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VICKI LAWRENCE: MAMA MIA!
AT LAST, THE CLASSIC SITCOM, “MAMA’S FAMILY,” HAS COME TO DVD!
Good Lord! “Mama’s Family” is finally available on DVD. Thanks a lot, Time-Life! You can purchase the complete first and/or second seasons, packed with fun bonus features. Or opt for one of the “Mama’s Favorites” single discs. A lavish complete series box set is also available. Vicki Lawrence’s sassy portrayal of Thelma “Mama” Harper stands as one of the funniest in TV history. The young Lawrence somehow made the 65-year-old, no-nonsense, sarcastic widow, Mama, utterly endearing. The character was introduced in a sketch on “The Carol Burnett Show.” Thelma was the caustic mother of the unloved, mercurial Eunice Higgins (Burnett). The sketch was expanded into a TV-movie and then a series. In the series, Thelma resides with her spinster sister. Thelma’s son Vinton and his two kids move in with them. Burnett and Harvey Korman, who played Eunice’s exasperated hubby, made several guest appearances. Faced with trying to ride herd on her irritating brood, beer-in-hand Mama’s philosophy was, “The only way to keep from goin' crazy in this house is to stay half lit.” With a cast that, in addition to Lawrence, featured Dorothy Lyman, Ken Berry, Rue McClanahan and Betty White, the series debuted on NBC in 1983 and ran for a season-and-a-half. Its popularity grew immensely during a first-run syndication stretch of four additional seasons, coming to an end in 1990. During her run from 1967 to 1978 on “The Carol Burnett Show,” Lawrence displayed remarkable versatility and an innate comic sense. As a singer, Lawrence enjoyed a number one hit with 1973’s “The Night That The Lights Went Out In Georgia,” penned by her then husband, Bobby Russell. She hosted her own talk show and acted on many TV shows, including “Ally McBeal,” “Diagnosis Murder,” “Roseanne,” “Major Dad,” “The Love Boat,” “Fantasy Island” and ‘Laverne & Shirley.” Lawrence had a recurring role as the grandma on “Hannah Montana.” Today, Lawrence, wife of makeup artist Al Schultz, mother of a grown son and daughter, enjoys touring in her “two-woman show.” In it, she appears both as herself and the indomitable Mama. Lawrence amiably chatted with Pop Culture Classics. POP CULTURE CLASSICS: It seems long overdue, making “Mama’s Family” available on DVD. VICKI LAWRENCE: It is long overdue. [Laughs] PCC: Why do you think it has remained popular for so many years and for multiple generations? LAWRENCE: It ran on television for a long time and has reached a lot of generations already. And I think people just relate to her, because everybody has somebody like that in their family. There’s kind of an underlying truth to Mama. PCC: That kind of portrayal could easily have been cartoony. How did you manage to keep real feeling, genuine heart in the piece? LAWRENCE: Well, I think it was a little bit cartoony. It was really a hybrid, our little show, because it came from sketch comedy and it never really settled down into a true sitcom, I don't think. I think the fact that it was kind of a hybrid and quirky and different from anything else before or after it is part of what endears it to people. PCC: It is so rare, when that works, going from a comedy sketch, expanding it into a series or feature film. Did you see that as a big challenge, going in? LAWRENCE: I never really thought about it. When you’re in the moment, I don’t think you think about those things. But, when we shot the bonus features and we sort of deconstructed the series after all these years, it was interesting to go back and look at all the unique hurdles that “Mama’s Family” did face and was still so loved by the fans. And they were so accepting of all of the quirkiness and the craziness. PCC: You were so young, when you first started playing Mama. Did that make it more daunting?
