Carol Burnett

Carol Creighton Burnett was born on 26 April, 1933 and is a renowned American actress, comedian, singer, dancer and writer. Her career started in the city of New York, and after an excellent and popular period on Broadway, she moved into the television. After her number of successful appearances on The Garry Moore Show, Carol Burnett moved into Los Angeles. It was here that she began the popular and hilarious The Carol Burnett Show, which was aired on CBS television from 1967-1978 - for eleven long years. This show which included comedy sketches, song, dance and sketches from movie parodies, featured the numerous talents of Carol Burnett herself, as she created and played many of the well-known characters in the show.

Carol was born into a family of show-biz; her mother Ina Louise (nee Creighton) was a publicity writer for movie studios, and her father Joseph Thomas Burnett was a movie theatre manager. She was born in San Antonio, Texas. At a very young age Carol was taken into her grandmother's care, as both her parents, particularly her father suffered from alcoholism. Her parents divorced in the 1930s and Carol Burnett with her grandmother moved into an apartment in the impoverished area of Hollywood, California.

She graduated from Hollywood High School in 1951 and thereafter she was awarded a scholarship to the University of California in Los Angeles, where she initially planned to study journalism. During her first year, she decided to switch, and turned her focus to theatre arts and English with the ambition of becoming a playwright. It was during this time, with her performances in the many university productions that her talents for her comedic and musical abilities became recognized. In 1954, Burnett and her boyfriend, Don Saroyan, left college and moved to New York to pursue acting careers.

In New York, in the year 1955, Burnett was offered to cast in a minor role on The Paul Winchell and Jerry Mohoney Show, where she played the girlfriend of a ventriloquist's dummy on the popular children's program. This start led Carol Burnett appearing in a great number of shows such as Stanley, The Tonight Show, Pantomime Quiz and many more.

This was the inception of success in her career, but sadly her parents did not live to take pride of their daughter's life as a celebrity. Her father died in 1954 and her mother in 1957, just as Carol Burnett was gaining success.