Hollywood has always had a hardscrabble side to it. Just behind the glitz and the glamour is a seemlier life of small apartments and alcoholics. This is the Hollywood that Carol Burnett grew up in. Her parents were both alcoholics and divorced when Burnett was very young. She was raised by her grandmother Mae in a tiny apartment just a block or so north of Hollywood Blvd. Her mother lived in another apartment in their building. She was a poor kid and she knew it. Carol Burnett grew up sleeping on a couch and keeping her few clothes on the shower curtain rod in the bathroom of her grandmother's tiny apartment. The Hollywood she grew up in was the Hollywood of the 1930's and 40's, its heyday, she was so close and yet so far. In her memoir "One More Time" she writes of her childhood that to some could have been filled with misery and sadness but her reflection is filled with fun and funny stories. Her grandmother whom she called Nanny comes off as a true character, a pack rat Christian Scientist with palpitations and a quick temper. Carol's parents were at best ne'er do wells with drinking problems who had enough sense to let Nanny do the actual raising of their daughter. There was also a half sister Chrissy born out of wedlock when Carol was about ten. Life was not ideal.
Some how Carol Burnett was able to rise above what could have been a sad lot in life and become one of America's most beloved television stars. She has won Emmy's, Golden Globes and The Presidential Medal of Honor. There is now a square named after her not far from her childhood home on Wilcox and Yucca at the corner of Highland and Selma by her Alma Mater Hollywood High School.
Carol Burnett took that difficult past and created some of the funniest performances in the history of television.
Her childhood home is still there about a block and a half from her star on the Hollywood Blvd. Walk of Fame. She is the Hollywood success story.
Zasu Pitts should never be forgotten! She started working in silent films in silent films and made her last film appearance in "Its a Mad Mad Mad Mad World". Almost always cast as the nervous or worried woman she was a comedienne in almost all her films.
Born Eliza Susan Pitts in 1894 to Rulandus and Nelly Pitts in Kansas her professional name, Zasu was a nickname given to her by her Civil War veteran father. In 1903 her family moved to Santa Cruz, California where she started her stage career.
Her first non-extra film role was in the 1917 film "The Little Princess" starring Mary Pickford. Zasu Pitts really made her mark in the silent one reel comedies. These lead her to the starring role in King Vidor's "Better Times". This eventually lead her to be cast in Erich Von Stoheim's 9 hour epic film "Greed" considered by many scholars to be one of the greatest films ever made. Zasu Pitts achieved her greatest fame in the 1930's having been paired with fellow comedienne Thelma Todd. Her usual role were those of worried and nervous spinsters. After World War II she was cast as mainly snoopy neighbors and annoying relatives. In the 1950's she moved into television. There she had many roles including a co-starring role in "The Gale Storm Show". Her final role was playing the nervous phone operator in Stanley Kramer's madcap "Its a Mad Mad Mad Mad World".
