This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection

I've been a lifelong fan of Carol. My first rebellion against my mother was pleading to be allowed to stay up to watch her variety show in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Possibly I was a peculiar child but I rather think that my finding the show so entertaining when I was so little speaks to Carol's talent, quality and class. She is one of those rare comedians that can articulate human foibles well enough to appeal to people of all ages and places. Many skits from that show are funny on the first viewing and equally funny on the hundredth viewing.

This book is a series of stories and anecdotes about the people that she worked with over three decades of actively working in the industry on her television show and specials, plus a few movies. There is nothing shocking or offensive here, just a bit of teasing together with warm regard and high praise. She views her costars and her former husband and family as integral to her success and portrays them accordingly. She's refreshingly humble about her failures, albeit there aren't many of them!

Readers too young to remember Carol as a regular television fixture will still enjoy reading about this period in entertainment. Carol befriended and worked with an impressive list of entertainment icons including Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant and Lucille Ball among others. Television still had vaudevillian elements then although shows were rarely broadcast live. The space for improvisation and responding to audiences has since been completely engineered out, and these stories about working more spontaneously are really funny. There is the added benefit of exposure to an elegant, refined, gracious, talented and genuinely kind lady. Carol Burnett is truly a star.