Vicki Lawrence is looking back on her days on The Carol Burnett Show that started nearly 60 years ago. The actress was a regular on the CBS sketch comedy series from 1967 to 1978, but she was a fish out of water when she first joined the cast.
Lawrence, now 77, was just 18 years old when she landed the coveted comedy role alongside Carol Burnett, Harvey Korman and Lyle Waggoner.
Speaking with People magazine, Lawrence recalled Korman’s reaction to her casting shortly after graduating high school in the mid-1960s.
“Well, Harvey, I think, was appalled when I was first on the show,” Lawrence said.
“He was like, ‘Forget stage right and stage left. You can’t even find the ladies’ room,’” Lawrence recalled. “So he just decided he was going to make me a comedian, and he would help me with dialects and props and history. He helped me with everything. I really credit [him] with teaching most everything I know about comedy. Carol had a show to run, so it was really Harvey that took me under his wing.”
She noted that Korman also gave her tips on how to translate her comedy into a sitcom for her old lady character Thelma Harper’s spinoff, Mama’s Family, in the early 1980s.
Lawrence had planned to become a dental hygienist until she caught Burnett’s eye as the winner of the Miss Fireball of Inglewood contest in 1967. The legendary comic noted how much Lawrence resembled her and hired her to play her little sister on her show.
In her memoir Vicki: The True-Life Adventures of Miss Fireball, Lawrence admitted she couldn’t believe she was working with Burnett and Korman when the show first started.
“Every time I was on, I’d look out at the audience, at all the cameras in the studio, I’d see Carol and Harvey Korman and I’d say to myself, what the hell am I doing here? It was the weirdest sensation to have literally been plucked out of my life and into this place I’d never dreamed of being,” she wrote, per MeTV. She added that it was Korman who taught her everything she needed to know about performing comedy.
“Once he saw there was an inkling of potential, he worked long and hard teaching me dialects, mannerisms, timing, and character development,” Lawrence shared. “Without any question, Carol was the one who gave me the first leg up. It was Harvey, though, who taught me how to ride.”
Related: ‘I Love Lucy’ 75th Anniversary Celebration Announced by CBS, Featuring Rare Colorized Episodes
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