Carrie And Me: A Mother-Daughter Love Story Part 22

The 2002 Sundance Theatre Lab is dedicated to the memory of one of our Lab alumni, Carrie Louise Hamilton, who pa.s.sed away last January after a brave struggle with cancer. She was thirty-eight.

Carrie was a force: dynamic, funny, animated, and deeply pa.s.sionate. As a writer, filmmaker, composer, singer, and actor, she exhibited a huge range of talent and craft. Seeing her play Maureen in the national tour of Rent, or Lucy Locket in The Threepenny Opera, or seeing her award-winning film, Lunchtime Thomas, or on stage at an L.A. rock club, you knew you were in the presence of a true renaissance woman. And on her journey, Carrie acc.u.mulated an astounding array of collaborators, loving colleagues, and supporters. She believed in the power of friends.h.i.+p as much as she believed in the power of art.

In 1998, Carrie and her mother, Carol Burnett, applied to the Lab with a script they had adapted from Carol's memoir, One More Time. The play is a story of three generations of women and follows Carol's childhood years living near Hollywood Boulevard with her loving but alcoholic mother and her eccentric grandmother, who had migrated from Arkansas and Texas, when Carol was seven years old.

In her last year, Carrie had traveled to Arkansas and Texas to research the play, and perhaps as importantly, to connect personally with her heritage and the women of her family. I believe that the writing of Hollywood Arms was a very deep personal journey for Carrie: discovering from whence she came and from what stuff she was made.

In April, I attended the world premiere of Hollywood Arms directed by Hal Prince, at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. It was, to be sure, a bittersweet opening. Death has continued to confound me. I ponder, "Where do people go?" As I sat in the Goodman auditorium, hearing words that flowed from the pen and heart of Carrie Hamilton, I got an inkling. Perhaps, as spirits of the theater, one of our most powerful legacies will be the written word and the interpretation of those words by artists and actors who are our collaborators.

Carrie Hamilton leaves many legacies through her art and her friends.h.i.+ps. I miss her. It is with great pride that we at Sundance dedicate this 2002 Theatre Laboratory to Carrie Louise Hamilton. Carrie may not be here in person, but her spirit soars with us.

Philip Himberg

Jody and Erin wrote down a few memories of their own.

Mom, here are some memories I have of Carrie and me.

Love, Jody

Around 1999, Carrie called me one summer afternoon wanting to come down to my house in the Valley and visit for a while. I had some folks over and we were all hanging out at my pool, and I said I'd love it if she came. She was on her cell, and while still on the phone with me, she got in her car and started heading down from her place in Lake Hollywood to my house. She hummed "The Girl From Ipanema" as if playing a trumpet the entire way to my house (at least fifteen minutes), not hanging up until she arrived in my backyard!

This would not be the last time either... .

In 2001, Carrie had to be admitted to the hospital due to seizures and other complications from her cancer. This was her first admittance, and the first time she had been admitted to any hospital outside of rehab, so she was quite frightened.

Lonny and I had only been dating a little over a year. We came by the hospital to see how she was doing. The hospital had put a cot in her tiny room in case anyone wanted to stay with her. Carrie asked me to spend the night. Lonny had driven me to the hospital, so I was without a vehicle to get home the next day. Lonny offered to pick me up after he finished work the next day, so problem solved. He said his good nights and went home. I crawled into the little cot in the small hospital room to keep Carrie company. Then she asked me the darndest question.

"Lonny won't break up with you over this, will he?" she asked.

"Well, if he does, then I say adios," I replied.

"You sure?"

"Carrie, if he can't understand that I need to be here, then he'll never understand me for who I am."

She smiled and hugged me. I think that's when she really started to know how much she meant to me.

Erin wrote the following letter to Carrie:

When we were little, I would watch you all the time. Almost study you like a book. I idolized you. I wanted to be just like you in every way. You had a voice! And boy, did you know how to use it. You taught me how to play the piano. I was never very good at it, but I learned this one song (that I can still play today) after you took the time to teach me. You were a great teacher.

