Carol Burnett may be turning 90, but she doesn’t feel it inside.
“I feel like I’m 11!” the comedic legend tells exclusively in a new interview.
Burnett is set to be feted with a TV special titled “Carol Burnett: 90 Years of Laughter + Love,” which was filmed last month but airs Wednesday, April 26 — her actual birthday — on NBC.
“I was absolutely gobsmacked by the evening,” she shares. “It was incredible. It’s not a birthday party. It’s not a roast. It’s a variety show.”
The soon-to-be nonagenarian is best known for “The Carol Burnett Show,” which aired on CBS from 1967 to 1978. The variety show also starred Vicki Lawrence, Harvey Korman, Tim Conway and Lyle Waggoner and featured costumes by Bob Mackie.
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Sadly, Burnett doesn’t think the groundbreaking show would be able to air today.
“I don’t think a network would go for what we did,” she tells us. “We had a 28-piece live orchestra, we had 12 dancers, we had two guest stars a week and Bob Mackie designed — get this — 60 to 75 costumes a week, everything everybody wore in all the sketches and all the musical numbers, on and on and on.
“And no network today would spend that kind of money. The money that it would cost today would be astronomical. So they’re not gonna go for it. And they, you know, they feel that variety is dead, which I don’t believe it is,” the “Annie” star continues.
“There are many people who could do a variety show, but … they couldn’t do what we did because of the cost. That’s the problem. That’s why there aren’t any shows like ours or Dean Martin or any of those, you know, just can’t happen today.”
Burnett has unbelievably had two different people change the trajectory of her life.
The first was an anonymous benefactor who paid her tuition to go to UCLA in the 1950s.
“It was $42 or $43. That’s all,” she…
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