The many honors awarded Carol Burnett attest to the approbation of her peers and the love of her public. Burnett has been Outstanding Comedienne for the American Guild of Variety Artists five times and the recipient of six Emmys. She received TV Guide’s award as Favorite Female Performer for three consecutive years in the early 1960s, and a Peabody award in 1963. The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences proclaimed her Woman of the Year; a Gallup Poll found her to be one of America’s 20 Most Admired Women in 1977. She received the first National TV Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Performance, the first Ace Award for Best Actress, and the Horatio Alger Award, conferred by the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans. The latter is, in many ways, most significant, as Burnett’s personal style and endearing “everywoman” qualities resulted from a life filled with emotional abuse and the ravages of poverty. She was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1985.

Her grandmother wanted her to go to secretarial school, with the objective of marrying a rich executive. Burnett wanted college and a degree in journalism. The odds were slim against her finding tuition and car fare of more than $50, at a time when the family’s rent was $35 per month. When an anonymous donor placed a $50 bill in the mailbox, she enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles, quickly switching from journalism to theater arts. Eventually, she joined a musical comedy/opera workshop where she honed her skills in characterization, comic music, and acting. She became a campus star. But her family’s poverty made her dreams of moving to New York City and playing on Broadway seem unattainable. A performance at a professor’s home in a skit from the musical Annie Get Your Gun in 1954 offered her an unexpected break. A party guest gave Burnett and her boyfriend, Don Saroyan, each a grant of $1,000 designed to jump-start their careers. The benefactor attached four stipulations to the money: Burnett must never reveal his identity, she must move to New York City to try her luck; she had to repay the loan within five years; and she was honor-bound to help other young people attain careers in the entertainment business. Within 18 months, she managed to fulfill two of these criteria. While living at New York’s Rehearsal Club, the hotel haven for aspiring actresses that had inspired the movie Stage Door, she made her own break by organizing the First Annual Rehearsal Club Revue, which showcased the myriad talents of her housemates. While others gained varying opportunities from the program, Burnett signed with the William Morris Agency and rapidly found outlets for her comedic and singing talents.

The Winchell-Mahoney Show, Paul Winchell’s children’s program, was Burnett’s first break in television; for 13 weeks in 1955 she played comic foil for his ventriloquist dummies, where she sang but did little comedy. She played Buddy Hackett’s girlfriend in NBC’s short-lived 1956 sitcom, Stanley. A comedic nightclub act and her collaboration with writer/composer Ken Welch gave her more opportunities for exposure to television audiences. Welch wrote a song spoofing the Elvis Presley craze; Burnett’s rendition of “I Made a Fool of Myself over John Foster Dulles” led to appearances on The Tonight Show with Jack Paar, Toast of the Town with Ed Sullivan, and an amazing amount of publicity as the dour secretary of state fielded questions regarding his “relationship” with Burnett. In 1956 she appeared on CBS-TV’s morning show with Garry Moore, and from 1959 to 1962 was a regular on Moore’s eponymous prime-time program. Critical and popular praise followed, as Burnett portrayed as many as five or six characters an hour in each show; ranked as America’s Favorite Female Performer of 1961–62 by TV Guide, that season she received her first Emmy. She also made a television special based on her successful 1959–61 portrayal of Princess Winifred, the gangly, sensitive heroine of the off- then on-Broadway musical, Once upon a Mattress. She and Julie Andrews made an Emmy-winning special, Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall. Burnett’s popularity amply con firmed, CBS negotiated a ten-year contract which required her to perform in specials and guest appearances for the first five years. During the remaining five, Burnett was to dedicate herself to her own show.

The Carol Burnett Show debuted on September 11, 1967, and ran for 11 seasons. It gave Burnett the opportunity to integrate a vaudeville-inspired mélange of guest stars, music, and various comedic styles with her own unique blend of sophistication and folksiness. By filming the show live, with an in-studio audience and a recurring ensemble cast, The Carol Burnett Show fused the aura of live performance with the benefits of filmed production. Burnett’s opening question-and-answer session with audience members showcased her congenial, unpretentious persona and illustrated her astonishing spontaneity in dealing with the unexpected. Bits and pieces of her life experience found their way into the show: her signature ear-tug, originally a signal to her grandmother; the working-class grace of her Charwoman character; her childhood fascination with movies and stars; and the painfully funny relationship between Burnett’s Eunice character and Vicki Laurence’s Mama in “Family” sketches. The show reached its ratings peak in 1972 but remained popular enough to carry it through 1978, when Burnett terminated the program before it became too stale.

After The Carol Burnett Show, Burnett continued to perform in all aspects of the entertainment industry, from television to Broadway. Highlights of her television career include the made-for-television movie, Friendly Fire (1979), which examined issues confronting families with sons in Vietnam, the miniseries Fresno (1986), which lampooned such popular nighttime soap operas as Dallas by presenting comedic elements as if they were serious drama, and musical/ opera specials with stars as diverse as Beverly Sills and Dolly Parton. In 1997 she received yet another Emmy for guest appearances in the NBC sitcom Mad About You. Burnett added playwright to her list when she and daughter Carrie Hamilton co-wrote Hollywood Arms, based on Burnett’s memoirs and scheduled for debut during the 2002–03 season at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre.

Burnett-as-performer is also known as Burnett-the-Crusader: in 1981, she won a lawsuit against The National Enquirer tabloid, which had slandered her in 1976 with an article suggesting that she was drunk and rowdy at a gathering of celebrities and international political figures. Burnett’s diverse list of credits continue to grow, and even after a lifetime of success, this consummate professional remains true to the pledge she made to her anonymous benefactor—she continues to help others find their way into television, motion pictures, and legitimate theater.