On several occasions I noticed that I would get a question, and before I could answer, the entire crew, including the cameramen, would burst into laughter. Why? Because someone in the director’s booth had made a wisecrack that elicited guffaws from everyone in the crew, who wore earpieces and therefore could hear what was being said in the booth. It irritated me to be in the dark about what they were laughing at, sooo…one week, I decided to get back at the culprits in the booth, i.e., our director, our associate director, our script supervisor, our head writer, and, of course, our producer, Joe. I asked Bob Mackie to make me an opening dress that sported a turtleneck. I confiscated one of the earpieces that connected to the booth and hid it in my ear, camouflaging it with my hair. The wire was tucked down and hidden by the turtleneck on my gown and you’d never have known I was “wired for action.” The only ones in on the gag were Bob and my dresser, Annette Gagnon. The overture to our theme began, and I heard our director, Dave Powers, from the booth say, “Okay, cue Carol!” It was working! I could hear every word they were saying in the booth. Our stage manager, Willie Dahl, waved me on and I walked out on stage waving to our audience. As usual, I announced who our guests were for that evening and then asked for the lights to be bumped up so I could kid around with the audience.

QUESTION: “Will you ever make another movie?”

(I hear Dave in the booth quip, “Who the hell cares?”)

CAROL: (Paraphrasing) “I don’t know, but who the heck would care?”

(Surprised laughter in the booth, thinking my answer is a coincidence.)

QUESTION: “How do you keep your figure?”

(Quip from the booth: “No one else wants it!”)

CAROL: (Paraphrasing) “Who else would want it?”

(The booth: “What’s going on?”)

QUESTION: “Would you do the Tarzan yell?”

(Quip from the booth, “Yeah, we can’t wait to hear that for the thousandth time!”)

CAROL: (Paraphrasing) “You know, I bet I’ve done the yell over a thousand times, but here goes!”

Now the booth is catching on, and I hear them all screaming, “She’s wearing an earpiece! She’s got an earpiece on!” I hear them tell Pat Kenny, who’s on Camera 4, to swing around behind me and look for the wire. He does, and there’s nothing to see because my hair and turtleneck costume are fulfilling their mission. I completely ignore Pat’s camera maneuver and the very loud hoots coming from the booth of “We know you can hear us!” I continue to take questions from the audience, and all the while, at the same time, the booth is yelling in my ear (including a few obscenities) to get a rise out of me. Some Girl Scouts come up on stage, and as I’m buying cookies from them, the booth is screaming, “Look out! They’re really enemy midgets in drag! The cookies are going to explode!”

Even though it was hard, I never let on that I could hear them screaming at me throughout the rest of the Q&A bit. After the show, as we were driving home, Joe asked me about it.

“C’mon, you were wearing an earpiece during Q&A, right?”

“What are you talking about?” I asked innocently.

Ken and Mitzie Welch

Even though Ken and Mitzie didn’t come on our show until the fifth year as special musical material writers, our relationship dates back to 1955. I met Ken when I was auditioning for summer stock that year and he was the piano player. He was also a vocal coach and special material writer. He gave me his name and phone number, saying he’d like to work with me someday. In the fall, after I returned from doing summer stock at Green Mansions in the Adirondacks, I called Ken and we began to work on material for future auditions. At the time, I was living at the Rehearsal Club in New York City, which was a boardinghouse for young women hoping to be in the theater. The rent was eighteen dollars a week, room and board! This was when I had a part-time job as a hat-check girl, so I paid Ken ten dollars a session in dimes and quarters. In 1957, he and I auditioned our special musical-comedic material at the Blue Angel nightclub. The Angel was the “in” cabaret, over on the East Side of Manhattan. I was hired!

As my opening number, Ken wrote a very funny song, “I Made a Fool of Myself Over John Foster Dulles.” This was during the height of the Elvis craze, and the song was about a young girl going ape, not over a rock star but over our then Secretary of State, Mr. Dulles. As far as his public image was concerned, he was aptly named. He wore glasses, a fedora, a heavy coat, and, usually, a very dour expression. He was the least likely candidate for anyone to swoon over, which is what made the number so funny. The song caught on, and I performed it three times in one week on television, twice on The Jack Paar Show, and once on The Ed Sullivan Show.

A week later, I was watching Meet the Press, and Mr. Dulles was the guest. The hour was almost over and there was one final question: “Mr. Secretary, what’s going on between you and the young lady who sings that love song about you?” I was glued to the set. He kind of smiled—an actual smile!—I swear I could see a twinkle in his eye, and he said, “I make it a policy never to discuss matters of the heart in public.” After that, nobody could tell me he didn’t have a sense of humor.

After I got on The Garry Moore Show, Ken was hired to write the musical material. That’s when Julie Andrews and I first performed together. Ken wrote a special treatment of the song “Big D,” from the musical The Most Happy Fella, which featured Julie and me as cowgirls. The chemistry between the two of us clicked so much that the studio audience that night gave us a standing ovation. It led to Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall, in 1962, which won all sorts of awards.

The writing credits read Ken Welch and Igor Peschkowsky (Mike Nichols), who worked with Ken on the special material and chose to have his real name listed in the credits.

After that, Ken teamed up with his talented wife, Mitzie, and they wound up writing all the musical material for several specials I did: Carol + 2 with Lucy and Zero Mostel, in 1966; Julie and Carol at Lincoln Center, in 1971; Sills (Beverly) and Burnett at the Met, in 1972; (and later on) Burnett Discovers Domingo (Placido), in 1984; and Julie and Carol Together Again, in 1989.