Carol Burnett, early on

The comic actress and singer Carol Burnett turned 90 years old this year. Apparently the birthday TV special that aired last spring is being rerun tonight. A friend here mentioned this, and that brought on a memory I have from a long time ago.

In 1964 (I just checked online for the date) Carol Burnett starred in a TV rendition of the "princess and the pea" story called "Once Upon a Mattress" (based on the Broadway play she had starred in.) I was 12 years old at the time, and I had never heard of her.

I vividly remember my reaction to the scene where she tries to go to sleep on a stack of mattresses and supposedly is disturbed by the presence of a single pea underneath them all. It was hilarious, but it was more than that. Even at that young age, I was struck by the ability of an actress to take this simple premise and capitalize on it. I was amazed at how she was able to prolong this scene, getting laugh after laugh, all alone on camera with no dialogue at all, relying entirely on her bodily motions and her facial expressions. I remember thinking, "She...is....good!" I could appreciate that I was watching someone who had remarkable talent.

And of course, her career took off!