ate my hot fudge sundae while sitting stiff-legged the whole time.

  The revenge tasted sweeter than the sundae.

  Garry Moore’s Variety Show

  He’s not as well known today as he should be, but in the late 1950s Garry Moore was a television icon. A performer and producer, he hosted his own CBS daytime talk and variety show, and a nighttime game show called To Tell the Truth. These shows were big moneymakers for the network, and they were fun to watch to boot. The public loved Garry, with his crew cut and bow tie. When he spoke to you through the camera, he made you feel you were the only one he was interested in. A smart businessman, he was also easygoing and loveable—and a gentleman through and through. The camera never lies.

  Garry Moore was also interested in new talent. He held regular auditions at a CBS studio to discover newcomers, which is how I met him. Ken Welch and I auditioned for Garry with our comedy routine, and after that he booked us on his morning show several times. Then his morning show morphed into a weekly nighttime variety series, which was being produced by the same team that produced Dinah Shore’s wonderful show in California, Bob Banner and his associate producer, Joe Hamilton (whom I would later marry). CBS had wooed them away, and here they were in New York launching Garry’s new nighttime venture.

  I got my big break as a regular performer when Garry called me in to replace an ailing Martha Raye, a wonderful comedienne who was scheduled to be his guest that week. It was a Sunday and the show was to air live on Tuesday, so I had to learn the material in two days. I was scared to death, but with Garry’s encouragement and the support of the rest of the crew, I made it through without forgetting anything.

  As a result, that fall I was hired to appear on The Garry Moore Show every week as a regular, along with Durward Kirby and Marion Lorne. The year was 1959, and I was still appearing in Once upon a Mattress. Garry switched from going live on Tuesday to taping on Friday night, which enabled me to do both shows. The moment Garry’s show had finished taping (always eight o’clock on the dot) I would hightail it to the subway and dash downtown to the Phoenix Theater, making it just in time for the eight-thirty curtain for Mattress. For about eight months I doubled, rehearsing for Garry’s show during the day and appearing onstage at night as Princess Winnifred the Woebegone. I was young and had not one but two jobs of a lifetime.

  The Garry Moore Show was my first introduction to television comedy writers. I learned that they are quite a breed. They have a comedic slant on just about everything. I remember one week when Garry’s guest star was a very popular singer who was also very fat. Upon meeting her, I recalled all those times Nanny and I had listened to her radio program. She was Nanny’s favorite singer. I’m purposely not using her name so I can tell you the following story.

  OVERLEAF: Durward Kirby, me, Garry, and Marion Lorne on The Garry Moore Show, 1960.

  COURTESY OF CAROL BURNETT

  Thursday nights were our orchestra nights, where we heard the band play the numbers for the first time, since we had rehearsed all week with just piano and drums. It was always thrilling to hear the musical arrangements come to life through a large orchestra. On this night our guest came onstage and sang her songs in a voice that, in my opinion, didn’t need a microphone. She definitely could sing. I remembered Nanny saying, “All great voices come out of fat people.” When the orchestra took a break, our guest sat down on a chair next to a small card table onstage, reached into a big shopping bag she was carrying, and pulled out a pink bakery box tied with a string. When she opened it up and took out a large chocolate cake, I thought, How nice of her to bring a treat for everyone. She then proceeded to eat the entire thing.

  We were all stunned into silence. But that didn’t last long. The next day our head writer, Vinnie Bogert, said, “Hey, what’d you expect? She has a sweet tusk.”

  Garry Moore was a wonderful mentor, and I won my first Emmy as a result of doing his show. I can never say enough about his kindness, his smarts, and his generosity. Many times when we were rehearsing a sketch, if Garry had a funny line he would turn it down, saying, “Give this to Durward or Carol—they can deliver it better than I can.” There was no such thing as a big ego where this man was concerned. Working with him provided me with an amazing education—and I had a helluva good time, too.

