Years ago I picked up a Burnett CD, "Let Me Entertain You." It was a two-fer of albums with songs from various shows, and I finally realized consciously what I'd known somewhere in the back of my memory: that she really was a great singer. (I use the past tense only because I haven't heard her sing in ages--I guess the latest example was the TV remake of ONCE UPON A MATTRESS.) As a callow lad, I hadn't paid attention to the musical parts of her TV show as much as the comedy, although somehow I registered that, yes, she sang duets with such guests as Julie Andrews, Barbra Streisand, Bernadette Peters, etc., and was not outclassed. A brassy, hiccuppy voice for novelties, it was also expressive and could be modulated for quiet, vulnerable songs.

 

This made me a bit sad. She had a great career by emphasizing comedy in her TV show, and that must have been her choice, but as long as she was in Hollywood anyway, it seems a waste that during the summers she didn't shoot one or two musicals. They might have been Broadway adaptations or even originals, just as vehicles were constructed for Andrews and Streisand. Instead she never made a movie musical before ANNIE, and never since. Where is her equivalent of THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE? She coulda done MAME. She coulda done a Sondheim movie. It's a loss.