Vicki Lawrence, the comedian, actress, and singer who became one of television’s brightest stars, is coming to the Valentine Theatre on Friday with Mama, the woman who helped make her famous.
Lawrence originated the irascible Mama (aka Thelma Harper) on the beloved TV program, The Carol Burnett Show, in the 1970s, winning an Emmy Award in 1976 for Outstanding Continuing or Single Performance by a Supporting Actress in Variety or Music, for her work with Burnett. She was nominated for four other Emmys and three Golden Globe Awards.
On TV, Lawrence’s Mama complained, criticized, and harangued her daughter, Eunice (Burnett), who was often busy quarreling too, with her husband Ed (Harvey Korman), in hilarious sketches the show’s large audiences loved. The Mama “look” if you can call it that, usually featured frumpy print dresses, a string of pearls, glasses, a curly but still somehow shapeless hairstyle, comfortable shoes, and the traditional pocketbook.
At Friday’s Valentine performance, audiences will see plenty of Mama and Lawrence, but the show will be more than a retrospective. It will be a mix of stand-up comedy, music, and thoughts on “real life.”
Lawrence will take the stage first, telling humorous stories about her career and her life in and out of show business.“I’m sort of [Mama’s] opening act,” Lawrence said in a telephone interview with The Blade. “I just have to say this, my life has been nothing if not pretty serendipitous and comical, so I would like to think the stories I tell are funny.”
Topics might include how she met Burnett, how she became a redhead, how she met her husband, how she managed to have just one huge hit record, and “how Mama happened,” she said.
Then Mama comes onstage and “shoots from the hip,” Lawrence said. “She’ll probably be politically incorrect, and talk about what’s going on in the world.” Lawrence likes to keep Mama’s performance topical, following what’s in the news. “Here we go, we’re going to have another presidential campaign, I’m sure we’ll get into that,” Lawrence said. “It’s just fun to let her comment on all the things that everybody else is thinking about.”
After being with Mama for so long, Lawrence says she may think a little bit more like her. “I think the older you get, the more ’let’s cut to the chase’ you get, let’s quit quibbling about this, let’s tell it like it is.”
But there is more to Lawrence than Mama.
In high school in California, from 1965 to 1967, she sang with the Young Americans musical group and appeared in the film The Young Americans which won an Oscar for best documentary.
She joined the Carol Burnett Show when she was 18, in a serendipitous series of events: In her senior year in high school she performed in the local fire department’s Miss Fireball Contest, and a local newspaper commented on her resemblance to Carol Burnett. Lawrence sent the article to Burnett in a fan letter. Burnett happened to be looking for an actress to play her young sister in a new TV series, and came to the contest. Lawrence won, and Burnett presented her with the award — and soon, a role on her show. Lawrence spent 11 years with Burnett, from 1967 to 1978. The Mama character first appeared in the seventh season, according to press materials, when Lawrence was 24.
After the Burnett show, Lawrence appeared in the series Mama’s Family, which still can sometimes be seen in syndication, and in the series Yes Dear, with Tim Conway. She also hosted a talk show, Vicki!, from 1992-1994, earning a Daytime Emmy nomination.
In 1973, she won a Gold Record for her recording of ”The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia.“
“I was married to the guy [Bobby Russell] who wrote it for like 10 minutes,“ Lawrence said. Russell hated the song, she added, but she loved it and predicted it would be a hit. ”He and his producer tried to give it to every pop star you can think of,“ she added, but nobody was interested. Finally they agreed to have her record it, ”and that’s how I have a big hit record, and that’s ... the ultimate demise of an already doomed marriage, so it’s kind of a bittersweet memory.“ But by now, she said, it’s so far down the road it’s like another lifetime.
In 1974 she married Al Schultz, who was the head of make-up at CBS, and they will celebrate their 40th anniversary this November. ”We still say, it’s almost like God said ’you two idiots belong together’ and hit us with a lightning bolt, ’cause we were really good friends, and we still are.” That is the key to their marriage, “because then they’re there for you when [you’re going] through everything you go through.” The romance part of marriage ebbs and flows, she added, but “if your best friend is there during the ebbs, at least you’re gonna keep laughing.”
In 1995 Simon and Schuster published Lawrence’s autobiography, Vicki!: The True Life Adventures of Miss Fireball, and in 2008, another book, Mama for President: Good Lord, Why Not written by Lawrence and Monty Aidem, was published.
Working with Burnett on the show was like attending the Harvard University school of comedy, she said, and credits Harvey Korman with teaching her a lot of what she knows abut comedy. Korman took comedy seriously and was a team player.
“When I came on board he said to me early on, ’forget [finding] stage right, stage left, you can’t even find the ladies room.’ He decided that he would train me to be a comedienne.” Burnett had a show to run, so it was Korman who worked with Lawrence on dialects and props and more.
Burnett was generous, too. “I remember many older folks who worked on the Burnett show saying, ’This is not the way show biz goes -- wait until you get out into the real world.’ It was just a very special place.”
Lawrence made her mark in comedy, but her favorite TV shows now are mainly dramas, including The Good Wife, the new CBS series Madam Secretary, Nashville (“I’m hooked on that stupid thing,“ she said with a laugh) and Scandal. She’s catching up with Mad Men on her iPad, and will watch Downtown Abbey next.
She and her husband, Al, who retired from CBS years ago to concentrate on Lawrence’s career, have two grown children, Courtney and Garret, and live on the beach in California, a great place for their two dogs, Molly, a yellow Lab, and Lucas, a Petit Basset Griffon Vendeen.
Vicki Lawrence and Mama: A Two-Woman Show” will be presented at 8 p.m. Friday in the Valentine Theatre, 400 N. Superior St. Tickets are $43, $53, and $63, and are available from 419-242-2787 and valentinetheatre.com.
Contact Sue Brickey at sbrickey@theblade.com.
First Published October 16, 2014, 4:00 a.m.
