Carol Burnett

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Just lie there for all day. It was, as I said, it was a good gig.

Speaker 1 Welcome back to Where Everybody Knows Your Name, Carol Burnett.

Speaker 1 What do you say about someone who has given us so much?

Speaker 1 I have been blessed to be able to spend time with her, and it just makes me smile and laugh every time I think about every minute I've spent with her.

Speaker 1 From Annie to the Carol Burnett Show to Mama's Family, she's won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Mark Twain Prize, multiple Emmys, Golden Globes, Tony's.

Speaker 1 She's also a best-selling author, and I want to talk to her about a book she wrote about her late daughter called Carry and Me. She's currently in Palm Royale.

Speaker 1 The second season is streaming on Apple TV.

Speaker 1 She's magnificent in it. She was nominated for the first season.
Here is one of my heroes, Carol Burnett.

Speaker 1 I get a lot of mail from, and sometimes from even teenagers, because they see our show in reruns and so forth.

Speaker 1 But the things that make me the happiest is when somebody will say, you know, we weren't feeling well.

Speaker 1 And we saw Tim Conway and Harvey break up and do this and watch a show. And like, that's one of the few times I saw my mother laugh or my grandmother or whatever.
And that's that just, you never know.

Speaker 1 You don't. Ripples.
Absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I think I also told you this once, that I grew up without a TV. I didn't have a television.
My family didn't have a TV until cheers came on.

Speaker 1 And then they decided, well, we'll get a TV. But they put this religious tapestry over it when they weren't watching cheers.

Speaker 1 Oh, my goodness. I don't know.

Speaker 1 So I missed growing up with you, but I obviously caught up over the years. And I've just spent the last 48 hours because Mary's not in town.

Speaker 1 First off, I didn't see Pom Royale until 48 hours ago, and I binged it. Oh, the first season? Yes.
It is amazing. Wait till you see the second.
I I can't wait.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's premiering this month on the 15th.

Speaker 1 It's wild. It's absolutely off the wall.
There's a lot of music and production numbers and surprises, lots of secrets. And finally, I get to talk.
Well, you came out a little bit in the last couple of

Speaker 1 episodes. Right.

Speaker 1 And because I was talking to you, I went back and spent a day watching Carol Burnett Show from like, from like your first episode,

Speaker 1 which was such a hoot because there you were, little girl. You were a little girl.
How old were you? 34. No, you weren't.
I was 34 when we started.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Wow.

Speaker 1 1967.

Speaker 1 That's amazing. Yeah.
That's amazing. So I binged like hours of it.
So did you see the full hours with the music and everything? Not all of them, but yes, I did. I did.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 No, the guests you had, Jim Neighbors, for your first one. Jim always was the first one in all 11 seasons.
And

Speaker 1 we would have, I mean,

Speaker 1 I grew up with my grandmother. We didn't have a television.
Of course, there wasn't television

Speaker 1 when I was a kid.

Speaker 1 But we would go to the movies in the 40s. And so my favorites were Betty Grable and Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland and all of of the.
And later on that to have my own show,

Speaker 1 Betty Grable was one of my first guests. I read that.

Speaker 1 Betty Grable and being Crosby and

Speaker 1 people that my grandmother and I used to see in the movies. It's like dreams come true.
I never knew I was ever going to be a performer.

Speaker 1 Had no idea.

Speaker 1 I wanted to be a journalist.

Speaker 1 No, I didn't read that. I didn't catch that.
Yeah, I was editor of my junior high school paper in Hollywood High, and I went to UCLA

Speaker 1 because I wanted to major in journalism.

Speaker 1 And so I got there, and there was no major in journalism at UCLA.

Speaker 1 So I could take a course in journalism and join the school paper, which I did.

Speaker 1 So I looked through the catalog and there was

Speaker 1 a major called Theater Arts English. And then there was Theater Arts Film, Theater Arts Theater, Theater Arts Design.
So I saw Theater Arts English.

Speaker 1 Well, I could take the playwriting courses because I wanted to write.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 I didn't know that as a freshman, whether you wanted to write or you wanted to be a director or you wanted to design costume, you had to take an acting course.

Speaker 1 I was terrified.

Speaker 1 What?

Speaker 1 And I came in late, so other people had paired off and I was the odd one.

Speaker 1 And I had to, the teacher gave me

Speaker 1 two monologues. She said, okay, pick one.
One was from The Country Girl, the play, and another from a play called The Mad Woman of Shia.

Speaker 1 And so I picked the Mad Woman one because it was shorter.

Speaker 1 So I remember

Speaker 1 we got up and we had to do our scenes, and I was the last one and the other kids were great. I mean, they were crying and they could do all this.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 I got up and I went,

Speaker 1 this is a monologue from the mad woman of Chalet.

Speaker 1 I had no idea. It didn't even occur to me to read it, to know what I was doing.

Speaker 1 She gave me a D minus.

Speaker 1 She said, the only reason you're not getting an F is because you memorized it. So then, oh God,

Speaker 1 the next,

Speaker 1 okay, we had to do some more scenes. And I teamed up with this boy, this guy named Dick Denute was his name.

Speaker 1 And we did a scene from Noel Coward's Red Peppers, which, and then we sang, has anybody seen our ship, the HMS Peculiar? It was seeing all those Betty Grable movies. Yes.

