This Time Together Read online

  She wound up jumping at the invitation. It would be her first time east of Texas, and she would be reunited with her grandbabies.

  I met Nanny as she got off the plane. She was all smiles and waves. The flight had been a good one (it hadn’t fallen down), and at seventy-seven, she was none the worse for wear. I suspected she had enjoyed a couple of swigs of sherry (her drink of choice) during the trip. As we were waiting for her luggage, a stewardess who had been on her flight and was leaving the terminal spotted Nanny and stopped to give her a goodbye hug. Evidently, they had become buddies during the flight. Nanny lost no time in introducing me to her, explaining how she had raised me and now here I was, starring in Garry Moore’s weekly television show! “See? I told you she was my granddaughter! Carol, go on and give her your autograph!”

  Nanny, me, and sister Chris.

  COURTESY OF CAROL BURNETT

  After an embarrassing pause the stewardess awkwardly asked for my autograph, and I gave it to her (rather apologetically) as Nanny puffed up like a pigeon.

  Once we were settled into a taxi on our way to my apartment, Nanny reached into her purse, brought out her little bottle of sherry (I knew it!), and took a swig. After that, she proceeded to belch the rest of the way into town. She could’ve won a belching contest against the best of them. I hardly took notice, since I had heard her let loose like that ever since I was a little bitty thing. The taxi driver, however, turned around a couple of times to take a gander at this little old lady with so much gas. After Nanny had let go with a particularly loud one, he rolled down his window for air and then swiveled his neck around, with his eyes just about popping out of his head. Nanny leaned toward him, patted her stomach, and explained, “Well, mister, look at it this way—there’s more room out there than there is in here!”

  He didn’t look back after that.

  Chris was thrilled to see Nanny, and Nanny was amazed by how much Chris had grown. She was tall, filled out, and a beautiful teenager. We settled Nanny down in Chris’s room, and that night we all had a celebratory cup of Ovaltine before we turned in.

  It was a happy reunion.

  Since I was no longer doubling in Once upon a Mattress I had some free time to show Nanny around the Big Apple between rehearsals for Garry’s show. She loved Sardi’s restaurant because there were always a lot of celebrities there to gawk at. And if I knew them, I had to introduce them to my grandmother or I never would’ve heard the end of it.

  Nanny was in the audience for Garry’s show the following Friday, absolutely beaming. She looked pretty good, although I would’ve loved seeing her wear a pale pink lipstick instead of the fire engine red she always preferred. Also, the skirt to the purple suit she was wearing was a bit too short. All of her skirts were too short, in my estimation, but Nanny had great legs and never hesitated to show them off whenever she could. (“The legs are the last things to go!” she always said.) What the heck—if that made her happy and feel younger, who was I to try to change Nanny at this time in her life? I told myself to get over it. I was turning into an old fogey.

  Garry came out to do the warm-up for the audience.

  “Welcome to our show, ladies and gentlemen! We’ve got a great one for you tonight, but before we get under way, there’s someone I want you to meet who’s in our audience.”

  Backstage, I was peeking through the curtain, and it dawned on me that he was going to INTRODUCE NANNY!

  Bless Garry, there was no one nicer. He walked to the edge of the stage and continued, “There’s a special little lady here tonight visiting New York for the first time. She raised our own Carol Burnett! Carol’s grandmother … where are you, dear?”

  Nanny bounced up out of her seat like a pogo stick and yelled, “Over here, Garry!”

  The audience politely applauded. Then Nanny threw both arms up into the air, clasped her hands together, and waved them back and forth like a heavyweight champion. The audience howled.

  All I could do was shake my head and smile.

  It was almost time for Nanny to return to Hollywood. She, Chris, and I were sitting around the small dining room table having our nightly Ovaltine when Nanny blurted out: “Carol, where do you want to be buried?”

  “What?”

  “I said, where do you want to be buried? You know, when you die.”

  “Nanny, why are you asking me that now? I’m twenty-seven years old!”

  “Just curious.” Then she turned to Chris. “How ’bout you? Where do you want to be buried?”

  Chris said, “Gosh, Nanny … I don’t know….” She looked at me helplessly.

  I took a swig of my Ovaltine and said, “Well. Okay. I guess I’d like to be buried here somewhere in New York because I feel I’ve been given a chance at success here. I’m doing what I love, and I love this city, so I guess here’s where I’d be.” I handed it back to Chris. “Now, what about you, honey?”

  Chris agreed with me and said she’d be happy being buried in New York, too.

  There was a pause. Then Nanny reared back and said, “Well, if the two of you think I’m going to fly six thousand miles round-trip every year to put flowers on your graves, you’re nuts!”

  Nanny died four years later, at eighty-one. At the time she had a forty-one-year-old boyfriend who was a jazz musician in Redondo Beach, California. I remembered the time when I had made a trip to California to move her to a larger apartment. I had brought Nanny some recent pictures to show her. We were sitting on the couch, and it was fairly dark, so the photos were hard to make out. She turned on a light near the couch—a green Japanese paper lantern, which gave the living room an eerie, otherworldly atmosphere. I said, “Nanny, it’s not bright enough. Let’s remove the paper lantern from around the bulb so you can see better.”

  She replied. “No. Leave it just the way it is. That’s my love light.”

  Aunt Iney

  Nanny had a younger sister, Ina. We all called her “Iney.” She had a totally different personality from Nanny. She was stoic, robust, and always cheerful, especially with us kids. She would come and visit fairly often. When Nanny complained about one of her mysterious illnesses, Iney would respond by saying, “Mae, nothing’s wrong with you; you’re gonna be fine and outlive us all!” Then she’d turn to me and ask me what I was up to in school. Nanny would huff and puff and haul herself out of bed to join Iney for a glass of sherry.

  During World War II, construction workers started digging the foundation for a new motel, the Hollywood Hawaiian, right up the hill from our building. We were watching a lot of war movies at the time, so every day after the workers had quit, all of us neighborhood kids would go to the construction site and get down in the trench, digging foxholes and pretending we were fighting the Germans and the Japanese.

  One time Iney climbed up the hill and joined us! She was wearing slacks and she actually jumped into the trench and pretended to be John Wayne at Iwo Jima. “POW-POW! BANG-BANG!” We were all about nine or ten years old, so all adults were old to us, but here was this sixty-year-old woman crouching, ducking, and running around in the trenches shooting Nazis and Japanese soldiers. Nanny told her she was cracked. We thought she was incredibly cool.

  Years later, after I had been to New York and was back in California doing my own variety show, Iney came to one of our tapings. My assistant, Sharkey (who later married Tim Conway), brought Iney backstage to say hello. She had aged, but it hadn’t affected the sweetness of her personality. I hugged her and asked her to stay in touch.

  She didn’t.

  A few years later, during our show’s hiatus, I was appearing onstage in Plaza Suite with the wonderful actor George Kennedy for a short run in Hollywood. One night Sharkey, who was still working with me, came into the dressing room saying she had spotted Iney outside on the sidewalk, standing in line at the box office. It turned out she had taken the two-hour bus ride from her home in San Dimas, California, all the way up to Hollywood.

  I hadn’t seen Iney in years. She had become a recluse.
Sharkey ran outside and convinced Iney to sit in a special seat in the third row, saying she’d bring her backstage after the show. Iney protested, saying she didn’t want to “disturb Carol.” Evidently she had planned to leave after the curtain and grab the bus home without ever telling me she had been in the audience!

  There were a lot of friends in the audience that night, but mainly I wanted to see Iney. After the curtain fell, folks began to come backstage for the obligatory congratulations. The dressing room filled up, and over the tops of all those heads, I spotted Sharkey ushering in this tiny old lady, who looked like she wished she could be elsewhere. It was Iney, bless her heart. She seemed overwhelmed and oblivious to the fact that she was the one I wanted to see most of all.

  The dressing room was packed. I pulled up a chair.

  “Iney, here, dear … sit down.”

  She looked at me and smiled. “Oh no, I don’t want to bother the chair.”

  I don’t want to bother the chair!

  I forced her to sit, but she seemed uncomfortable in the crowded dressing room. We visited for a short while, and I realized that despite my best efforts Iney still felt like she was intruding. Sharkey called a car service to drive a protesting Iney back to San Dimas. I walked her to the car, and all the time she was insisting she should take the bus. We got her into the car and I kissed her goodbye.

  That was the last time I ever saw Iney. She died not long after. She was a special lady, and the memory of her playing with us kids in our foxholes always makes me smile.

  Viewer Discretion Advised

  In the mid-sixties I would often appear on my favorite game show, Password, hosted by the wonderfully affable Allen Ludden, who handed out the game’s words and kept our water glasses filled while we played. At first, the show was aired live with an audience at two o’clock in the afternoon five days a week. Later on, it was taped. You’ll understand why in a minute.

  Password was a brilliantly simple game. Two teams were pitted against each other, each featuring a celebrity and a civilian. Each team sat at a desk with the partners facing each other. Allen stood between the desks handing out the password, which was printed on a card concealed in a small wallet-like purse. We tossed a coin to see who went first. If it was my turn to give the clues, Allen would hand one purse to me and the other to my opponent, both containing the same word, which was unknown to our partners. The idea was to convey the word to your partner by using a one-word clue, hoping to beat out the other team. This particular week, Elizabeth Montgomery was the other guest.

  Here’s an example of how the game worked. Say our side was going first, and I was handed the word “apple.” The word would be shown on the bottom of the screen so the folks at home and those in the studio audience would know what the word was. My partner, who couldn’t see the screen, was supposed to guess the word after I gave him my one-word clue, for instance, “fruit.” If he came up with a word like “orange,” which was incorrect, the play would then go over to Elizabeth, who could now provide her partner with a second clue. Elizabeth might then say, “Eve,” and after adding up the two clues (“fruit” and “Eve”), her partner most likely could come up with the correct answer, “apple,” thereby winning that particular round. After a round was over, Allen would give the next password to our partners and we’d begin a new round, this time with Elizabeth and me doing the guessing.

  Me, Allen, and Elizabeth on that fateful Password day.

  COURTESY OF CAROL BURNETT

  I will never forget what happened one afternoon. The man who was my partner was to give me the first clue. Let’s call him Louis.

  Louis opened his purse and looked at the word, which was also being shown on the screen (but not to me, since I was the guesser).

  Louis thought for a second, then leaned toward me and said, “Twat.” (For those of you who might not be familiar with the word, it’s a slangy and not very nice word for a woman’s private parts. I’m trying to be delicate here.)

  I wasn’t sure I heard what I heard, so I make the mistake of saying, “Excuse me?”

  He leaned even closer. “TWAT!”

  At that point the audience, which had begun to titter at first, was roaring with laughter. I looked over at Elizabeth and didn’t see her. She had fallen off her chair.

  Allen, bless his heart, kept saying, “Don’t mind me, I’m just here passing water!” The audience roared even more.

  I sat there stupefied, trying my utmost to maintain a blank face. After an eternity the buzzer sounded. I had run out of time, and it was now Elizabeth’s turn to soldier on. Fortunately, because she was choking so much with laughter and couldn’t come up with another clue (or air, for that matter), the much-anticipated buzzer was finally heard, and the round was blessedly over. So was the show, at least for that day.

  Okay, now you ask … what was the password that Louis was trying to convey?

  “Tweet.”

  “Tweet?”

