The legendary fashion designer Bob Mackie is speaking out this week to talk about his decades-long friendship with the comedic icon Carol Burnett.
Burnett’s Modesty
Mackie, 86, is the visionary behind the costumes on The Carol Burnett Show, which ran from 1967 until 1978. In a new interview, Mackie opened up about what it was like to work with Burnett, 92. Needless to say, he loved the experience, describing Burnett as being “the most modest woman I’ve ever known.”
“She would never be in a fitting with nothing on,” Mackie told People Magazine.
Though Burnett was modest herself, she trusted Mackie to push boundaries when it came to elevating the comedy on The Carol Burnett Show.
“I used to do things with her as I’d read the script — ‘Oh, that’s not funny. What am I going to do to make this funny?’” he recounted.
Mackie’s Impact On Sketches
Mackie can remember one sketch in particular in which he encouraged her to wear a revealing costume for the humor of it all.
“The first show I have to fall out of a two-story window. It’s not really two stories. There’s mattresses under there. But it looks that way. So I better wear pants,” Burnett reportedly told Mackie.
The renowned designer disagreed, telling Burnett, “You can’t wear pants. That’s not funny. Nobody has funnier elbows or knees than you do.”
“I mean, you know what to do,” he added. “You’re playing a woman who’s in trouble. Let’s do a shorter skirt — and tight, so it’s really awkward.”
Burnett immediately understood what he was getting at.
“She went, ‘Ohhh.’ It all sank in for her all of a sudden,” he recalled.
Burnett ended up agreeing to wear the skirt. However, she still went above and beyond to ensure she wouldn’t be showing too much skin.
“I mean, believe me, she would have on thick underpants underneath,” Mackie stated.
Mackie explained that this is just one of many examples of why he loved working with Burnett.
“I loved doing it. And she loved the fact that I was doing that with her. But it didn’t occur to her to put those things in,” he said of the wardrobe choices in sketches. “If I explained to her what it was, she would go, ‘Oh. Oh, I get it now.’ It wouldn’t be in the script at all. ‘A woman walks into a bar,’ but then it wouldn’t give you any more information.”
Mackie Helps Shape Beloved Burnett Character
Later in this interview, Mackie revealed that he helped shape Mrs. Wiggins, who would become one of Burnett’s most popular characters. According to Mackie, the ditzy secretary in a tight skirt “was supposed to be 99 years old” before he changed Burnett’s mind.
“I called Carol, ‘You know, you’ve done this old lady,’” he says. “You’ve done this too often, let’s do something else.”
“I said, ‘Why don’t you be a secretary? Like those temps that come in every week — you have a different temp in the office and they don’t do anything except watch the clock and do their nails and have lunch,'” he added.
This changed everything for Burnett when it came to this character.
“She went, ‘Oh, now I know how to play that,’” Mackie concluded. “And she did that. I did that with her over and over again on different things.”
Relive the hilarity of Mrs. Wiggins in the video below.
The Carol Burnett Show continues to be one of the funniest and most iconic shows of all time. While much of the credit for that goes to Burnett and the rest of the cast, it still wouldn’t have been the same without Mackie.
It’s so nice to see that Mackie still has such a genuine love for Burnett all these years after The Carol Burnett Show ended. God bless them both!