Carol Burnett is a name we all know and love. She’s the woman who has been making us laugh for years through her many creative endeavors.
But when it comes to the personal life of Carol Burnett, the comedian has definitely experienced her fair share of grief. If you weren’t aware, Burnett lost her daughter, Carrie Hamilton, to lung cancer in 2002.
Carol Burnett Is Opening Up About Losing Her Daughter to Cancer and the Signs She Left Her
Prior to her death, Carol and Carrie wrote a play together. The play, titled Hollywood Arms, was directed by Hal Prince and debuted in April 2022 just three months after Carrie’s passing.
The play opened at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago before it would later make its way to Broadway. “Carrie passed away and I… Well, I’m her mom, and I didn’t want to get out of bed,” Carol said of that time in her life while a guest on the Dear Multi-Hyphenate podcast.
“And my husband — [the show was] going into previews — said, ‘Carol, you owe this not only to Carrie but you owe it to Hal to finish.’ We’re on the plane, my husband and I, to Chicago, and I said a little prayer to Carrie.”
Carol continued, saying, “I said, ‘I’m going to be doing this but I don’t want to be alone. Be with me. Somehow be with me. I need a sign you’re going be with me even though you’re not present physically.'”
It was after she and her husband landed in Chicago and got to their hotel that Carol released her daughter heard her and did exactly as she asked. As Carol told the podcast, when she arrived at the hotel, she was greeted with a huge bouquet of birds-of-paradise flowers from her director.
“[Carrie] had a bird of paradise tattooed on her right shoulder.”
Shocked by the bouquet, she called Hal Prince. “I called Hal and said, How did you know? That was Carrie’s favorite flower.’ And he said, ‘I didn’t. I just called down and said send up something exotic to Carol’s room.'”
But that wasn’t the only sign Carrie sent her mother. The following day, Burnett, Miller, and Prince went to dinner. “The maître d’ brought over a bottle of champagne, compliments of the management, and on the label, it said, ‘Louise.’ That was Carrie’s middle name and my mother’s name.”
Then came the third and final sign, which occurred on opening night. “Carrie and I always loved rain… and opening night, it rained. So, I don’t know… a coincidence perhaps? But three things and I just felt… I felt her.”
And Carol admits she continues to feel her daughter, every single day, 23 years after her passing. Wow, doesn’t anyone else have full-body chills?
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