Variety was the spice of her life

There is value in being old enough to remember watching “The Carol Burnett Show” in real time. It was the best of that now-extinct species, the variety show, and in memory serves as something of a Camelot. Yes, there was a time when comedy was smart yet innocent, when satire did not have to be smug, when TV actors could sing and dance and execute a perfectly timed pratfall.

Burnett, bless her soul, is a comic genius and highly accomplished actress who would not be able to find a job today. In our Hollywood, physical comedy is left to the boys and life is difficult for women who don’t fit an increasingly narrow beauty ideal -- the current “ugly-duckling” standard is someone as pretty as Tina Fey.

But watching her during the show’s run (1967 to 1978), nothing like that clouded the air. Burnett wasn’t political or symbolic. Carol Burnett was Carol Burnett. She tugged on her ear, she did her Tarzan yell and played Eunice, sang duets with Julie Andrews and Eydie Gorme; she tried to keep Tim Conway from making Harvey Korman crack up in the middle of a sketch. She was a woman without a past, except showbiz, a performer without context except her own outsized talent. In her own way, Carol Burnett was television itself.

So tonight’s “Carol Burnett: A Woman of Character” on PBS’ “American Masters” is a double pleasure. The years evaporate as iconic sketches -- the “Gone With the Wind” and “Sunset Boulevard” spoofs, the Mama and Eunice scenes -- are revisited and explained. Current comedic actors, including Jon Cryer and Jenna Elfman, profess their devotion while Burnett and her compatriots -- all the costars, including Lyle Waggoner, are present and accounted for -- talk about the old days. But we also learn the narrative of Burnett, and that’s a worthy story whether you remember the show or not.

Her personal story is, not surprisingly, classic Hollywood. The daughter of two alcoholics, Burnett was raised mostly by her grandmother (the signature ear tug was originally her way of saying hi to Nanny). With that broad smile and huge voice, she seemed destined for Broadway, and there she went in hopes of a career on the stage. But Garry Moore found her, put her on his show and, strangely enough, that rubber face and those coltish legs did just fine on the small screen.

Not surprisingly, given the times, she got her own variety show through sheer force of will. Women back then didn’t do comedic variety, they did musical variety, a la “The Dinah Shore Show.” But Burnett had it written in her contract that she could at least try. So CBS figured she could have her six weeks and be done with it. Only “The Carol Burnett Show” was an instant hit. Palpably fueled by Burnett’s deep love of performing and her respect for her audience, the show drew fans from every demographic imaginable. Everyone loved Carol. And why not? With her big and easy laugh, not to mention all those Bob Mackie outfits, it’s not surprising that the question and answer period with the audience that opened the show was one of it’s biggest draws. Burnett seemed so likable -- driven too, yes, but not so much by personal ambition or childhood demons as by a never-ending wonder at the glory of Show Business.

That devotion to the power of entertainment is in short supply these days. The idea that there’s no business like show business seems too kitschy to be embraced by its creators, who are often forced to sell themselves in opposition to their very genre. Actors, writers, directors can go on and on about the intricacies of craft or the importance of movies, or theater. But few admit to being enthralled by the sprawling, vivid mess of Entertainment. There is distance in the specialization, a refusal to acknowledge the connection between vaudeville and Sundance, between slapstick and Shakespeare.

Burnett, and her show, came out of the old school. Art schmart, the important thing is: Did you get the laugh?

Which isn’t to say Burnett was not a star or a celebrity and all that entails. She has had three marriages, gone public with a daughter’s addiction issues and then her death due to lung cancer. She made her dramatic stretches with mixed success. But she always kept the common touch, always seemed like the mom down the street or the girl you went to college with. And, if her friends and colleagues can be believed, that is what she is like in real life.

At 74, her hair still a red bob, Burnett remains the very definition of a trouper. She is, when you sit down and consider it, a most astonishing woman.

And it’s worth sitting down and considering. Because what you’ll see in “A Woman of Character” is not just an American Master but really and truly one of the last of an amazing, and dwindling, tribe.

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mary.mcnamara@latimes.com

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‘American Masters: Carol Burnett: A Woman of Character’

Where: KCET

When: 9 to 10:30 tonight

Rating: TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children)