Speaker 1 I thought, well, okay, I'll be Betty Grable with a cockney accent. And I did it, and I got an A.

Speaker 1 And then I had another scene that I did later where I played a hillbilly woman.

Speaker 1 And I just had a couple of lines, but one I entered, and

Speaker 1 I remember I said, I'm back.

Speaker 1 And everybody laughed.

Speaker 1 And I thought, oh,

Speaker 1 I think I like this.

Speaker 1 And it was all an accident. Had there been a school of major in journalism, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you like this now.

Speaker 1 You know, it was just like,

Speaker 1 and all of a sudden I thought, I

Speaker 1 want to do this. And then

Speaker 1 later, a guy came up to me on campus from the music department and said,

Speaker 1 can you sing?

Speaker 1 And my grandmother, mother, and I used to sit in the kitchen and play the ukulele and harmonize, but i never really

Speaker 1 so he put me in a chorus of south pacific

Speaker 1 having seen your acting scene or no yeah yeah he said but can you carry it can we interrupt just one second i didn't know whether you'd be you know need a little refreshment or not but this is kenzo hond

Speaker 1 oh no

Speaker 1 this is not a year

Speaker 1 went to the grill

Speaker 1 he went to the grill oh no and uh found out everything about them. And he's a professional and one of the best.

Speaker 1 That's hysterical. Thank you.
Thank you so much. Really appreciate that.
That is funny.

Speaker 1 Now, you don't have to if you don't want to, but it is there as

Speaker 1 a symbol of love and appreciation. Well, I have to do this.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Cheers. Cheers.

Speaker 1 Oh, God, that really is good, y'all.

Speaker 1 That really is good. We'll get back to that in a minute.
Let me just do my one little teeny story that's very similar, which was hearing a laugh is what

Speaker 1 I wanted to be a basketball player. I went to Stanford.
There was no way I was going to be a basketball player. I was not good enough, but it was my dream.
Very sad.

Speaker 1 Asked the girl out,

Speaker 1 would you come have coffee with me? She finally said yes. Halfway through the first cup, she said, I have to go to an audition.
I think I thought she was making it up. But anyway, I went with her.

Speaker 1 And to stay in the room, I had to make something up because it was a Bertold Brecht play.

Speaker 1 And I just made something up and I heard someone laugh. And it was just like, oh.

Speaker 1 Hello. It's not basketball, but oh,

Speaker 1 this is wonderful. Right.
Wait, so back to you. Somebody comes and says, can you sing? Yeah.
And I said, I could carry a tune.

Speaker 1 And they were doing, it was a musical comedy department at UCLA.

Speaker 1 And so they were doing a scene from South Pacific. And this wonderful girl was playing Nellie Forbush, and I was one of the nurses, and she was singing, I'm going to wash that man.

Speaker 1 Well, I got so brave, I started to belt,

Speaker 1 sing loud, and I had never sung loud in my life. And he said, wait a minute, wait a minute.
He said, I'm taking you out. You're too loud.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry. He said, but I want you to do a scene.
where you play Adelaide in Guys and Dolls,

Speaker 1 where she sings Adelaide's Lament, where she has a cold.

Speaker 1 What is that? A person can develop a cold. Yeah.
Oh, yes.

Speaker 1 Sorry. And I said, well, if she has a cold, and if I hit a clam and it's not good, I can blame it on the fact that she's got a cold.
So I sang that

Speaker 1 and it went great.

Speaker 1 And I was hooked from then on.

Speaker 1 And was it at that period where somebody saw you, a couple, and said,

Speaker 1 in essence, we want to back you?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 the musical comedy department, there were nine of us in it. And our professor, Dr.
Popper, and his wife were going to San Diego for a party, Black Tie Affair. And he said, you know what?

Speaker 1 Instead of you just doing the scenes,

Speaker 1 you know, at UCLA, why don't you kids come down and be the entertainment for the party, and I'll grade you.

Speaker 1 Well, okay, so went down, and I'm living with my grandmother,

Speaker 1 and uh,

Speaker 1 our rent was $30 a month, a dollar a day, and we could barely afford that. We were poor.
Anyway, so we all get down to the party, and

Speaker 1 we did about six scenes. I did a scene from Annie, get your gun.

Speaker 1 And then afterwards, I went to the hors d'oeuvre table and I have a purse and I'm stealing hors d'oeuvres wrapping up to take home to my grandmother. And there's a panel.
I'm busted.

Speaker 1 And it was this gentleman and his wife. And he said, like, very, what do you want to do with your life? And I said, well, someday I want to go to New York and

Speaker 1 be in musical comedy on Broadway. Aren't you there now? I said, well,

Speaker 1 I'd like to, but

Speaker 1 I'm trying to save enough money.

Speaker 1 And he said, I'll lend you the money.

Speaker 1 And I thought that was the champagne talking.

Speaker 1 And his wife said, no, he means it. He gives me his card and he said, be in my office Monday morning.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 we got down there.

Speaker 1 9 o'clock.

Speaker 1 He had a big office in La Jolla

Speaker 1 and went in and he said,

Speaker 1 I'm going to lend you $1,000. Now,

Speaker 1 our rent,

Speaker 1 $30 a month, $1,000 would be like a million dollars today.

