One More Time

Carol Burnett spent most of her childhood in a Depression-scarred Hollywood neighborhood, where she lived in a single-room apartment with her endearingly batty grandmother, Nanny, a hypochondriacal Christian Scientist with a buried past. The child of two alcoholic parents, Burnett presents a sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking coming-of-age: from her sadly hopeful mother, who was hooked on Tinseltown fantasy, to the first signs of her own comic gift; from happy weekends spent with her father, to their last tragic meeting in a public sanatorium.

Featuring a new Afterword by the author, about teaming up with her daughter to bring this story to Broadway, One More Time is an intimate, touching, and astonishing narrative of a financially desperate but emotionally rich childhood on the wrong side of Hollywood’s tracks.

Carol Burnett spent most of her childhood in a Depression-scarred Hollywood neighborhood, where she lived in a single-room apartment with her endearingly batty grandmother, Nanny, a hypochondriacal Christian Scientist with a buried past. The child of two alcoholic parents, Burnett presents a sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking coming-of-age: from her sadly hopeful mother, who was hooked on Tinseltown fantasy, to the first signs of her own comic gift; from happy weekends spent with her father, to their last tragic meeting in a public sanatorium.

Featuring a new Afterword by the author, about teaming up with her daughter to bring this story to Broadway, One More Time is an intimate, touching, and astonishing narrative of a financially desperate but emotionally rich childhood on the wrong side of Hollywood’s tracks.

Publishers Weekly

Burnett's frank, moving account of growing up in squalor has the air of a bestseller. At 53, the popular performer looks back at the years of poverty and insecurity of her Hollywood childhood, sharing a one-room apartment with her maternal grandmother, Nanny. Burnett's parents were divorced, and both were alcoholics. Readers feel the deep love with which she recalls her father, mother and Nanny (a woman endearing despite her conniving and other terrible traits). In an unforgettable scene, Burnett describes her mother going alone to a hospital to bear her illegitimate daughter Chrissie, who is Burnett's best friend. This memoir is a Cinderella tale by a woman stronger than her family and perhaps luckier. She built a career with grit and a little help from friends she thanks in her zesty story. Photos not seen by PW. First serial to Ladies' Home Journal; Literary Guild dual main selection; author tour. (October 21)