This is...
very encouraging
[LAUGHTER]
I mean it was a long time in coming but
[LAUGHTER]
I understand because there are so many people funnier than I am
especially here in Washington
[LAUGHTER] [APPLAUSE]
But with any luck they'll soon get voted out and I'll still have the Mark Twain prize
[LAUGHTER] [APPLAUSE]
This has been quite a journey I remember back when I was a kid and I'd make funny
faces and cross my eyes and look in the mirror and my grandmother nanny who
raised me she would go stop that! Quit that! Nothing will ever come of it.
Well obviously I completely ignored her advice and see nanny and I lived in a
one-room apartment a block north of Hollywood Boulevard but really a million
miles away from Hollywood so we would save our pennies and we would go
to the movies and back in those days we'd see double features and maybe we
would even see six to eight movies a week and that that actually was what I
loved the most of all the movies we saw weren't cynical no they weren't the good
guys won the bad guys didn't and I fell in love with Betty Grable,
Fred and Ginger, Mickey and Judy.
They were always putting on a show and getting it to Broadway
And uh, the ones I liked best were always optimistic and
there was laughter galore and there were always happy endings
and it wasn't until I was enrolled at UCLA that I got a part in a student
production and that was when I got my very first laughs on stage I was playing
a hillbilly woman and which was easy for me since I've got a Texas in Arkansas
background so I made my entrance and my line was "I'm back..."
Well, the audience I mean they went crazy they cracked up they were-
They wouldn't stop like- you had to be there
[LAUGHTER]
From then on, I was hooked
I was hooked on wanting those laughs to keep on coming forever and my dream was
to go to New York and to be in a Broadway show
and as luck would have it, a kind person lent me the money
for an airplane ticket to go to New York and I was on my way
I found a room at the famous rehearsal club which was a
boarding house for about 18 young ladies who were pursuing a theatrical career
actually there were four of the roommates that I had in the same room I
really had one small closet in one bathroom that you know but I didn't lack
for company anyway- one rainy Saturday night, all four my roommates were out on
dates and I was sitting on my cot and I was reading the paper and listening to
the radio when a song from the musical pajama game came with started playing on
the radio and it was just as I turned to the ad in the theater section for this
mega hit and starring in a featured role was Eddie Foy, Jr. now he was a supreme
comedian who had who would cut his teeth on vaudeville and he wasn't a
professional singer or dancer but he had the moves and he had the comedy chops
and he was now in the most successful musical on Broadway something clicked
a neighbor of ours in Hollywood had been an extra in a movie that Eddie Foy, Jr.
had been in and he always said gee Eddie was a hell of a swell guy for a movie
star right then and there I decided I was going to meet Eddie Foy, Jr. and ask
him a favor. So I went to the closet I got my plastic raincoat on it was really
pouring of galoshes and everything and I walked down this
several blocks to the St. James Theater where the Pajama Game was playing I got
to the stage door and I just before the final curtain and I slipped in and I
found myself backstage at an actual Broadway theater I could hear the
orchestra playing the finale and the chorus blasting out and the old doorman
looking every inch like you know all those old doormen and the movies you
know they always called him Pops and so he came over to me and I was dripping
water all over from the rain I looked like the poor man's Eve Harrington from
All About Eve anyway Pops says to me "Yeah kid what do you want" and I said I'm
here I'm here to see Eddie and he said you know Eddie and I said I'm from
California and Pop said okay wait here show's almost over at that point I heard
what sounded like a clap of thunder and it was applause the audience was going
wild and suddenly I saw the stars running into the wings back and forth
and back and forth taking their bows and when they finished they headed for
their dressing rooms and the audience was still cheering and I was mesmerised
I mean is this what it's like?
and then right before me there he was Eddie Foy Jr.
And Pop said hey Eddie this kid wants to see you and that he said comes up to me
and he says "Yeah kid what do you want" I said well-
[sighs] Mr. Foy a friend of mine from
California where I just came from worked with you in a movie he was a Irish cop
in the movie remember him? And anyway he said that you were a real swell guy and
that maybe you could give me some advice when I get to New York and you could
tell me on how I could get into show business you see I can't get a job
unless I have an agent and I can't get an agent unless I'm in something
...Okay kid...
Um, what do you do you sing? Kind of. I'm loud. And you said well do you dance and
I said I can jitterbug and then he said well I oh maybe I could get you a an
audition here for Chorus replacement and I said but Mr. Foy I I don't read music
and I can't really dance. Now he's look at me kind of funny and you
said okay you can't read music you can't dance then what?! I said well I'm not good
enough for the chorus so it looks like I might have to have a featured role
[LAUGHTER]
Well there was this long pause and then he gave me his agents name and phone
number and wish me luck and then he made a beeline for his dressing room so the
fact that he didn't laugh me right out of the theater did prove indeed that he
was a pretty swell guy. Anyway I called his agent the next day and the agent
said let me know when you're in something so I went back to the
rehearsal Club and I called a meeting of all the girls and I said we're going to
put on a show so we organized the whole thing and the invitations sent out to
every agent we could think of in town and they read you're always saying you
know let us know when you're in something I said well now we are come
see us well as a result several of us got agents and let me say those Mickey
and Judy movies really paid off [LAUGHTER]
I've had and I am still having a great ride
and this prize is the cherry on top of the sundae. Ta-dah!
But before I act too high and mighty I'm reminded of a sketch that we did on
my show many years ago Harvey and I and in it there was a line
that I was supposed to say in this sketch that says "This didn't belong to
me this belonged to Barbara Brown and I
thought well I said a great name for somebody in a scale you know comedy
sketch I if there are any Barbara Browns out here- [LAUGHTER]
So I thought and I thought and I remember the name of a girl I went to
grammar school with and I thought oh I figured you know I would use her name so
come the show time I changed the line and I said this didn't belong to me this
belonged to Adrien Lenore Weingartz so after the show my assistant Ray said
to me- asked where that name came from and I said what was the girl I went to
the sixth grade with I hadn't seen her since so the show aired a week
later and then that following Monday the phone rang in the office and Ray picked
up the call you know and it was a woman from Nevada who said I heard my maiden
name mentioned on the Burnett Show and so Ray said oh you must be Miss
Weingartz did you go to Selma Avenue grammar
school in Hollywood and she said yes and he really said well you and Carol
were in the same class and she said
I don't remember her. [LAUGHTER]
Well I have a feeling that after tonight she will
[LAUGHTER] [APPLAUSE]
I want to thank PBS the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and a big THANK YOU
to the executive producers Peter and Bob Kaminski, Mark Cranston
Cappy Magar and I'd like to also thank all the wonderful artists who appeared
tonight who and they came here from all over the country and they took the time
out of their very busy lives to be with me on this really special occasion so
Thank You Tina, Lucy, Amy, Marty, Bruce, Maya,
Rosemary, Rasheeda, Tony Bennett, and my chum Julie and of course Vicky and Tim
and of course thank all of you thank you
[APPLAUSE]
♪ I'm so glad we had this time together
...Something something seems we just get started and before you know it comes a
time we have to say.. So long.
[APPLAUSE]