Speaker 1 I couldn't believe it. And there are stipulations.

Speaker 1 You must use this money to go to New York.

Speaker 1 You must, if you're successful,

Speaker 1 pay me back five years, in five years, no interest.

Speaker 1 You must never reveal my name. Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 And if you are successful, you must promise to help others out.

Speaker 1 What an interesting man.

Speaker 1 Yep. And

Speaker 1 I came home,

Speaker 1 and I showed my grandmother all this money. I thought she was going to have a heart attack.
And she said, you can't go to New York. We can use that money.
But I said, Nanny,

Speaker 1 that was one of the stipulations. I have to go to New York.
And

Speaker 1 so

Speaker 1 I did.

Speaker 1 I was really stupid, Ted.

Speaker 1 I mean, I was so naive. I was 20, 21.
I get on the plane.

Speaker 1 I have no idea where I'm going to stay when I get to New York. It was like Mickey and Judy.
Okay.

Speaker 1 My father has a ball.

Speaker 1 And all of a sudden I'll land and I'll get a part in a Broadway show.

Speaker 1 So on the plane, I was reading The New Yorker and there was an ad for the Algonquin Hotel. Oh, wow.
You know, and I thought, oh, wow.

Speaker 1 Well, maybe I had a little money left over for having to buy the tickets, having to buy a suitcase and stuff.

Speaker 1 So I had about maybe $400 left out of the thousand.

Speaker 1 And I checked into the Algonquin.

Speaker 1 And the guy said, that'll be $9.

Speaker 1 And I said, for the week? He said, no, for the night.

Speaker 1 Again, $9

Speaker 1 when our rent was $1 a day. I thought, oh, my God, that's okay.

Speaker 1 Anyway, so I went, I had a room.

Speaker 1 And it's the first time I had ever slept in a bed. I always slept on the couch

Speaker 1 with my grandmother. We had one room.

Speaker 1 There was a bed. and a closet.
I used to hang my clothes on the bathroom shower rack. I would always always go to school a little damp.

Speaker 1 So anyway, so I was like, oh, wow. And then I called home and my grandmother started crying, come home, come home.
I just got here. You know, and

Speaker 1 all right, you're going to be dead in a week. Your blood's too thin.

Speaker 1 That's hello. Anyway, so I hung up and I turned the radio.
It started to rain.

Speaker 1 And I always loved rain. Not torrential, but rain

Speaker 1 turned on the radio started rain

Speaker 1 swear to god it said hurricane carol is hitting new york

Speaker 1 that's great august 1954 look it up that's amazing and i went well there's some kind of a sign and I had one phone number in my wallet

Speaker 1 and it was of the girl who was the lead in the

Speaker 1 South Pacific scene. She'd come to New York.
She was ahead of me a year early and

Speaker 1 said, if you're ever in New York, here's my phone number. And was she

Speaker 1 making it?

Speaker 1 No. I called her.
She said, where are you? I said,

Speaker 1 the next morning, I called her.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God, get out of there. What are you going to come up here? Where's here? She said, come up.
I'm at Live at the Rehearsal Club on 54th Street.

Speaker 1 And it was a club for young women interested, want to be in the theater,

Speaker 1 very much on the up and up. It had a house mother and rules and all of that.
Kind of Catherine Hepburn, the movie. That's what it was about.
Oh, what? The rehearsal club.

Speaker 1 And they called it Spotlight at the theater, I think. But the movie was based on the rehearsal club, which had been there forever.
There were about 25 women, young women.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 Miss Carlton said, well, you're lucky. You're lucky.
We have one cot available.

Speaker 1 And there was a big room, and it was called the transit room. And there were four cots, five cots.

Speaker 1 Each had a dresser, and one closet, one bathroom, five women.

Speaker 1 And so that was my, and $18 a week, room and board.

Speaker 1 Pretty good.

Speaker 1 Well, so

Speaker 1 rich ladies in New York sponsored it, which is why the rent was so low and that saved my life 54th you said 54th between fifth and sixth

Speaker 1 oh so really a safe oh

Speaker 1 oh yeah and uh the rules were no men allowed above the parlor

Speaker 1 uh

Speaker 1 and uh

Speaker 1 you can't stay out all night you have to follow the on and you have to be actively pursuing your what you want you can have a part-time job to help pay the rent, but you have to prove you're going, making the rounds, trying to get auditions.

Speaker 1 It was many years, not many, but years later, but it sounds so familiar. How did you wake up the next morning and look for a job?

Speaker 1 Not a job, but a part.

Speaker 1 Well, there was a

Speaker 1 newspaper called Show Business, and it would say when there would be a cattle call or something.

Speaker 1 And you can't get get into anything unless you have an agent and you can't get an agent unless you're in something it's catch 22

Speaker 1 but so with one of the girls who was one of my roommates we uh

Speaker 1 took a part-time job checking hats at a lady's tea room susan palmer's tea room

Speaker 1 uh and she would work three days a week i would work three and we uh shared our tips so we each averaged about thirty dollars a week So it was part-time. So then I could look for.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 So finally,

Speaker 1 I got in to see an agent and I showed him my scrapbook of UCLA Rave Review. It was like he's going to care.

Speaker 1 And he said, oh, let me know when you're in something. I went,

Speaker 1 how do I get into it? And he said, go put on your own show.