No, not really, so much, because I mean, that’s what I did on Carol’s show. I was the supporting female, so while she was Cinderella, I was the wicked witch. She was Shirley Temple, I was the mean old schoolmarm. So when she was Eunice, I was Mama. That’s just kind of the way it went. And at the time, it was just another old lady to play. PCC: Did the costumes help you find the character? LAWRENCE: Oh, my God, always. Bob Mackie was such a genius. He still is. He’s got such a great sense of humor. Carol and I have said many times, we would be struggling with a character and would then get to wardrobe on Wednesday and he would dress you with such attention to detail. Everything. I’ve had people ask if I changed anything about that outfit. No. It was just perfect. He’d step aside and you’d look in the mirror and go, “Oh, my God! Thank you. I know who I am!” PCC: You mentioned that the character is relatable to the audience in some ways. When you took her on, did you find certain elements of her that you could relate to? LAWRENCE: Well, I think everybody has been wounded by their mother. And we’ve grown up and you still hear the horrible things that she said to you, when you were 13 [laughs]. And everybody has people like that in their family I had had a Southern mother-in-law for a nanosecond, so I had that to draw on. But my own Mama was a little left of center, you know, just like an older version of Eunice. So I kind of threw all that together. I must say, Mama became a lot more fine-tuned after the series went on the air and she became a much more fun character to play. PCC: Was part of the fun in playing her just the fact that she would always say exactly what was on her mind? LAWRENCE: Saying exactly what was on her mind, yes. And I guess because I was young, she had had very youthful quality. There was nothing she wouldn’t try. There was nothing she didn’t do. I mean, the fans bought her doing everything on that show from karate to running for mayor to dirty dancing, I did it all. PCC: So, over the course of the years, what was the biggest challenge of playing her? LAWRENCE: None. Really, none. She’s just a really fun character to play. PCC: And the cast, was that a particularly close-knit bunch? LAWRENCE: We were. And I think particularly after we went into first-run syndication., when we were able to really retool the show in our own vision. I think that’s when we really hit our stride, when Lola [Beverly Archer] and Bubba [Allan Kayser] came on board and we became a very tight-knit little band of comedians. Yeah, it was a good bunch. PCC: Do you see the series as being influential? Prior to that, families on sitcoms always seemed to be depicted as almost perfect, like the Cleavers and the Nelsons. LAWRENCE: Right, yeah, I would say she is, arguably, the first and best dysfunctional mother on television. PCC: And paved the way for a lot of shows that followed. LAWRENCE: Yeah, probably. Somebody said to me the other day that they didn’t think that “Roseanne” would have happened. Or “Married With Children.” Or “Everybody Loves Raymond.” I said, “Oh, my God, you’re going to keep going and you’re going to pin Honey Boo-Boo’s mother on me!” [laughs] PCC: What did you learn from Mama over all those years? LAWRENCE: What did I learn? Just say it like it is. I mean, I find I tend to agree with her more, as I get older. PCC: I guess it’s a character you can grow into. LAWRENCE: It is. And you sort of earn the right, at a certain age, to say what you’re thinking... as long as it’s in a humorous manner [laughs]. PCC: Are you still doing the stage show that features Mama? LAWRENCE: I am. PCC: So what does that consist of? It’s part Vicki, part Mama? LAWRENCE: Yes. Basically, I open for Mama [laughs]. My half of the show is sort of largely autobiographical. And then we run a bunch of outtakes and then Mama comes on and she’s my chance to say whatever I want to talk about. It’s just been really fun to push her into a new century and let her comment on everything that’s going on in the world. And I find that she’s a voice through which I can do that. And people love it and embrace it. And things that Vicki would never say, she can talk about. She is, I think, as current and relevant as she ever was. PCC: It must have been fun for you to have a chance to interview Mama for the DVD extras. LAWRENCE: Oh, yeah. Actually, not technically, the actual making of it, isn’t as much fun as it turned out. It turned out really cute. PCC: Back to your performing roots, I’ve heard several versions of how you connected with Carol Burnett. What’s the real story? There was a fan letter to Carol? LAWRENCE: I wrote a lot of fan letters back in the day, although, I have to say, mostly to guys who were on television. I had a crush everybody you could think of, who was on television. And everybody said that I looked like Carol, from the moment I entered high school. And it actually ended up in a newspaper article. I had entered a contest and the newspaper gal said I looked like Carol Burnett. And so then my Mom said, ‘Write her a fan letter.’ So I did. And told her I looked like her and would love to meet her. Carol got the letter and made arrangements to come and see that contest. She said, “I’m going to sneak in and sneak out. But I want to see you.” She said, “Please don’t tell anybody I’m there, but get me two seats.” I did get a chance to meet her, because the guy that got me the seats asked her to come up on stage and crown the winner. I thought, “Oh, great. Well, he’s going to ruin my career.” And we took some pictures. And she disappeared. That was November of my senior year in high school. I got a call from the producers, like late spring, would I come down to CBS, they wanted me to audition to play her sister. They were just right in the throes of putting together “The Carol Burnett Show.” PCC: So, at that point, did you have grand dreams of a career? LAWRENCE: No, not at all. Honestly, I didn’t. My Dad wanted me to go to UCLA, because that was his alma mater. I thought I wanted to study dental hygiene, clean teeth, marry a rich dentist and hang it up. I grew up in very close proximity to Hollywood. And that’s where my Dad worked the entire time we were growing up. He worked at Max Factor on Hollywood Boulevard. And it’s where I hung out. It was my stomping grounds. But