Carol Burnett started making her own variety show when she was just a kid. She’d go to the movies every week with her grandmother, then would act out the scenes with her friends when she got home.
But when Burnett first wanted to bring her musical variety show to TV, she was told that such programs were strictly the purview of men.
“The network didn’t want me to do it,” she said, remembering being told that “comedy-variety is a man’s game.”
But Burnett changed the rules. She accepted a lifetime achievement award Saturday from the Screen Actors Guild for her six decades on screen, including her groundbreaking namesake variety show, which ran for 11 years. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, who presented Burnett with the honors, credited her with helping to raise them.
Poehler said their moms taught them 90 percent of what they needed to know — “the other 10 percent was Carol.”