Speaker 1 He did.

Speaker 1 Why? Went back to the club. I called a meeting of all the girls.
It's my Mickey, Rooney, and Judy Garland. I said, girls, we're going to put on a show.

Speaker 1 And we're going to call it the Rehearsal Club Review. And everybody's going to do their thing.

Speaker 1 And we're going to invite every agent, producer, director in town.

Speaker 1 We wrote it. We presented the first act to the rich ladies who sponsored the club.
And they gave us $200 to rent the Carl Fisher Concert Hall, Two Nice.

Speaker 1 We sent out penny postcards to every agent

Speaker 1 saying, you're always saying, let us know when you're in something.

Speaker 1 Well, we're in something and this penny postcard is your ticket. Come and see us.

Speaker 1 We did it, put on a show and three of us got agents. That's fantastic.
But it's the movies

Speaker 1 that,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 when I was growing up, they were never cynical. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It was always the good guys made it. You want to put on a show? You'll wind up on Broadway.
It was like nothing was impossible.

Speaker 1 I remember having an acting teacher saying, this is a really hard thing. My first acting teacher is at Stanford and before I transferred to Carnegie Mellon.
And he was

Speaker 1 an upset actor who became a teacher because it didn't quite work out. And so he had this negative thing.
And I remember out of nowhere.

Speaker 1 was no, you know, license to be saying anything. He said, oh, you shouldn't say that.
There's some people here who really want to become actors. You shouldn't be

Speaker 1 negative. Right.
You know,

Speaker 1 you do make your way. That's right.
Yeah.

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Speaker 1 I remember falling in love with you.

Speaker 1 Now we're going to get down to it by

Speaker 1 body heat.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I have to say you were my favorite person in it. Everybody was great, but you, when you were dancing, the dancing got you.
And I waited to see who is, and it said dancing.

Speaker 1 And I thought, that's perfect.

Speaker 1 But I just, you fractured me in that movie. I know it was, and that was a long time ago.

Speaker 1 We have to just stop for a minute because part of me right now is pretending to be a podcaster, but I'm just going, I can't believe that I'm sitting here talking to you, Carol. Come on.
No, for real.

Speaker 1 And that night,

Speaker 1 for those of you who don't follow the awards,

Speaker 1 I was given the Carol Burnett Award at the Golden Globes.

Speaker 1 I was sick as a dog. I don't think I think you did know that.

Speaker 1 You wouldn't let me hug you. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But I was on steroids, which I highly recommend for a good time.

Speaker 1 I was just on top of it. But I remember saying something in my

Speaker 1 kind of prepared remarks about you, and you shouted from the table, I love you.

Speaker 1 And it's like something that was

Speaker 1 a moment that, you know, you can't.

Speaker 1 Well, I meant it, and I mean it still. I know.
And I mean, I know, because

Speaker 1 I do believe you, and you've made it, you were very sweet and very clear every time I see you.

Speaker 1 But I love you so

Speaker 1 much, Carol Bernard. Wow.
Let me unaware for a second while we're into the compliment phase. Your performance, Norma,

Speaker 1 is amazing. Well, thank you.
And

Speaker 1 you do get big,

Speaker 1 well, I'm assuming you got huge laughs. I was laughing out loud and I was just studying it and looking.
And you would do one

Speaker 1 little thing because you were in a coma. Yeah.
But you would get laughs from me in the middle of your coma. And then it just kept building.
One of my favorites was

Speaker 1 with the K sound. Exactly.
Slightly delayed. But you're really wonderful acting.
Oh, thank you. Really, really good.
Because I had also binged Carol Burnett's show, which is, you know,

Speaker 1 nothing's sacred. You're, you know, you can be as big as you want.
It's very funny. It can be broad.
It can be funny. It can be moving and all of that.
And then watched you and this.

Speaker 1 And it was like, wow. I'm glad you were nominated.
I'm sorry you didn't win, but that must be a hoot. Yeah.
It was a good gig. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It still is. Oh, yeah.
But I had to laugh when they called me to do it. You know, I said, well,

Speaker 1 they're going to do this series. This was two years ago.
And I said, well,

Speaker 1 who's in it? And they said, Kristen Wigg, Allison Janey, Laura Dern, Ricky Martyr. I said, stop.
I'm in. I don't care what you want me to do.
Yeah. I'm in.

Speaker 1 I want to lock eyeballs with those people and get in the sandbox and play. And they said, well, in the first four or five episodes, you're in a coma.

Speaker 1 I said, oh, okay.

Speaker 1 So I'd get up, go to the motorhome, get in the cotton, and go right back to bed. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Just lie there all day.

Speaker 1 It was, as I said, it was a good gig. It's really a wonderful performance.
Clearly, you get your, you know, you thank you. You make progress through your coma.

Speaker 1 Well, I probably shouldn't do, some people haven't seen it, so I won't do a spoil alert, but you

Speaker 1 you get to be uh take on a lot of wonderful things as you're a coma and be with some wonderful people.

Speaker 1 You know, what I love too was watching Laura Dern and Bruce Dern

Speaker 1 in their scenes. Is that sweet? So sweet.
He's a lovely actor, yeah. And you know, unfortunately, uh, her mother died yesterday, Diane.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 and Laura was with her.

