Carol Burnett recommends TCM-themed films every week

Last Sunday, Burnett introduced “Gone with the Wind” (1939), followed by the most famous of these “Carol Burnett Show” parodies. The film, titled “Went With the Wind!”, aired in 1976 and starred Burnett as “Starlett O’Hara” and the great Harvey Korman as “Captain Ratt Butler.”

Burnett-as-Starlett has fallen on hard times, but is still bossy as ever. She proudly descends a staircase to meet Korman-as-butler, dressed in a dress she made from curtains, complete with a curtain rod. “Starlett, I love you,” Butler says fervently to Starlett. “The dress is beautiful.” She replies lazily: “Thank you. I saw it in the window and just couldn’t resist.”

It has long been difficult for audiences to resist Burnett. She made a name for herself in the late 1950s with her performance of the novelty song “I Lost my Head Over John Foster Dulles,” in which she expressed that she was “on fire with longing for John Foster Dulles,” the famously stuffy one Secretary of State at the time, the Eisenhower administration.

Burnett’s star continued to rise when she portrayed Princess Winnifred in the 1959 Broadway premiere of “Once Upon a Mattress,” with music by Mary Rodgers, daughter of Richard Rodgers.

In “Shy,” her indisputable 2022 memoir co-written with New York Times theater critic Jesse Green, Rodgers recalls that at her audition, Burnett “looked outstanding: leggy, great figure, huge Smile, flawless skin, gorgeous red hair”.

“She sang, and as I’ve said many times, you could have heard her in Brooklyn,” Rodgers continued. “But it wasn’t just the volume that made her voice incredible – and in fact her vocal range wasn’t all that huge. It was her flexibility. She could suddenly break out of the melody and into her hilarious pig-calling cries, which had no particular tone but suggested immense fun, zeal, strength and health.”

Burnett currently stars on Apple TV+’s “Palm Royale” as wealthy Palm Beach socialite Norma Dellacorte, who begins the series in a coma from which she eventually awakens. Let’s just say that “Palm Royale” provides proof that Burnett has lost none of her scene-stealing ability.

Don Aucoin can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @GlobeAucoin.