it never occurred to me to do it for a living. So I kind of feel like I got kidnapped by show business. That wasn’t really what I was thinking I would do. PCC: What did you learn from observing Carol, Harvey and Tim over the years? LAWRENCE: Well, it’s pretty hard not to learn comedy from those people, if just by osmosis, just sitting there, watching them, day after day. I feel like I really got to go to the Harvard School of Comedy... in front of America. And Harvey really took me under his wing. He was nothing, if not a team player. In the beginning, he would say to me, “Oh, my God, forget stage right and stage left. You can’t even find the ladies room.” [Laughs] He would just take me aside and just explain to me props and dialects and who I was in the movie takeoffs. I mean, it was like having a private tutor and, arguably, the best one in the world. Comedy was very serious business to Harvey. PCC: It all seemed to come so naturally to you. Were there points, early on, when you wondered if you could really do this? LAWRENCE: Well, it was like an out-of-body experience. And I used to watch the Burnett show, when it would air, like it was horrible home movies. But they brought me along. What happened to me would not happen to somebody nowadays. The suits would come down and say, “Get rid of her and get us a real actress.” But they brought me along slowly and they nurtured me and so, it seemed natural to everybody, because it just unfolded slowly and easily and comfortably, because that’s the way Carol was. PCC: And then to have the pop stardom, a huge record, was that a different kind of excitement? DId that come out of left field for you? LAWRENCE: Well, I was married to the guy who wrote that song for like 10 minutes. That was the only good thing that came out of the whole marriage. He wrote it and then he didn’t like it. And I kept telling him it was a smash. And he said, “Well, then you do the demo, if you think it’s such a great song.” He gave it to his producer who could not give it away, tried giving it to everybody. So finally he threw his hands up and said, “Let’s just go in the studio and do it with Vicki.” So that’s how that happened. And it certainly was the ultimate demise of an already doomed marriage. But it was back in the day when you didn’t cross-pollinate. Like record stars weren’t on TV and movie stars never did television. It was a curse. It was the small screen. You didn’t cross-pollinate at all. And now, if you don’t do everything, you’re not a star. But back then, you didn’t really do that. And nobody could figure out who I was. They kept calling me Vikki Carr. Or they’d say, “Where have you been?” “Okay, I’ve been on ‘The Carol Burnett Show’ for five years.“ They couldn’t figure it out. Then I went through a horrible divorce and I was like, ‘I’m just going to go back to “The Carol Burnett Show” [laughs]. I was right, though - it was a big hit. PCC: It must have been nice to be able to say, “I told you so.” LAWRENCE: Yeah, it was. Yeah. PCC: But you were never tempted to put more of your focus on a singing career? LAWRENCE: I really wasn’t, no. I’ve never considered myself a very great singer at all. PCC: But you had many opportunities to sing on Carol’s show and always came off well. LAWRENCE: Yeah, came off okay. I don’t think of myself as a great singer, though. PCC: Working on the “Hannah Montana” show, what kind of experience was that for you? LAWRENCE: Oh, that was great fun. Somebody was asking me the other day if that was just a nightmare, because the Burnett show used to run like a live show and it was so organized. But I said, “On the contrary.” It ran really smoothly, because there were a lot of kids on the set, so they had to get them to school. And it had to run efficiently and you had watch your mouth. There were rules and regulations. You couldn’t just act like a goober in front of all those kids. So it ran really quite nicely and was a lot of fun to do. PCC: And what’s your take on all the Miley controversy? LAWRENCE: I don’t know, I’m a little concerned about her. I was trying to cut her some slack, in the beginning, because I feel like the VMAs, I don’t know, I watch that through a slit in my fingers as it is. That whole show is just kind of amazing to me. So, at the time, I was like, “Get over it. It’s the VMAs.” But it’s like the more attention she gets, the more she’s wanting it. I’m a little concerned for her. PCC: The talk show was something else that seemed quite natural for you. LAWRENCE: That was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I did it with the wrong company and they were not supportive and they were not fun. And it was a sort of dysfunctional relationship. I felt like I had learned from the very best lady in the whole business, the way show business is supposed to run. And they did not see it that way. They thought show business should be stressful and chaotic. I just was really unprepared for that, having had such fun in my career. I was unprepared to hit a brick wall like that in my 40s. I still feel like they just really got it wrong, which was a shame, because it was really fun to do on camera. When we were actually taping, that was a real fun thing to do, that talk show. PCC: You’ve had so much success in so many areas of show business. Is there anything you’ve wanted to do and haven’t yet had a chance to try? LAWRENCE: Not really... although I haven’t learned how to clean the teeth yet. I’m not yet a dental hygienist. PCC: [Laughs] Hopefully you won’t be ready for that for quite a while yet. Anything coming up in performing that you’re looking forward to? LAWRENCE: For right now, just doing my road show and enjoying that. And we’ll see what happens. I mean, that’s the way my whole career has been - wait and see. I was reading an article by Cher the other day and she said, “I don’t know. I’ve been around for a lot of years. Every once in a while I do something... and here I still am!” And that’s kind of how I feel. PCC: And Cher was one of those singers who was approached about recording “Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia.” LAWRENCE: Yeah, that’s right. PCC: So what do you think Mama would say about the state of television today? LAWRENCE: She’s probably say, “Go out and buy the DVDs and have yourself a good laugh.” PCC: Good advice indeed. |