Speaker 1 I didn't know that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 We had dinner with them a couple of months ago with Laura and Diane. Such fun.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 Laura is one of the sweetest human beings on the face of this earth. Yeah, she is.
She is just wise.

Speaker 1 A dynamo. Soulful.
Soulful. And she gives.

Speaker 1 In the middle of everything that's going on into her life, she let us honor her in New York for the Oceana event. Oh, that's wonderful.
And when you get honored, it usually means

Speaker 1 people are making use of your fame to help raise money. So it's lovely, but it's also work.
And she was so generous and sweet. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Just

Speaker 1 a moment about Diane. Yeah.
Wonderful actor. What?

Speaker 1 I think two or three times she was nominated. Yes.

Speaker 1 What a character. Yeah.
And funny.

Speaker 1 Yep. Yeah.
Intentional and unintentional. Yeah.
You know,

Speaker 1 she was, well, I'm so sorry. I feel like we should be celebrating her, but there'll be time for that.
That's very sad. Cheers to Diane.
Yeah. To Diane.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, much love. Yeah.
Thank you for telling me that.

Speaker 1 Anyway. Yeah.
I'm sorry to threw you with. No, no, I'm glad you told me.
And I think it's very sweet to be saying how wonderful, partially I'm going to imagine that Laura's is such a good actress.

Speaker 1 She had two wonderful actors, Bruce. She sure inherited

Speaker 1 in her DNA. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And she was, I loved doing scenes with her.
And there's a major spoiler coming up in the second season. Yeah.

Speaker 1 How fantastic. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's really a great show. And I can't wait to see the next one.
And the costumes. Vicki's in it.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I think that was in the press. You can tell that.

Speaker 1 I can't say who she's playing, but I can, because they don't want me to do spoilers. But

Speaker 1 yeah, it was so great because last year, when we knew we were going to have a second season, I planned on calling Abe Sylvia, who's the creator and the director of Palmore,

Speaker 1 to ask him if you think there might be something for Vicki in the second season.

Speaker 1 And before I could make that call,

Speaker 1 he called me and said, you know, I'm thinking of hiring Vicki. Would you like,

Speaker 1 I can't believe it.

Speaker 1 I was going to suggest it. So we were on the same page.

Speaker 1 And it was such fun to see her and be with her again.

Speaker 1 There was a couple of other people that were mentioned in the new cast, which lends to the singing and dancing thing that you're talking about.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. yeah yeah and John Stamos is in it and he's got a very funny scene

Speaker 1 he is very funny and yeah he's a lovely actor too yes it's a great cast yeah that's great Ricky Martin Ricky Sweeter sorry I didn't realize Ricky was such a good actor he's very he's fantastic and he's he's very

Speaker 1 kind and sweet and unassuming

Speaker 1 in life because he was that way in his performance in life

Speaker 1 Well, that's pretty good that he can take who he is and make it stay there when he's out. His character is probably the sweetest one in the whole group.
Yes. Everybody else has got problems.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 a lot of secrets. Yeah.

Speaker 1 A lot of silly.

Speaker 1 And then, I mean, it's very gossipy and not means, it's funny. So the mean-spiritedness is funny because they're over-the-top mean.
Yeah. You know, and silly.
But it's subtle.

Speaker 1 Then it also moves into this very moving,

Speaker 1 touching area, too. For all of these people you had shocked off as just mean, you go, oh, wait a minute.
Well, that's the fun of the second season.

Speaker 1 You start to find out why people are behaving the way they are and, in a way, forgiving them. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, it's really good writing.

Speaker 1 I love the whale stuff.

Speaker 1 I come up with that. I don't know.

Speaker 1 You fell in love with a whale. But you buy it.
I know. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Allison Jane is wonderful. Allison and I,

Speaker 1 we're very close. We wordle.

Speaker 1 Oh, well, you're talking my language. Mary and I wordle every morning.
Do you spelling bee? We do wordle. We do connections and spelling bee.
That's Brian and me. That's what we do.

Speaker 1 Your marriage will last.

Speaker 1 We start with connections and then we go to Wordle and then we go to Spelling Bee.

Speaker 1 Which truthfully, after having gone through the other two, is my favorite. Spelling Bee, I do love.
I do too. I love Spelling Bee Challenges.
Now, here's what you probably don't do.

Speaker 1 Mary and I do it together. So do Brian.
Oh, good. See? We tag team.
Yes. That was much more fun.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 I think maybe, I'm not sure, but we may have the record of getting it in one try.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 wordle, that only happened to us once when it was our word that we always. Do you use the same word? Oh, wow.
We change it

Speaker 1 every time. Brian comes up with a different word every day.

Speaker 1 Okay, we'll try it.

Speaker 1 And it's an accident, you know that. Yeah.
It's an accident. We got

Speaker 1 audio, bacon,

Speaker 1 clown. Oh, wait.
These were all first tries?

Speaker 1 Audio, bacon, clown, Crown,

Speaker 1 Stash,

Speaker 1 Towel, and Talon.

Speaker 1 I don't want to be divisive in your marriage, but should you check to see whether Brian has a connection with the New York Times back in New York? There is no way you can cheat with that.

Speaker 1 It's a total... Total luck and accident because that doesn't take brains.
It's just luck. Yeah, yeah.
What takes brains is once you get a word and then you get it in two. That's good.

