This year’s Screen Actors Guild Awards honoured comedian Carol Burnett with a Lifetime Achievement Award. She was introduced on stage by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler who have benefited from the trail blazed by Carol over her career which spans decades.
After joking about the film Carol being a biopic of the comedian and how The Revenant would have been different had Carol been the lead actor Amy Poehler concluded: “The point is, Carol is better than all of us and we’re going to give her a prize for it”
Carol, who won everyone over by wearing a pair of comfortable slippers for part of the evening, brought home in her speech how difficult it was for her as a female comedian to be recognised.
Her smash hit TV series The Carol Burnett Show was almost nixed due to producers concern over a female led show: “I had a terrific and unheard of contract that said that all I had to do was push the button and the network would have to give me 30 one-hour variety shows. Yeah. I told them, that’s what I wanted to do, but they said, “Carol, no, no, no, no, look, look, all the comedy variety shows are hosted by men. Sid Caesar, Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle, now Dean [Martin]—it’s really not for a gal. Comedy/variety is a man’s game.”
Funny women across the globe owe a lot to Carol for holding her nerve and getting her show!