Throughout our too-short time together, you had always encouraged me to sing. What a gift! Thank you.

You were a seeker. You would seek out adventures, and people. You made so many friends. Everyone loved you. Everyone still does.

I remember when you were first sent off to rehab. I was around nine. I wanted to go with you. I thought if you left, you were going to die. Then you got sober, and you became a celebrity. The cover of People magazine. I think ours was one of the first families to go public with the struggles of addiction. You became an AA guru. To this day, I meet people who speak of your helping a lot of people who followed your courageous journey into sobriety.

That was who you were. You were always a very kind, rea.s.suring, and positive person. I wish we'd had more time together. You were gone much of the time, and we lived in separate places for much of our lives spent sharing this Earth.

That lanky body and big toothy smile of yours. That's how I still see you, Carrie-beautiful.

And what I take with me is a feeling. A feeling of love and comfort-and grat.i.tude that you were my big sister.

Jody, Carrie, and Erin: three (grown-up) peas in a pod

In late 2002, Brian and I were in New York. Hollywood Arms was opening at the end of October, and we were deep in rehearsals. It felt good to be back working with Hal and our same cast. The show had been on hiatus since we closed in May in Chicago, and now here we were, about to be on Broadway. Again, I prayed that Carrie would be there with me.

One afternoon Brian and I took in a Broadway show and after the matinee was over we were out on the sidewalk hailing a cab, when a young man approached me.

"Excuse me, aren't you Carol Burnett?"

"Yes, I am." I waited for him to say something about the television show, which is usually what happens when someone comes up to me like that. Not this time.

"I was in the cast of Rent with Carrie in Boston."

"OmiG.o.d. How nice to meet you."

"I just want to tell you that Carrie saved my life. I was heavy into drugs at the time and had been in lots of rehabs that didn't take. I don't know how I made the shows, but I was able to perform and not get fired, even though I was using most of the time. Your daughter would come into the dressing room early for every performance, and sit and talk with me, telling me all about what she had gone through, and how she got clean. She didn't preach. I'd had it up to here with people, including my folks, preaching to me. With Carrie, it was different.

"I looked forward to those conversations night after night. I found myself wanting to be like her. I wanted her energy, her laughter, and her love of life to be a part of me. I quit the show and went into yet another rehab, only this time it was because I wanted to-n.o.body was pus.h.i.+ng me. I've been clean for six years, and it was all because I wanted to be like Carrie. I just wanted to tell you that."

Later that week I received a message that a well-known psychic wanted to get in touch with me. I didn't know him but I knew of him, because he was pretty famous. He left his number. I called him and he said he wanted to give me a private reading. He told me he had dreamed that he was supposed to call "Carol," and thinking this meant his a.s.sistant, whose name was Carol, he rang her up. That led nowhere, and the next night the dream returned, this time with my last name. He didn't act on it until the dream persisted over several nights. He finally figured he was supposed to get in touch with me, so he called. He also asked me (if I accepted his offer) not to tell anyone that he would be doing this session without charging me. Of course I was intrigued. We made a date.

He showed up at my hotel room at the appointed hour on October 17. We sat on the couch and he asked if he could hold a piece of my jewelry. I gave him my ring. He was quiet for a few moments and then some images began to come to him. He said that Carrie had orchestrated this meeting.

"Why?"

"Because she wants you to know she's here and she's fine."

"How do I know she's here?" I had wanted to believe in Carrie's signs in the past, but I was more than a little skeptical of this. I wanted proof that only Carrie could provide.

He told me to take notes, which I did. Not all of the things he said rang a bell with me, but an astonis.h.i.+ng number were spot on.

1. She had a pet she loved with the initial "P." (Pee Wee, whose ashes are buried with hers in Colorado.)

2. Her illness wasn't diagnosed at first.

3. She had three services. (Los Angeles, Colorado, and Arkansas.)

4. At thirty-six or thirty-seven she took deep stock of herself, and declared that she was entering a second phase in her life. A new beginning.

A fragment of one of Carrie's e-mails popped into my mind: