This month marks the 90th birthday of one of the greatest comedic icons of all time, Carol Burnett.
Burnett is getting closer to reaching this amazing milestone and has been thinking back on her extraordinary life and work. She talked about a heartbreaking loss that still affects her more than 20 years later in a recent interview.
Carrie, Carol Burnett’s daughter
The renowned actress and producer Joe Hamilton, her ex-husband, had three daughters together. Carrie Hamilton, who was born in 1963, was the oldest.
Carrie pursued acting, just like her mother. She played Maureen in the first national tour of the musical Rent and starred in the television series Fame. She also appeared on a number of TV episodes, such as thirtysomething, Murder, She Wrote, and The X-Files.
But there were moments when the mother and daughter’s relationship wasn’t easy. Burnett suffered greatly as Carrie struggled with heroin addiction during her teenage years.
“Carrie, my daughter, started doing narcotics. Don’t be their best buddy in that circumstance, Burnett said to AARP in 2020. She detested my guts when we got her into a third recovery facility! To allow people to despise you, you must love them enough.
“I had the thought… Was there something that I ought to have noticed, understood, or been able to see? What, you know, did I miss? Was my strength insufficient? In 2002, she told ABC News herself.
However, Burnett told AARP that Carrie sobered by the time she was eighteen, and the two grew closer, spending “a good twenty years” together and being “joined at the hip.”
Carrie’s career took off, and her partnership with Burnett reached its pinnacle. prior to suffering a personal tragedy: Carrie was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2001, and the disease later moved to her brain.
Carrie’s fight with cancer
Carrie battled her sickness with her amazing sense of humor, much like her mother did. Burnett told ABC News that “Carrie had a spirit about her, all through her treatments.”
Her daughter’s motto touched Burnett especially: “Every day I wake up and decide, today I’m going to love my life.'” She stated it while in the hospital. And she lived by that maxim.
Carrie was 38 years old when she passed away in 2002. Burnett was devastated by the loss, but she mustered the will to go on.
“You cope, not get over it,” she said to People in 2018. What more are you able to do? I didn’t want to get out of bed after Carrie died, but I had a play that we had started that Hal Prince was going to direct that I needed to finish. I owed it to Hal as well as Carrie.
Continued with me Twenty-one years later
Ahead of her 90th birthday, Burnett discussed her daughter Carrie’s passing more than 20 years later in an interview, adding that she continues to think about her every day.
“It’s almost never a day or a moment that she’s not with me,” Burnett said last month in an interview with People Magazine. We shared laughs, tears, and work together as a team. She was powerful.
She continued by saying that she is still inspired by Carrie’s bravery during her sickness.
Burnett said, “I would go see her every day when she got sick and I remember she was in the hospital.” “Carrie lifts our spirits,” a hospital nurse remarked one day. “Every day I wake up and decide,” Carrie said when I asked her why she was always happy. The crucial term is “decide.”
“I tell myself that every morning.”
Carol Burnett, age 90
On April 26, Burnett will turn 90 years old. Despite the pain she went through 21 years ago, she has persevered and has an optimistic view on life.
Numerous lifetime achievement honors, including the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, have been bestowed upon her. She was the inaugural winner of the “Carol Burnett Award,” a television lifetime achievement award that the Golden Globes dedicated in her honor in 2019. She had a highly acclaimed guest appearance on Better Call Saul last year.
Burnett told People, “I can’t wrap my head around it,” in reference to turning 90. “I’m amazed, but I still feel like I’m about eleven.” It passed by quickly. That being said, I’m content since I have all of my body parts: my hips, knees, and head.
It’s unbelievably difficult to lose a kid, and Carol Burnett was clearly deeply affected by Carrie’s passing. The comedic legend is still going strong, and we hope she has a fantastic 90th birthday celebration!
If you are a fan of Carol Burnett, please tell this tale!
