New York has always been a place where stars are born, but every once in a while, the city gives rise to a legend. In 1959 a new show opened written by Mary Rodgers, daughter of Broadway composer Richard Rodgers, and it starred a newcomer named Carol Burnett.
The show, “Once Upon a Mattress,” was an adaptation of the old fairy tale, “The Princess and the Pea,” about the princess who could feel a pea under a stack of mattresses. And from the start it seemed like Princess Winnifred was a role Burnett was born to play.
It was her Broadway debut, and a golden opportunity for a girl who grew up nearly penniless. It was also ironic that Burnett played a princess on a pile of royal mattresses, and yet she didn’t have her own bed until she was 21 years old. “I slept on the couch; I lived with my grandmother in a one-room apartment in Hollywood, until I left to go to New York,” Burnett said. “And then I lived in a wonderful place called the Rehearsal Club, and I had a cot. And I thought, Wow, this is nice. I have a bed for the first time.“
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Her threadbare upbringing might explain her ferocious work ethic: in 1959, between “Mattress” and her regular CBS network gig on “The Garry Moore Show,” Burnett was working seven days a week.
In fact, she was so exhausted that during one matinee performance atop the mattresses she literally fell asleep. “At the beginning, I’m pretending to be asleep,” she said. “Maybe I’ve put an audience to sleep, but I never could sleep in front of an audience. And I remember this stage manager going ‘Carol! Carol!’ ‘Oh, holy –’ Maybe I was out for a minute, I don’t know, or two, but it was long, you know?”
But the hard work was literally paying off: Burnett was soon making what was then a fortune, more than $500 a week. “I was rolling in dough,” she said. “I had never seen that much money in my life.”
What did she do? “I spent it. I bought the first pair of shoes that actually fit me. So when I got ‘Mattress’ and ‘Garry,’ I remember getting my first pair of high heels that fit. It was a thrill! I wish I still had them. I’d have them bronzed.”
“Once Upon a Mattress” has held up pretty well through the years, both on stage and screen. It was last adapted for TV in 2005, with Burnett playing the evil queen.
And the newest version opens this week on Broadway with two-time Tony-winner Sutton Foster in the lead role. “It’s such a gift to be able to play such a wild and crazy character,” Foster said.
She says the princess role is fun, but playing her night after night takes everything she has: “You know, Dolly Parton has that phrase, ‘It takes a lotta money to look this cheap’?”
“Like, it takes a lotta hard work to make it look easy?” asked Smith.
“Yeah. That’s my goal, for it to be like, ‘Oh, this old thing? This is nothing.’ But inside I’m like, Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!‘”
Joan Marcus
We couldn’t help but wonder what Carol Burnett herself would think of Sutton Foster’s interpretation, so “Sunday Morning” got the two of them together, and it’s pretty clear that Burnett is a fan.
“There couldn’t be a better Winnifred,” she told Foster. “You are it. I knew it. The minute they said it, that you had been cast, I said, ‘What took them so long?’ It’s perfect. Perfect.”
Growing up, Foster was a fan of “The Carol Burnett Show.” “I used to watch it every week,” she said.
“You were the one!” Burnett exclaimed.
“I was the one. I was the only one!” said Foster. “You were funny, you were tall. You were unafraid, confident. And I was like, Ahh, I wanna do that. And I would just always tune in to see that continuity and that aliveness and to be able to look up to someone who was unafraid to be ridiculous.”
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And now as the crown is passed from one Princess Winnifred to another, “Once Upon a Mattress” seems poised to deliver a few more happily-ever-afters.
Asked what her hopes are for the show, Burnett replied, “That it’s a great success. Here it is 65 years later, and I just feel it’s going to keep going.”
Turning to Foster, she added, “And then there’ll be some day that there’ll be a girl that you’re going to love the way I love you, and you’re gonna be encouraging her. I have no doubt.”
To watch a trailer for “Once Upon a Mattress” click on the video player below:
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Story produced by John D’Amelio. Editor: Steven Tyler.
