"This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection" is Carol Burnett's second memoir. In her first memoir, One More Time, which was written in 1986, she went into details about growing up with alcoholic parents. She and her sister were mostly raised by their grandmother whom they called Nanny. In This Time Together, Burnett writes a little more about the rest of her life and her career, especially the 11-year run of The Carol Burnett Show, a rarity at a time when women were not generally in charge of their own shows. Today, Burnett is said to be the inspiration for women like Ellen DeGeneres and Tina Fey, but, in her modest way, Burnett declares, "If they had the fire in the belly, they would have done it anyway, you know?"
Burnett's brand of comedy is not quite as edgy as we're used to today, having a more homespun character, like Burnett herself. This is reflected in This Time Together which is not a tell-all by any means. It's not full of scandalous details about celebrities and their vices, although Burnett does go into her clashes with Harvey Korman on the show. The rest of the time, Burnett comes across as a maternal type of figure who included everyone on the show under her protective umbrella. She was generous with others, trying to give them the exposure they deserved and was the one who discovered Vicki Lawrence who played her younger sister on TV sketches.
Burnett also talks about her first two marriages, to Don Saroyan, her college sweetheart and Joe Hamilton, the executive producer of The Carol Burnett Show. However, her tone is free of rancor and her emphasis is on her current happiness with drummer Brian Miller who is 20 years her junior. When it comes to her daughter's succumbing to cancer, Burnett's emphasis is on learning to live with this terrible occurrence and becoming stronger.
Overall, this book has a strong positive energy which resembles its writer and presents a different side of show business, suggesting that it doesn't have to be as cut-throat as it is generally portrayed. Burnett radiates contentment with herself and her life and is an inspiration to others who might be going through hard times because of the way she insists upon looking at the glass as half full.
Carol Burnett grew up in San Antonio, Texas to alcoholic parents and was raised by her grandmother. She started her career by performing in nightclubs in New York and then in the Broadway play, Once Upon a Mattress. After this, she became a regular on The Garry Moore Show and eventually started her own production, The Carol Burnett Show which aired for 11 years on CBS; the show won many Emmys and Golden Globe awards. Since then, Burnett has worked sporadically, appearing in various movies. She has been married three times and had three children, one of whom, Carrie Hamilton, died of lung and brain cancer. She has been best friends with Julie Andrews since the 1960s.
"Carol Burnett was one of my favorite TV personalities when I was a kid. Reading this book brought back some fun memories and added depth to my knowledge of this amazing woman. I always thought that Carol Burnett would make a wonderful next-door neighbor (unlike most celebrities who were a bit "over the top" for my taste) and after reading this I'd love to have Carol in my neighborhood! This isn't a life changing book and not even much of a thought provoking book. But it was a beautiful ray of sunshine to read this in the middle of a dreary February."
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Linda (4 out of 5 stars)