Speaker 1 You know, two or three. Mary does, I can logic my way through it sometimes.

Speaker 1 Mary has one of these

Speaker 1 leap that's intuitive. It's not always there.
She doesn't claim it all the time, but it'll be in the second try and it'll be so far from what the letters look like it should be. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And she'll go, oh, I think it's that.

Speaker 1 Yeah. She does that a lot.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Do people have any idea what we're talking about? I'm good.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, then Brian goes on to do the crosswords.

Speaker 1 I believe. I believe.

Speaker 1 The reason we got stash, for instance, is

Speaker 1 my mother had a parakeet,

Speaker 1 and my kid's sister, no, my kid's sister had the parakeet and wanted to name it Tweety. And my mother, oh, for goodness sakes, every parakeet in the world is named Tweety.

Speaker 1 Let's call him Stash.

Speaker 1 So I was telling that to Brian that morning i said that's he said okay let's put in stash oh my god that was the word right so it's like woo woo yeah

Speaker 1 you have some woo woo woo in you don't you yeah yeah you do so does mary oh i believe in woo woo woo

Speaker 1 but uh i think my brain's a little too slow or literal but she's full i love that you

Speaker 1 described that you and Carrie, your daughter,

Speaker 1 found out that you both later in life, found out that you both have experienced leaving your bodies when you were around the same age, 12 or 13. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Mary too?

Speaker 1 No. Mary, actually, I talked about this with her last night.
I have. I had one that was

Speaker 1 genuine. What happened? I was announcing that

Speaker 1 my friend, who was an environmental lawyer, Bobby Solnick. How old were you?

Speaker 1 39. Oh, so you were an adult.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And we were announcing in Washington, D.C. at the Capitol in one of those wood-paneled, looks like the most important kind of press room you could ever be in.
And all of the California

Speaker 1 congressmen and senators were standing behind me, very sweetly supporting, because people weren't talking about oceans back then that much. This was in mid-80s.

Speaker 1 And I was giving my this is what we're going to do speech. I was reading it and

Speaker 1 I was literally 20, 30 feet above. It was a huge room looking down,

Speaker 1 looking down, saw myself reading and it was probably a count of three.

Speaker 1 And then I went, oh, for God's sake, you're reading. You better.

Speaker 1 But I was unmistakably one of those things where my brain goes,

Speaker 1 this

Speaker 1 some part of you knew this was going to be an important part of your life because it's what I've done for the rest of my life from that moment on.

Speaker 1 And you know, take note because it's an important moment. But I love reading that.
I could, what I did as a kid,

Speaker 1 I would lock myself up. We had a little dressing room off of the main living room, my grandmother, and I would sit there and I would

Speaker 1 just look into my eyes,

Speaker 1 just focus and focus and focus. And I would go up here

Speaker 1 and look down. And then I got scared.
And as soon as I got scared,

Speaker 1 I would say, what is this about? What is this about? As soon as I did that, it would come back. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I could do that. And I stopped doing it.
I can't do it anymore. So this was.

Speaker 1 Was it the first time accidental you discovered?

Speaker 1 Yeah. I was just kind of staring and all of a sudden I just left.

Speaker 1 Left, but saw yourself. So

Speaker 1 Over my right shoulder. And then you could recreate that.
That's amazing. Yeah.
If ever I wanted to, I could lock myself in. And then I'd go, here we go.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 then I got scared that maybe someday I would be able to

Speaker 1 pop out down into myself. How did you discover that you and Carrie both had bad? She came to me.

Speaker 1 At 12.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and she said,

Speaker 1 I think she might have been a year or two younger. And she said, Mom, something really weird happened.
And I, what? And and she said i left my body and i could see myself look i

Speaker 1 don't worry

Speaker 1 you know uh

Speaker 1 it happens yeah there's there's a lot of weird stuff that

Speaker 1 i mean i think we say

Speaker 1 my two senses are we sometimes say weird stuff because it feels like you don't want

Speaker 1 it's because it's real from my point of view. It's real.
Somebody might listen to what they're talking about. You're crazy.
But that's all right. You don't have to believe it out there.
But

Speaker 1 and we've had Mary and I have had many

Speaker 1 mostly around Mary,

Speaker 1 you know, because she's very much open and in touch and all of that.

Speaker 1 But you had an experience after Carrie passed away and you were wondering whether or not do I continue, do I have the courage or the whatever to continue with the play you both wrote when you were in Chicago.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I said a prayer on the plane.

Speaker 1 going to Chicago for the tryouts of our play called Hollywood Arms. And Brian was with me.
And I said, Carrie, I don't know if I can finish this play without you. Please give me a sign.

Speaker 1 Let me know you're with me.

Speaker 1 So we land,

Speaker 1 go to the hotel, and

Speaker 1 go in.

Speaker 1 On the coffee table, there's this huge array of birds of paradise. And I looked at the card and it was from our director, Hal Prince, who's in the hotel.

Speaker 1 And he said, can't wait to start rehearsals tomorrow. Welcome to Chicago.
Love Hal.

Speaker 1 So I picked up and I called and I said, how did you know about the birds of paradise? He said, what do you mean? I just called down. I said, send up something exotic or whatever.

