The comedic legends Carol Burnett and Lucille Ball were close friends for decades. In a new interview, Burnett is opening up about the heartbreak that Ball felt after her bitter divorce from her fellow comedic icon Desi Arnaz.
Burnett Reveals Ball’s Heartbreak
Last week, Burnett, 92, appeared on Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast. There, she recalled a conversation that she once had with Ball while filming The Carol Burnett Show.
“We had a dinner break,” Burnett recounted. “So we went across the way to the farmer’s market, you know, and she’s knocking back a couple of whiskey sours, and she says, ‘You know, kid’ — because my husband at the time, Joe, was producing our show — and she said, ‘You’re very fortunate you got Joe to do it for you.’”
Burnett went on to remember Ball discussing the crucial role that Arnaz played in her career before they split. Ball and Arnaz were married from 1940 until 1960. During their marriage, they starred together on the hilarious television show I Love Lucy.
“She said, ‘Because when I was married to the Cuban… Desi did everything. He invented the three-camera system. He took care of the scripts, he took care of the costumes, he took care of the lighting. All I had to do was come in and be silly Lucy on Monday and do the show. Then we got a divorce,’” Burnett stated.
Ball Finds Her Voice
Burnett then said that Ball admitted to her that it was challenging to develop her next project without Arnaz after I Love Lucy came to an end.
“So they had a script reading of the new Lucy show,” Burnett recalled. “And she said, ‘It was terrible, and I thought, Desi wasn’t here to fix it. I called lunch. And I went back, and I figured I have to be strong, I have to be not afraid, you know.'”
It was during that crucial moment that Ball found both her confidence and her voice.
“So she went back, and she said, ‘I told them in no uncertain terms what they had to do, how to fix it, I was just really tough,’” Burnett said. “And then she took another little drink, and she said, ‘And kid, that’s when they put the ‘S’ on the end of my last name.’”
Boom!
Burnett Meets Ball
During this same interview, Burnett told the story of how she met Ball. They crossed paths when Ball attended the second night of Burnett’s Broadway musical Once Upon a Mattress.
“So I remember, I was stupid. I peeked through, and I saw this orange hair in the second row and [thought] oh my God,” Burnett said. “Anyway, I got through the show, and she wanted to come backstage. And it was in an off-Broadway theater, and it was really funky, you know, I had a couch where the coil was sticking up. … Lucille Ball, she comes in, and she headed for the couch, and I said, ‘Oh, look,’ and she said, ‘No, I see it.’”
“She sat on the right end of the couch and well, God, 20, 25 minutes,” she continued. “And she called me ‘Kid.’ She was 22 years older. And as she was leaving, she said, ‘Kid, if you ever need me for anything, you give me a call.’”
Burnett and Ball remained friends for decades. Sadly, Ball passed away on Burnett’s 56th birthday in 1989 at the age of 77.
“We were very close, and she always sent me flowers on my birthday,” Burnett previously revealed to People Magazine. “So this one morning I got up, turned on the television set — it was my birthday — and she had died that morning, on my birthday. And that afternoon, I got the flowers that said, ‘Happy birthday, kid.'”
Burnett and Ball will always go down in history as two of the funniest women of all time. That’s why it’s sweet to know that they were such good friends in real life.
God bless you both, Carol Burnett and Lucille Ball!