Still Mama after all these years
COMMENTARY everybody loved her so much.”
The actress describes Burnett as loving, giving and caring. But Burnett had a show to run, and Harvey Korman became Lawrence’s mentor.
“He decided he would take me under his wing and make me a comedian,” she said. “It was like having Harvey for a private tutor, and there is none better.”
Lawrence explains the origins of “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia,” her No. 1 hit. “I was married to the guy who wrote it for 10 minutes. It was like the only good thing that came out of a totally dysfunctional marriage,” she said. “It was a bittersweet chapter in my life. I got divorced, but I got a gold record and I got the dog.”
She will celebrate the 44th anniversary of her second marriage this year. “Marry your best friend,” she advised. “We make each other laugh all the time. That’s gotten us through all the rough periods.”
Lawrence has had many other roles, from Hannah Montana’s grandmother to Dan’s old flame on “Roseanne.” The actress is hoping that Fox will pick up “The Cool Kids,” a comedy set in a retirement center. Her co-stars include Martin Mull, David Alan Grier, Jamie Farr and Leslie Jordan.
But the actress is most associated with Mama, a showy role she played fiercely opposite Burnett’s daughter Eunice in the recurring “Family” sketch.
“That first sketch that we did of ‘The Family’ got such an incredible response,” Lawrence said. “Carol loved those characters so much that she said, ‘Please, more. Write them as fast as you can.’ They couldn’t write them fast enough. … Carol called it Tennessee Williams on acid.”
Mama was written for Burnett, but she wanted to play Eunice. “Harvey said to me many times, ‘You got the part, kid, because the Mom is the nuts and bolts, the heart and soul of any family,’” Lawrence said.
“I think it was absolutely magical what we put together. That motherdaughter relationship was so well delineated by the writers, and just got stronger over time,” she said.
In “A Two Woman Show,” after sharing her story and five minutes of outtakes, Lawrence comes out as Mama.
“I think more like she does now nowadays,” she said. “We probably have a lot more in common than we did when I was younger. You reach a certain point in your life where you don’t have time to mince words. You just say what’s on your mind.”