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Have A Question? Just Ask Carol

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By WALT BELCHER

wbelcher@tampatrib.com

Published: January 8, 2009

Updated:

TAMPA - Carol Burnett says she has been asked "just about everything in the world," but audiences keep surprising her.

For example, she was almost stumped when a woman asked: "If you could be a man for 24 hours and then come back as yourself, who would you be and what would you do?"

She went for a laugh with, "I'd be Osama bin Laden, and then kill myself."

Then there was the young man who said he wanted a birthday hug. After the audience sang "Happy Birthday," though, he revealed that it was really his shy, older brother Bob who was turning 40.

He said Bob admired her and thought she was attractive. "I started coaxing Bob to get on stage and asked f he had ever thought of romance with an older woman," she recalled in a recent telephone interview. "Embarrassed, he said he was 'sort of involved' because "I'm a priest' so I gave him a hug and said, 'Forgive me, Father.'"

Burnett will take questions and share clips and memories when her sold-out "Carol Burnett: Laughter and Reflection" show stops at Ruth Eckerd Hall on Thursday night. Burnett, 75, has a lot of territory to cover. The comedian/actress originally wanted to be a Broadway star but she became a television icon. Her legendary CBS "Carol Burnett Show" (1967-78) won 22 Emmys.

Fans will be asking about her favorite characters and skits. There will questions about her former co-stars Tim Conway and Harvey Korman, and she probably will be asked to do her famous Tarzan yell.

Burnett hasn't stopped working. She was the voice of a kangaroo in the 2008 animated Dr. Seuss film "Horton Hears a Who." She plays a daffy grandmother in the upcoming comedy film "The Post Grad Survival Guide," starring Alexis Bledel. She is writing a book, a collection of antidotes culled from the questions asked during her concert tours.

While she hopes that variety shows will one day make a comeback to television, she doesn't want to return to that grind.

"It's a genre that is thoroughly missed," she says. "I was lucky that my show came along when it did. We had our day and we had such a marvelous repertory company that could play off each other. And we could afford a 28-piece orchestra. You could never put all of those elements together again."

Reporter Walt Belcher can be reached at (813) 259-7654.

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