Grad File: Burnett’s Road to Journalism Took a Funny Detour

Actress Carol Burnett, the five-time Emmy Award-winning comedian whose TV variety show ran for 11 years, attended UCLA in the early 1950s. There, performing on the Royce Hall stage, she discovered she could make people laugh. In her memoir, “One More Time,” Burnett describes growing up poor in Hollywood and her elation at being accepted to UCLA. But there was a hitch. She couldn’t manage the $42 enrollment fee--until an anonymous benefactor mailed her a $50 bill. She was perplexed, but grateful for “My ticket to UCLA. . . . And after all these years, I’m still wondering who sent it.” Burnett, 64, spoke at a recent farewell dinner for retiring UCLA Chancellor Charles E. Young.

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Some of the happiest days of my entire life were spent at UCLA. I went there to major in journalism. When I got there, I found out there was no major in journalism.

So I looked into the [curriculum] book and figured, “I’ll take theater arts-English because then I can learn to write the plays and be a writer.” And then I joined the Daily Bruin. And then I had to take an acting course only because I was a theater arts major. It kind of all started there.

I think down deep in my heart I knew that’s what I wanted to do. But I didn’t know it until I got to UCLA. I was encouraged--even though I got a D in my first acting effort.

When I was there back in the covered wagon days, the theater arts department was housed in the back and we performed in these kind of shacks that looked like Army barracks. That’s where we did our one-acts. We didn’t have a theater. We performed in Royce Hall when we could get into it.

Now, the department, the School of Theater, Film and Television, has several theaters, studios and sound stages. That’s just theater arts. I’m thinking about going back.