Julie Andrews taught Carol Burnett some swear words

Amy Poehler must surely have been excited to have had Carol Burnett on her podcast Good Hang. In an episode that was released early this month, the comedy legend sat down for an expansive conversation about growing up (literally in the shadow of the Hollywood sign, which she played on like a playground), making the show of her own name (some of it does not hold up, she says) and still having a career in her 90s.

There are a lot of anecdotes, like this one, when she was the toast of Broadway in Once Upon a Mattress, and she was told she should connect with a young Brit named Julie Andrews:

I was doing Mattress, and she was in Camelot. So she was a queen and I was a princess. And some friends, mutual friends, said you two ought to meet. Because there’s a similarity there…

Anyway, she had Sunday night off from Camelot, and we worked on Sunday night. So she came with her friend, and I had my friend there, the two gentlemen, just friends. And she watched Mattress, and we went out to a Chinese restaurant afterwards, and we never stopped talking to each other.

The poor guys who were with us just sat there and listened. It was as if we were joined at the hip from the beginning, and always. And she taught me some dirty words.”

Six decades after Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music, we still might think Julie Andrews is practically perfect in every way. In her husband Blake Edwards’s satire S.O.B., Andrews seemed to delight in playing against those wholesome expectations (even if the movie is largely remembered for Andrews taking her top off).

As for Burnett, she may have learned some swear words that night, but she did not often use them, except, as she joked with Poehler, when she stubbed her toe.

Andrews and Burnett became such fast friends, they teamed up for a TV special brought from Carnegie Hall in New York City in 1962. You can see it below. Imagine what it might look like in full colour, and 4K at that! The photo above was taken for the event.

Here is the full episode of Good Hang with Carol Burnett: