How Lucille Ball Became Carol Burnett’s Mentor
Along with her compelling television series The Carroll Burnett Show – the first sketch comedy program hosted by a woman – Carol Burnett helped pave the way for a generation of female comedians and showrunners. But long before she became a household name, she was a 25-year-old actress in New York, someone she needed to see for herself. After a one-night meeting in 1959, Burnett discovered Lucille Ball – and a lifelong friend. Burnett grew up in Hollywood and studied theater at UCLA before arriving in New York in 1954, with the goal of becoming an actress. After a few small roles on the TV show, and a very popular parody song “I Made a Flower of Myself Over John Foster Dual,” which she performed on The Tonight Show and The Ed Sullivan Show, 25-year-old Burnett landed a part . Once Upon a Mattress in the Broadway production of Once Up. (She later went on to receive a Tony nomination when she later moved to Broadway.) On the second night of the musical, Barnett recounted in a s...