  Poor Louis—he thought “twat” was the past tense of “tweet.” Even if he’d been right, we would have lost, since Password rules didn’t allow any form of the word as a clue.

  Did I mention that after this the show went from a live format to being taped?

  Fans

  Recently, I was in the market and a woman came up to me and said: “Excuse me, but aren’t you Carol Burnett?”

  I smiled and said, “Yes, I am.”

  “I knew it! I just knew it was you! Do you know how I could tell?”

  “No …”

  “By your face.”

  Lunchtime at the Turkey Farm

  I’ve mentioned that my kid sister, Chris, was attending an Episcopal school in Mendham, New Jersey, while I was working on Garry Moore’s show. She would usually come into the city on weekends, and on the Sundays when she didn’t, I would rent a car and drive out to Mendham so that we could have lunch together.

  There was a charming little restaurant there called the Turkey Farm, where people often went after church. The food was down-home delicious: biscuits, gravy, mashed potatoes, turkey, fried chicken, homemade pies and cakes. The atmosphere matched the food, homey and happy.

  The first few Sundays we went, I noticed some of the customers staring at me. I’d look at them and smile, and they’d look away as if they were embarrassed or something. I figured they recognized me from Garry’s show and didn’t want to make a scene. The awkwardness eased up after the next few Sundays. People would smile at us and we’d smile back. Sometimes they’d wave goodbye as we were leaving. They were polite as could be, but still shy. At least most of them were.

  One Sunday as Chris and I were leaving, I told her I needed to make a pit stop before we got in the car. I headed for the ladies’ room. It was empty. I went into a stall. As I was sitting there, I heard the outside door open, followed by tiny little footsteps clicking along the tile floor. They stopped right outside my stall. I looked down and saw two little feet wearing black patent leather Mary Janes and pink socks with little frills around the cuffs.

  I didn’t move. The little feet didn’t move. Dead silence. Minutes went by.

  Finally a tiny upside-down face appeared under my door. She was about five years old with a Buster Brown haircut. She stared up at me sitting there, and grinned from ear to ear. One front tooth was missing. “Thay,” she lisped, “are you Carol Burnett?”

  Tarzan and Bergdorf Goodman

  The ear tug for Nanny had become a sort of trademark of mine whenever I was on television, my way of saying hello to her. The other trademark, if you want to call it that, is the fact that I can do the Tarzan yell. I taught myself to do it when I was around eight or nine, playing movies with my cousin Janice (Cuz). We acted out a lot of the picture shows we saw. Because she was the pretty one, I’d be Nelson to her Jeanette, Nick to her Nora, and Tarzan to her Jane.

  When I was doing the opening questions and answers for The Carol Burnett Show every week, I could always count on somebody asking me to do the yell. Actually, it’s real
ly nothing more than a very drawn-out (and loud) yodel. It also happens to be a pretty good vocal exercise. I remember getting Beverly Sills to do it once when we were working together. Naturally, she got it down pat.

  Not too long ago, I was in the market shopping for groceries when a little boy came up to me and asked me to do the Tarzan yell. I felt terrible disappointing him.

  “What’s your name, honey?”

  “Brandon.”

  I said, “Brandon, I really can’t do it here. I wish I could, but it really wouldn’t be a very good idea.” For a second there, before he turned away, I thought he was going to spit on my shoe. But I had a very good reason for this decision.

  It went like this….

  Several years before, Joe Hamilton and I had fallen in love and married. He still continued to produce television shows plus any special I might be doing. We had settled down in New York.

  One day, before rehearsals for our latest TV special (Calamity Jane) were to begin, I decided I had time to make a quick run to Bergdorf Goodman to buy a pair of stockings. Bergdorf’s was, and still is, a very posh department store. It was right across the street from the hotel where we were staying, and I was in a hurry so I wouldn’t be late for rehearsal. The store had just opened its doors, and it was practically empty. I ran up to the lingerie department, found the brand I wanted, and looked around for a salesperson.