  Unfortunately, too few people today remember what a fabulous weekly comedy variety show Garry Moore hosted. We did comedy sketches and musical opening numbers and finales, plus we showcased wonderful guest stars (including a very young Barbra Streisand). I suspect The Garry Moore Show never made it into syndication because it was shot in black and white. What a shame. Maybe someday some television station will ignore the lack of color and air the show in black and white. I wish there could be a way to make it available on DVD or some other form … maybe someday. I think it deserves to be seen again and again. If such a miracle ever occurs and you get the chance, give the show a try, and see if you agree.

  My Dog Bruce and The Office

  It was winter. Boy, was it winter. A 1960 monster-of-a-blizzard New York winter. I was still doubling in Mattress and Garry’s show and living in a two-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side of the city with my sister, Chris, and our Yorkshire terrier, Bruce (who was a she). Now that I was making good money, I could afford to send Chris to a lovely boarding school in New Jersey, and she would come into New York on weekends.

  This weekend she wasn’t going to make it because of the snowstorm. In fact, I barely made it uptown after the Saturday night curtain of Mattress came down. It was eleven o’clock at night and the streets were empty. The snow was blowing horizontally about a hundred miles an hour—at least. It sure felt like it, anyway, and the wind sounded like a pack of howling wolves.

  I made it to the subway, took the train, and got out on Lexington Avenue to trudge the three blocks up to my building. The drifts were now taller than I was, and even though cars were parked along the curbs, they were completely invisible under their massive blanket of snow. I finally reached my apartment building and all but fell into the lobby. I kissed my door as I unlocked it, grateful as all get-out that I wouldn’t have to go anywhere until Monday morning.

  I threw off my wet coat, woolen cap, and sweaters, took off my boots and ski pants, then peeled off my layers of thermal underwear in no time flat. Chilled to the bone, I couldn’t wait to jump into a hot shower. I looked around for Bruce, who usually greeted me at the door when I came home, her tail wagging frantically.

  And then I saw her. She was lying on the floor with an electric cord wrapped around her little body. A socket had been pulled out from the wall and a lamp was lying next to her head. She was stiff and her eyes were wide open. I put my ear to her chest and heard a faint beat. Her breathing was very shallow. I loved that little dog and wasn’t about to let her go. I grabbed the phone and placed an emergency call to my vet. It was eleven-thirty by now, so it took a few minutes to reach him. I told him what was going on.

  “Is she breathing? Do you feel a heartbeat?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “It sounds like she got a shock from the cord, or she may have strangled herself. Do you have any Coca-Cola syrup in the house?”

  “Syrup? No! But I have a couple of bottles of Coke in the fridge!”

  “Do you have a bottle that’s not cold? Not in the fridge?”

  “Yes. Yes!”

  “Okay, give her some swallows of that. I’ll hold on.”

  I opened up a warm Coke and spooned some of the liquid down Bruce’s tiny throat. She moved her tongue slightly and suddenly focused her eyes on me. Signs of life!

 
I picked up the phone. “She moved a little, but she’s still stiff!” I started to cry.

  Bless him, my vet said, “Can you meet me at my office in about an hour? I can’t promise I’ll be on time because of this storm, but I’ll do my best.”

  The man was a god.

  “Thank you. We’ll be there as soon as we can!”

  “Keep her bundled up warm, and be careful in all this snow.”

  “YOU be careful!” I thanked him again with all my heart and hung up.

  I jumped back into my clothes, grabbed Bruce, and was out the door within five minutes.

  It was still snowing but not as hard. I had taken a woolen scarf and wrapped it tightly around my chest, shoving Bruce under it so her tiny body was next to my bare skin. Over that I had put on three or four layers of thermal tops and bottoms, along with my ski pants, two heavy woolen sweaters, a thrift-shop fur coat (I wore fur back then), and my fuzzy black angora cap. The vet’s office was way over on the west side of town on Tenth Avenue, and I was coming from Lexington and Third, clear over on the East Side.

