The legendary comedic star Carol Burnett is speaking out to recall her memories of growing up in Hollywood in the 1930s. In a new interview, Burnett has revealed that she climbed the Hollywood sign many times as a child.
Burnett Climbed Hollywood Sign
While appearing on Amy Poehler’s Good Hang With Amy Poehler podcast last week, Burnett talked about what life was like in Los Angeles back in the day.
“You didn’t have to lock your doors,” Burnett, 92, said of her L.A. childhood.
That’s certainly changed over the past nearly-100 years!
“And every morning when I would go out getting ready to go to school, I’d look up and there was a Hollywood sign,” Burnett continued. “And we used to climb the Hollywood sign. The other neighborhood kids and I — now you can’t get near it.”
“We would fly kites or roller skate and they would say, ‘I’m bored. Let’s go climb the sign.’ So we did,” she recounted. “It was just, it was kind of rickety then, they’ve fixed it up now.”
“And there were splinters and I would climb up, and get splinters, and it’s a wonder we didn’t break our neck,” Burnett stated. “And then the ‘O’s’ were my favorite, and I would just hang over the ‘O’s’ and say, ‘Hello, Hollywood. Hello.’ We do the Tarzan yell and all of that.”
How fun is that?!
Burnett Gets Money For UCLA Tuition
Burnett grew up living with her grandmother. In this same interview, she remembered that they were so poor that she could not afford tuition at UCLA.
“I lived with my grandmother in one room, a block north of Hollywood Boulevard,” Burnett explained. “And we were poor. Our rent was $1 a day, $30 a month, and sometimes we could hardly manage that. And so I graduated from Hollywood High, and I desperately wanted to go to UCLA. And my grandmother said, ‘Forget it. You know, we can’t afford the tuition, there’s no way.'”
At the time, tuition for one semester at UCLA cost $50. Needless to say, that has changed quite a bit over the years as well!
“So we lived in this apartment building [and] every morning, I would check — there was a pigeonhole mailbox for all the apartments — and I would look out and see if we had a little letter or something in our slot,” Burnett recounted. “So I go up, and there’s a letter in this slot. This one morning, I came out and I opened it up in our room. My name was typewritten on the envelope. And there was a $50 bill. I do not to this day know where that came from.”
Burnett Still Doesn’t Know Who Her Benefactor Was
Burnett previously revealed that to this day, she still doesn’t know who changed her life by giving her this money.
“There’s something bigger than we are,” Burnett told People Magazine in 2018. “I don’t want to sound woo-woo, but there are so many wonderful coincidences in my life.”
Burnett is a true living legend, and there will never be another like her. Indeed, she’s given us all so many laughs over the years. That’s why it’s fun to think of Burnett as a little girl climbing the Hollywood sign with her friends.
God bless you, Carol Burnett!