Carol Creighton Burnett (born April 26, 1933 in San Antonio, Texas) is an Emmy Award-winning actress, comedian, singer, dancer, and writer. Burnett started her career in New York. After becoming a hit on Broadway, she debuted on television. After successful appearances on The Garry Moore Show, Carol moved to Los Angeles and began an eleven-year run on the highly acclaimed The Carol Burnett Show which was aired on CBS television from 1967 to 1978. With roots in vaudeville, The Carol Burnett Show was a variety show combining comedy sketches, song, and dance. The comedy sketches ranged from movie parodies to character pieces which featured the many talents of Burnett herself who created and played several well-known and distinctive characters.

The Carol Burnett Show is a sketch comedy television show starring Carol Burnett, Tim Conway, Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence, and Lyle Waggoner. It originally ran on CBS from September 11, 1967 to March 29, 1978 for 278 episodes, and originated from CBS Television City's Studio 33 (now the Bob Barker studio).

The popular variety show made the stars household names with such sketches as "As the Stomach Turns", "Went with the Wind" (a parody of Gone with the Wind featuring a scene with Burnett as Scarlett O'Hara in the dress made from a window curtain, complete with rod), "Carol & Sis", "Mr. Tudball" and "Mrs. Wiggins", "The Family" (which would later spin off into a show called Mama's Family), "Nora Desmond" (Burnett's send-up of Gloria Swanson's character Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard), and "Stella Toddler." With such guest stars as Alan Alda, Rock Hudson, Lucille Ball, Jim Nabors, Shirley MacLaine, Lily Tomlin, Liza Minnelli, Bernadette Peters, Cher, Vincent Price, Dinah Shore, the Jackson 5, Gloria Swanson, and many more (see below) appearing weekly, the long-running show was nominated for and awarded several Emmys.

Vicki Lawrence is the only cast member, other than Burnett, to remain with the series for its entire run. Tim Conway, though well remembered for his appearances on the show, did not become a full-time cast member until 1975. Harvey Korman left the show prior to its final season; he was temporarily replaced in the fall of 1977 by Dick Van Dyke. Original cast member Lyle Waggoner left the series in 1974 to pursue a dramatic acting career and the next year was cast in Wonder Woman.

Burnett went on to star in movies, write a Broadway play, and continues to make appearances. Conway and Korman travel to do comedy routines all over the country. Vicki Lawrence had a U.S. #1 hit record in 1973 ("The Night The Lights Went Out in Georgia") and went on to star in several shows of her own (Mama's Family, the NBC daytime edition of Win, Lose or Draw, and her short-lived talk show, Vicki) and continues to perform around America doing comedy sketches of her own.

It was revealed years later that each week's show was taped twice in front of different audiences and the best parts from each taping were edited together.

After Jim Nabors appeared on the premiere episode, Carol Burnett would have him as the guest for each seasons first show because she considered him her "good luck charm".

Although many consider Tim Conway (I) to have been a series regular from the start, in fact he was only a frequent guest star for many years, and didn't become a regular weekly cast member until the later seasons.

The final episode of the series was a "best of" episode featuring highlights from the show's run.

At the end of the final show of the first season, Carol Burnett appeared as her "washerwoman" character, and walked out of the theater, every seat empty save for a bald man who had fallen asleep in his seat. In a touching gesture, she stopped by him, leaned over, kissed him on his scalp, and walked out the doors of the back of the theater. It was so well-received that every subsequent season ending, the scene was repeated with a bald actor in the audience. At the end of the last show of the series, she walked out to the back of the stage (amid the wild applause of the audience) and kissed a similarly "sleeping" security guard.

Even though he left the cast the previous season, Harvey Korman can briefly be seen at the end of the final episode as he is leaving the theater.

The Carol Burnett Show was taped at CBS Studio 33 in Television City. It is now referred to The Bob Barker Studio.

