CAROL BURNETT & JULIE ANDREWS Laughs, Secrets & OUR ENDURING FRIENDSHIP

THE PERFORMERS SHARE A GENUINE AFFECTION THAT'S RARE IN SHOWBIZ

- LOUISE A. BARILE

Carol Burnett has always believed that good luck accompanies a rain or snow storm. She was delighted — although not completely surprised — when a blizzard blanketed New York City the night she and Julie Andrews taped their first television special together, Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall, in 1962. The show, which aired that summer, “won super ratings and lots of prizes,” Carol recalled.

It also cemented a friendship that has lasted more than 60 years. “She’s been a longtime chum, and I adore her,” Julie, 88, gushed about Carol, 90. “She’s wonderful to work with, and she’s loyal and kind, and it’s never changed.”

Julie was starring on Broadway in Camelot when she came to see Carol perform in Once Upon a Mattress in 1961 with some mutual friends. Introduced to each other after the show, it was suggested that they all go out for Chinese food. Carol felt she couldn’t say no without appearing impolite. “When someone pushes you like that, the natural impulse is to run the other way,” she confessed in her memoir This Time Together. Julie would later admit she felt the same way.

The dinner, however, was a huge success. “It took Julie and me a good five minutes of sizing each other up before the dam burst. Then we started talking, telling stories, laughing like crazy, and not letting the men get a word in edgewise,” recalled Carol. “As I remember it, we wound up closing the place.”