  Miles and miles …

  Trudging through the snow and slush, I prayed for a cab. At times I would step into a snowbank that came up to my knees. I looked at my watch: twelve-thirty. The streets were deserted. “Stay with me, Bruce. Stay with me.”

  I reached my vet’s office a little after one-thirty. I climbed the stairs and rang the doorbell. No answer. I peeked through the curtained glass pane in the door. No lights. The snow had kicked up again, and I stood on the landing utterly helpless.

  Then I looked across the street and saw a neon sign lit up: “The Office.” The sign was missing one letter, so it read, “The O-fice.” It was a bar, and it was open! I crossed the street and went in.

  The scene was right out of a movie, the kind of seedy neighborhood bar you saw in The Lost Weekend. Dark inside … the bartender wiping a glass with a frayed red-and-white checkered dishcloth … smells of beer and booze … cracked peanut shells on the floor … broken-down jukebox in the corner … crooked photographs hanging on the wall above the dusty mirror … the obligatory drunk sitting on a stool with his head resting on the counter.

  It was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen.

  The bartender gave me an odd look as I sat down on the far end of the counter.

  “Bad night to be out, miss.”

  “Sure is. I’m surprised you’re open.”

  “Well, I was going to close up early, but there’s no way I’m gettin’ out till it lets up some. What’ll it be?”

  I had never said this before, and I’ve never said it since: “Whiskey. Make it a double.”

  The drunk came alive for a second and said, “Me, too!” as his elbow slid off the counter.

  The bartender ignored him and poured me the two shots. I just stared at the glass. I had never tasted whiskey before. I took a sip and thought my throat would explode. Then the liquid made its way down into my stomach, warming my insides. I looked across the street. No sign of the vet yet. I loosened my coat, undoing the top two buttons of my thermal shirt. I was holding the shot glass next to my chest when I felt a slight movement and looked down. Bruce had stuck her head out—just her head—and was lapping up the whiskey in my glass with her tiny red tongue, making little slurping noises.

  The drunk was staring very hard at us. Through his blood-shot, bleary, booze-filled eyes, he saw a strange furry woman with a black fuzzy head who suddenly had a second, tinier fuzzy head pop out of the middle of her chest and lap up a hefty dose of Jim Beam. He paled and quickly stumbled out the door, mumbling to himself. I saw the light come on in the vet’s office across the street, so I paid the bartender and bolted before he had even reached the cash register.

  The doctor examined Bruce, and by the time he finished checking her up one side and down the other, her tail had begun to wag. He gave her an injection and told me to take her home and keep her warm.

  I thanked him profusely for coming out on such a night. The good doctor said, “Well, I guess it was the Coca-Cola that did it.”

  I didn’t mention the other possibility.

  Walking Alone at Night in New York City

  I remember one Saturday night coming home after performing in Mattress. My sister, Chris, our dog, Bruce, and I were still living on the East Side of Manhattan. The sandman had already paid them a visit, but he had flown the coop before he got to me. I was wide awake. At twelve forty-five A.M. I decided to throw on some clothes and walk the three blocks up to Lexington and Fifty-seventh, where there was a late-night newspaper stand. I figured I’d get the Sunday papers and read myself into a stupor.

  At that hour, the streets were pretty empty. In those days there were several daily newspapers in New York City, and by the time I had piled them up in my arms, I could barely see over them. I began to walk back to our building. Peering over the bundle of papers I was lugging, I saw a man approaching. We passed each other and I continued down the block. After a couple of moments it dawned on me that he had turned around. I walked a little faster, and I heard his footsteps pick up the pace. I slowed down a little, hoping he’d pass me by, but he followed suit. I realized he was following me!

  I still had two blocks to go before I reached the safety of my apartment building. My heart jumped up into my throat as I started to walk faster and faster. So did he. I turned the corner. He turned the corner. My building was at the far end of the block, and most of the apartment buildings on our street were dark.