The entertainment world has enjoyed a five-decade love affair with comedienne/singer Carol Burnett. A peerless sketch performer and delightful, self-effacing personality who rightfully succeeded Lucille Ball as the carrot-topped "Queen of Television Comedy," it was Burnett's traumatic childhood that set the stage for her comedy. Carol's rags-to-riches story started out in San Antonio, Texas, on April 26, 1933, where she was born to Jodie and Louise Burnett, both of whom suffered from acute alcoholism. As a child, she was left in the care of a beloved grandmother, who shuttled the two of them off to Hollywood, California, where they lived in a boarding house and shared a great passion for the Golden Age of movies. The plaintive, loose-limbed, highly sensitive Carol survived her wallflower insecurities by grabbing attention as a cut-up at Hollywood High School. A natural talent, she attended the University of California and switched majors from journalism to theater. Scouting out comedy parts on TV and in the theater, she first had them rolling in the aisles in the mid-1950s performing a lovelorn novelty song called "I Made a Fool of Myself Over John Foster Dulles" (then Secretary of State) in a nightclub act. This led to night-time variety show appearances with Jack Paar (I) and Ed Sullivan (I) and where the career ball really started rolling. Carol's first big TV breaks came at age 22 and 23 as a foil to a ventriloquist's dummy on the already-established "Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney Show, The" (1950) in 1955, and as Buddy Hackett's gawky girlfriend on the short-lived sitcom "Stanley" (1956). She also developed an affinity for game shows and appeared as a regular on one of TV earliest, "Pantomime Quiz" (1947) in 1958. While TV would bring Carol fans by the millions, it was Broadway that set her on the road to stardom. She began as the woebegone Princess Winnifred in the 1959 musical "Once Upon a Mattress" (later repeating this role on a TV special) for which she earned her first Tony nomination. This, in turn, led to the first of an armful of Emmy trophies as a repertoire player on the popular variety series "Garry Moore Show, The" (1958) in 1959. Burnett invented a number of scene-stealing characters during this time, most notably her charwoman character. With the phenomenal household success of the Moore show, she moved up quickly from second banana to headliner and appeared in a 1962 Emmy-winning special, "Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall," co-starring close friend Julie Andrews (I). She earned the Outer Critics Circle Award for the short-lived musical "Fade Out, Fade In" (1964); and made her official film debut opposite "Bewitched" star Elizabeth Montgomery (I) and Dean Martin (I) in the lightweight comedy Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed? (1963). Not surprisingly, fellow redhead 'Lucille Ball,' who had been Carol's treasured idol growing up, subsequently became a friend and mentor to the rising funny girl. Hilarious as a guest star on The Lucy Show, Carol appeared as a painfully shy (natch) wallflower type who suddenly blooms in jaw-dropping fashion. Ms. Ball was so convinced of Carol's talent that she offered Carol her own Desilu-produced sitcom, but Burnett had her heart set on fronting a variety show. With her own team of second bananas, including character crony 'Harvey Korman,' handsome foil 'Lyle Waggoner,' and lookalike "kid sister" type 'Vicki Lawrence,' the "Carol Burnett Show, The" (1967) became an instant sensation, and earned 22 Emmy Awards during its 11-year run. It allowed Carol to fire off her wide range of comedy and musical ammunition--whether running amok in broad sketch comedy, parodying movie icons such as Gloria Swanson, Shirley Temple, Vivien Leigh or Joan Crawford (I), or singing/gushing alongside favorite vocalists Jim Nabors, Steve Lawrence (I), Peggy Lee (I), Sammy Davis Jr., Ella Fitzgerald and Mel Tormé. She managed to bring in huge stars not known at all for slapstick comedy, including Rock Hudson and even then-Governor Ronald Reagan (I) while providing a platform for such up-and-coming talent as Bernadette Peters and The Pointer Sisters In between, Carol branched out with supporting turns in the films Pete 'n' Tillie (1972), Front Page, The (1974) and Robert Altman (I)'s Wedding, A (1978). Her program, whose last episode aired in March of 1978, was the last truly successful major network variety show to date. Carol took on new challenges to display her unseen dramatic mettle, and accomplished this amazingly in TV-movie showcases. She earned an Emmy nomination for her gripping portrayal of anti-Vietnam War activist Peg Mullen in Friendly Fire (1979) (TV), and convincingly played a woman coming to terms with her alcoholism in Life of the Party: The Story of Beatrice (1982) (TV). Neither character bore any traces of the usual Burnett comedy shtick. Though she proved she could contain herself for films, Carol was never able to acquire crossover success into movies, despite trouper work in Four Seasons, The (1981), Annie (1982) (as the hammy villainess Miss Hannigan), and Noises Off... (1992). The last two roles had been created onstage by Broadway's Dorothy Loudon. Carol would return from time to time to the stage and concert forums with productions of "Plaza Suite," "I Do! I Do," "Follies," "Company" and "Putting It Together." A second Tony nomination came for her comedy work in "Moon Over Buffalo" in 1995. Carol has made frequent appearances on her own favorite TV shows too, such as "Password" (along with Elizabeth Montgomery (I), Carol was considered one of the show's best players) and the daytime soaper All My Children. During the early 1990s, Carol attempted a TV comeback of sorts, with a couple of new variety formats in "Carol & Company" (1990) and "Carol Burnett Show, The" (1991), but neither could recreate the magic of the original. She has appeared sporadically on sitcoms such as "Magnum, P.I.," "Touched by an Angel," Mad About You" (Emmy winner) and "Desperate Housewives." Befitting such a classy clown, she has received a multitude of awards over time, including the 2003 Kennedy Center Honors and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005. She was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1985. Her personal life has been valiant--tears in between the laughs. Married three times, her second union with jazz-musician-turned-variety-show-producer Joe Hamilton (II) produced three daughters. Eldest girl 'Carrie Hamilton,' an actress and former teen substance abuser, tragically died of lung and brain cancer at age 38. Shortly before Carrie's death, mother and daughter managed to write a play together entitled "Hollywood Arms," based on Carol's 1986 memoir "One More Time." The show subsequently made it to Broadway. Today, at age 70 plus, Carol has been seen less frequently but continues to make appearances and sign off with her signature ear tug (acknowledging her late grandmother), reminding us all, between the wisecracks and the songs, how glad and lucky we all are to still have some of "this time together."