Burnett used to tell people that she would be in a play directed by George Abbott and in 1959, Burnett made her Off-Broadway debut in Once Upon a Mattress, directed by George Abbott, which proved so popular after its run that it moved to Broadway - where it ran for an entire year to rave reviews. At the same time, she also became a regular on The Garry Moore Show (where she eventually won an Emmy in 1962). In 1962, Burnett and Saroyan got divorced (having married seven years earlier). Their careers were going in two different directions and they just weren't together much anymore. But it was a friendly divorce and they remained lifelong friends.
Careerwise, this is pretty much where her book ends. Although written in 1986, Burnett's public letter to her children was mainly to explain where and how she grew up. Her father, an alcoholic who died in 1954, never saw Carol's success, but she loved him as much as she could, despite his absenteeism. Carol's mother, embittered after numerous failed love affairs (including one to a married man that produced Christine, Carol's half-sister), and sad that she never made it as a singer or actress, also became an alcoholic and died in 1957, in the same run-down apartment building she had lived since Carol moved to Hollywood in the 1930s. Carol kidnapped her half-sister (with her mother's permission) and put her into a private school in New Jersey so that she could escape the sad life in which she lived (which mirrored Carol's own upbringing). Carol credits her determination, perseverance and eventual success to her childhood - saying that she wouldn't be the person she was today if she hadn't played all those imaginary games to escape from the trauma of her childhood, if she hadn't tried so hard to become something instead of remaining nothing.
The book was written in 1986, but it's not like Carol's career was being summed up in the book - there was lots more that happened after her left Garry Moore's show in 1962. CBS offered her a 10-year contract. She starred with Julie Andrews in a special television production which won an Emmy for Outstanding Musical. She continued to act on Broadway's stages. In 1967, The "Carol Burnett Show" debuted on CBS, produced by her second husband, Joe Hamilton, whom she
 |