  At that point, something shifted in me. I started to get mad. How dare this jerk follow me and scare me like this?

  It was just at that very moment that he caught up with me and, from behind, took hold of my elbow and said, “Okay, honey, let’s go.”

  I snapped. Turning around to face him (we were nose to nose), I opened my mouth, crossed my eyes, stuck out my tongue, and let out a scream heard up one side of Manhattan and down the other. I followed it up with the loudest Tarzan yell imaginable, and on the heels of that I began to cackle like the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz. “HEE-HEE-HEE-HEE-HEE!” I then proceeded to sing at the top of my voice, “DING-DONG, THE WITCH IS DEAD!”

  By this time the mugger was racing up the block and around the corner, never to be seen in my neighborhood again.

  Nanny and the Auditions

  While I was in New York working my two dream jobs, Nanny was wallowing in my success. (I hate to put it this way, but those are the only words to describe it.) She was now on a first-name basis with reporters working for the trade magazines, Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. She called them all the time, acting as if she was my press representative: “Carol’s doing this, and Carol’s doing that. Aren’t you going to print that in your column?” They thought she was a hoot. And they indulged her.

  Nanny was also friendly with several extras (actors who worked in the background and sometimes played bit roles in movies), whom she’d corner at every opportunity to give them the latest update on what I was accomplishing—embellishing it to a fare-thee-well, I have no doubt. Quite a few of these extras lived in our old apartment building on the corner of Yucca and Wilcox. I remember as a kid on the way to school watching them leave early in the morning, sometimes dressed in formal attire (evening gowns and tuxedos) and walking down Wilcox to the boulevard, catching the red streetcar, and heading out to the studios for a day’s work.

  Since I was now working in New York, I had no idea that Nanny was setting herself up in Hollywood as the “grandmother-diva” of all time. She certainly had done a complete U-turn from the day I told her I planned to leave UCLA and try my luck as a musical comedy performer in New York (of all places), when she had said I’d be dead in a week from the cold. I had survived, and now Nanny liked to tell everyone how she’d known all along that success would come my way. Nanny glued herself to the television set every Tuesday night when the show aired, and waited for the ear-pulling signal as we all sang the goodnight song. She loved it.

  Then came th
e heart attack that put Nanny in the hospital. The doctor assured me over the phone that she would be fine—all she needed was just a few days of bed rest and observation. I didn’t have to fly to LA. She’d be out of there in no time.

  My cousin Janice (known as “Cuz”) was on the case and visited Nanny every day. Nanny, in the meantime, had sent out the word to her many acquaintances in the neighborhood that she wanted lots of visitors.

  One afternoon Cuz went to the hospital to visit Nanny. As the elevator door opened, she saw a long line of people waiting in the hospital corridor. Some were in costume, and most were reading the Hollywood trades while they cooled their heels. Looking ahead, Cuz could see that they were wending their way to Nanny’s hospital door.

  Cuz pushed through the crowd. “Excuse me! I’m her granddaughter!” She eventually managed to reach the door and open it. There sat Nanny, propped up in bed, being entertained by a little girl in a tutu who was tap-dancing and doing some baton twirling, accompanied by her father on a harmonica playing “Dixie.” The child ended with a spectacular split and a great big “TA-DA,” arms up in the air, the baton twirling on one finger.

  Nanny said, “Thank you. I’ll tell Carol about you. Now send in the next one, please.”

  Cuz looked at her dumbfounded. “Nanny, what in the world is this all about?”

  Nanny shrugged and smiled. “I got bored.”

  Nanny’s Visit to New York

  A few months after Nanny had recovered from her heart attack, I called her in California and asked her if she would be willing to get on an airplane and fly to New York to visit Chris and me. Now that I was working regularly, I was thrilled to be able to pay for her trip. It had been four years since we’d all been together, but I wasn’t sure how Nanny would respond to my offer. She had often expressed disbelief about airplanes: “I don’t see how anything that heavy can stay up in the air like that … it’s bound to fall down.”