Speaker 1 I said, birds of paradise. were Carrie's favorite flower and she had one tattooed on her shoulder.
I love that. The birds of paradise.

Speaker 1 So then the next night,

Speaker 1 Brian and Hal and I went out to dinner in Chicago, and

Speaker 1 the Meridie brought a bottle of champagne over,

Speaker 1 complimentary. And on the label, one of the names on the label was Louise.

Speaker 1 And that was my mother's name and Carrie's middle name. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 okay, she's with me. It really, it

Speaker 1 opened me up. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay,

Speaker 1 something's did you?

Speaker 1 I don't, I don't, I mean, I, I, I firmly believe in that. And I've experienced, we're having a James von Prague.
I don't know if you know who he is. He's written several, he's a medium.

Speaker 1 Oh, and he's written several books called Talking to Heaven, I think, or something like that. And I, Mary, and I were in a film about him

Speaker 1 based loose loosely on him. So we were around him a lot and everything.
But

Speaker 1 too many things happened

Speaker 1 that would make, it would be too hard to explain. It'd be too hard to explain.
Nobody else knew but you. Yes.
Right. Yes.
And there was, yes,

Speaker 1 I won't go into it right now, but there were things where Mary, who,

Speaker 1 because you don't know. We don't know.
Of course not. And that's what faith is, or you know, or being curious.

Speaker 1 But it'd be too hard to try to explain it away as some literal

Speaker 1 thing. Exactly.
Oh, I see what happened. Yeah.
Go for it. I'm happy for it to be whatever.
So a medium called me when we got to New York

Speaker 1 to open the play.

Speaker 1 And he said,

Speaker 1 your daughter has gotten in touch with me.

Speaker 1 and wants me to give you a message, some messages. And

Speaker 1 he said, Can I come and visit? And he said,

Speaker 1 I'm not charging. I just want to

Speaker 1 impart all of this to you. And please don't say who I am.
And we got there, and I think he asked for something of mine to hold. And he said, Carrie wants you to know that she's fine.

Speaker 1 And I go, Yeah, you can say that about anything.

Speaker 1 And I

Speaker 1 so then he said,

Speaker 1 I'm going to tell, ask things that that only you would know

Speaker 1 so that you know that I am in touch with her.

Speaker 1 So he said,

Speaker 1 she had a dog.

Speaker 1 It's the initial P.

Speaker 1 And now I'm thinking way back when we were little, we had a dog named Phoebe, which would begin with the P.

Speaker 1 And I said, well, Phoebe? And he said, no, no.

Speaker 1 And then it dawned on me, she had a great Dane she named Pee Wee.

Speaker 1 I couldn't even remember that. Right.
And he came up with that, which is, you know, he's that's only because I want you to know she is in touch with me. Right.

Speaker 1 And there were a couple of other things, too. She said, uh, said

Speaker 1 that the set

Speaker 1 of Hollywood Arms, you said they've moved the set from when it was before

Speaker 1 from

Speaker 1 she said from stage right to stage left. That was a bed, pulled down bed.
And absolutely correct. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Why, you know, I don't know why. But I love it.
I do too. And

Speaker 1 I'm okay with whatever belief systems are out there. I'm fine.
I'm not, because there's no, it's not like it changes

Speaker 1 my job every day, which is to wake up and be kind and nurturing and full of love and joy. Yeah.
That's my job. And knowing that or experiencing that doesn't change that.
So

Speaker 1 I'm wonderfully curious, you know, and I can't, part of me can't wait.

Speaker 1 Part of me can't. Part of me can.
Part of me can wait.

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Speaker 1 I'm so glad that we had this time together. Yes.

Speaker 1 You're not free yet. Oh, no.
I have a few more questions. First off, Brian,

Speaker 1 I've watched you two or three evenings of being out with you, and I love your relationship.

Speaker 1 It feels very nurturing and kindly together. And do you mind just saying, how was that? Where was that? How did that happen? We met.
Who made that? Well, he's a musician. I know.

Speaker 1 And so we were doing a show

Speaker 1 32 years ago in Long Beach.

Speaker 1 And he was the contractor for the orchestra. Which means he puts them together.
Yeah. And that's how we met.
And

Speaker 1 just

Speaker 1 go back just in smell.

Speaker 1 We got friendly. Yeah.
That's great. So,

Speaker 1 and that was it from that from that moment on, you guys were together. Yeah.

Speaker 1 How wonderful.

Speaker 1 That's fantastic. Yeah.
What else do I want to ask you?

Speaker 1 I don't want to let you go. Let me stall by having a sip.

Speaker 1 That is awfully good. Did you recognize it as yours? Of course.
It's the color. Interesting.
It's kind of a

Speaker 1 little darker than bubblegum pink. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I don't have to keep you here longer. No, I.
I am so grateful to be talking to you.

Speaker 1 Honey, I'm grateful you asked me. I do have one that Mary was asking.

Speaker 1 What is fame like now for you?

Speaker 1 Because

Speaker 1 people recognize you everywhere.

Speaker 1 Is it still an opportunity to

Speaker 1 give something to that person? Of course. Or is it, yeah?

Speaker 1 Of course, you know,

Speaker 1 I'm very fortunate because

Speaker 1 to be as old as I am, I didn't have all the problems that somebody like, God bless her, Jennifer Aniston, and these, you know, with the paparazzi where they have to have security and all of this.

