Carol Burnett, the actor Jim Carrey waited 45 years to work with: “I wanted on the show”
Some actors wait their whole lives to star alongside one of their heroes; impatiently hoping that their success will guarantee them a place among the same ranks as someone they grew up admiring. It doesn’t always happen that easily, though. For Jim Carrey, it took 45 years.
The comic actor might have been carried him through hit films and sketch show success by impressions and larger-than-life facial expressions (or contortions, you might call them) – which have made him an icon of Hollywood’s highest order – but Carrey was way past his acting prime when he was finally given the chance to work with someone whom he’d wanted to know since he was just ten years old.
Hailing from Canada, the young Carrey had his sights set on stardom from the very beginning, and this itching to make people laugh led to some teenage stand-up endeavours that he likely prefers to forget about. Carrey might not have received glowing reviews as a teenage comedian, but he honed his impressions and soon captured people’s attention – how could you forget him?
This, of course, expanded into acting, too, and by 1990, he had landed a leading part on the show In Living Color. Playing everyone from the incredibly unsettling character of Fire Marshall Bill, whose home safety demonstrations are much more akin to masochism than usefulness, to a rather incompetent Vanilla Ice, Carrey became a household name. Yet there is one actor who started it all for Carrey, and whom he has to thank for inspiring his career.
As a kid, he wanted to get his impressions out into the world, to be a child sensation who would take over television with his impressive ability to morph into everything and anyone. Sadly, that wasn’t the case – it would be a lot longer until his dream of appearing on a certain sketch show would come true.
Interviewed by TIFF, Carrey recalled how he “used to imitate The Carol Burnett Show all the time when I was a kid,” adding that he “used to imitate Tim Conway.” For Carrey, his “childhood was Carol Burnett,” and he even went as far as reaching out to the show, explaining that he “sent a little resumé in and a list of the impressions I did, which was like 120 people at that time.”
With the confidence that only youth can harness, Carrey waited for a reply that would affirm his talents and make his dream come true. “I wanted on the show. I said, ‘like one of the regulars like Tim Conway or Harvey Corman,’” he explained, yet he soon “got a letter back from Hollywood. It was like the greyest day of my life. Everything went into slow motion, and it was a letter from an assistant with a Carol Burnett signature stamped on it, but it said that they generally hire their talent through agencies and things like that, ‘but the best of luck, and it sounds like you’re doing great, and we encourage you to keep going.’”
Carrey wasn’t deterred by this letter, though. “I didn’t care that it was a rejection. I just got a letter from Hollywood. Television city, man. I was gone, I was so happy.” He was finally one step closer to Burnett, even though, on the surface, it might’ve seemed like a huge step back. With this letter as encouragement, Carrey kept at it, and 45 years later, he landed a part on the 50th anniversary episode of The Carol Burnett Show.