Speaker 1 We were okay, you know, when I was doing my show.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I always remembered,

Speaker 1 well,

Speaker 1 I can tell this story.

Speaker 1 I was a big fan of the movies. My grandmother and I, we lived a block north of Hollywood Boulevard.
And when there would be a premiere with the Grandma's Chinese or Pantages or the Egyptians,

Speaker 1 we would trap down there and hang over the ropes to watch all the movie stars. coming and going.

Speaker 1 And aside from Betty Grable,

Speaker 1 Linda Darnell, now a lot of people may not remember her, but I adored her. She was so beautiful.
And she was from Texas, and I had been born in Texas. And so

Speaker 1 in fact, I think I wrote to 20th Century Fox and got a picture of her.

Speaker 1 So this one time we're hanging over the ropes at a premiere, and

Speaker 1 she got out of her limo and is walking because

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 Nanny, I'm nine years old. Nanny, it's Linda Tornes.
And my grandmother grabs her by the arm. Linda!

Speaker 1 Nanny took no prisoners. Linda, give this little girl your autograph.
She loves you. Just give her your autograph.

Speaker 1 Well, she couldn't have been sweeter. And she said, What's your name, sweetheart? And I told her, and she, and I'm looking up

Speaker 1 at her,

Speaker 1 and I noticed that her nostrils didn't match.

Speaker 1 It was just a little millimeter off.

Speaker 1 That was her only flaw.

Speaker 1 But I do remember how sweet she was.

Speaker 1 And that means so much to, you know, people who are nice and they come up and say, you know, we watched your show. We love, would you mind taking a picture?

Speaker 1 Or if they're very sweet and not pushy, I'm very happy to do it. Yeah.
And especially with little kids. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Because from Annie and from reruns and stuff, a lot of little kids recognize, and they couldn't be sweeter. Right.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I got a, um, because of the good place,

Speaker 1 which I did about five or six years ago with Mike Shur. And

Speaker 1 it's just a wonderful show. It's very bright.
And each new group of young teenagers that drove 13, 14 coming up, watch it because their parents

Speaker 1 remember watching it kind of thing. And it's just so sweet to have people come up to you.

Speaker 1 And to say,

Speaker 1 you made me happy when I was sad. Yeah.

Speaker 1 As we said before, you never know

Speaker 1 who you're going to reach and how. I had a stupid thought,

Speaker 1 but but it's the memory of my stupid thought is very vivid.

Speaker 1 I said this, and it sounds so lame, actually. We'll cut if it's too lame.
I want to shake hands with everybody in the world was a thought I had. Now, I don't really, but

Speaker 1 I want to greet and say hi

Speaker 1 to as many people as I possibly can. I really like that idea.
Why I'm doing these podcasts is

Speaker 1 I did it with Woody. It started off with Woody.

Speaker 1 You'll notice that sometimes

Speaker 1 you would love him or maybe you do know him and love him. But he does this naturally in life.

Speaker 1 He has people and he just has massive amount of friends, real friends. Wonderful.
I don't because for some reason,

Speaker 1 it's good. It's not a bad thing.
I want to go home to marry as fast as I can because

Speaker 1 that's where my joy is.

Speaker 1 And so I love my relationships at work while we're working. But then, do you want to go have a beer?

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 gotcha. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So this allows me to sit. I'd be too nervous or silly or shy or full of false humility to cross the room.
Although I did once cross the room, some green room we were all waiting in.

Speaker 1 And I remember getting down. You were sitting down.
So I got down on my knees to say, hi to you. And that's a vivid memory I have of you.

Speaker 1 But I wouldn't do this, talk to you for an hour but now we have a format and i've absolutely loved it i love being with you honey

Speaker 1 yeah yeah

Speaker 1 lovely love you too

Speaker 1 thank you so much carol for being here and spending time with us total honor please do yourself a favor everybody and pick up her book that we discussed it's called carrie and me a mother and Daughter's Story.

Speaker 1 And check out Pom Royale on Apple TV. Special thanks to bar director Kenzo Hahn for making Carol's Cosmo for us.
The recipe is in the episode notes.

Speaker 1 Kenzo was recently named one of the best new bartenders in the U.S. by Punch.
You can try their original cocktails yourself at a restaurant called First Born here in Los Angeles.

Speaker 1 That's all for our show this week. Special thanks to our friends at Team Coco.

Speaker 1 Subscribe and review on Apple Podcasts if you're in a mood or a good mood. If you like watching your podcast, visit youtube.com slash Team Cocoa.

Speaker 1 See you next time.

Speaker 1 Where everybody knows your name.

Speaker 3 You've been listening to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson sometimes. The show is produced by me, Nick Liao.

Speaker 3 Our executive producers are Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and myself. Sarah Fedorovich is our supervising producer.
Engineering remixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez.

Speaker 3 Research by Alyssa Grahl. Talent Booking by Paula Davis and Jane Batista.
Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Anthony Yen, Mary Steenbergen, and John Osbourne.

Speaker 4 A Sapphire Sapphire Reserve story from Ella Langley.

Speaker 5 I kind of say my first concert ever was for cows. I would climb up to the top of the barn and just perform.
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Speaker 5 And when moo can sound very close to boo, it toughens a girl up.

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