Carrie has a lot of balls in the air.
Whether
performing her hilarious yet touching solo show, “7,000
Sailors Can’t Be Wrong,” doing stand-up comedy and voiceovers,
or basking in the glow of being featured in “The Aristocrats,” she’s
a busy gal.
Carrie’s stand-up career was foreshadowed by her graduation
from UC Berkeley with a degree in Rhetoric. She was barely able to
eke out a living posing provocative questions that required no response.
Apparently, there’s not a lot of call for that. While working
as a receptionist a Kaiser Hospital in Oakland, Carrie began “professional
party guesting,” which led to being handily escorted out of
many fashionable homes in the Bay Area. A harrowing stint as the
emcee of
an all-male strip show made Carrie dream of spending quality time
with a man who could read a book without illustrations.
The
road memories: Carrie’s the only comic who can say that
she opened up for both Jack Jones AND the Red Hot Chili Peppers in
the same decade. But lest we forget, there are also sojourns to thirty-six
U.S. states, six provinces in Canada, cruise ships, English television,
and even a week in Guam. She’s headlined at CAROLINE’S, THE PUNCH LINES, THE IMPROVISATIONS, THE
COMEDY STORES, and CAESAR’S
TAHOE, to name a few.
In
addition to the road, Carrie was regularly on television doing
every stand-up ensemble show from PBS’ COMEDY TONIGHT (which
she later hosted for two award-winning seasons), AN EVENING
AT THE IMPROV (later hosting a BEST-OF episode), to guesting on every talker
from THE SALLY JESSE RAPHAEL SHOW, MARILU, VICKI1, THE LATE
SHOW, ‘A’ LIST, LEEZA, to CAROLINE’S, and COMEDY CENTRAL. Her original Comedy
Tonight performance was nominated for a local Emmy award, but was
beaten out by a dog show. Lots of prisoners wrote letters.
CRISTINA & FRIENDS was to be a precursor to The View, with Cristina
Ferrare filling Barbara Walters’ pumps. Carrie was there too,
enjoying the live talk format in addition to the clothes, hair, and
makeup every day.
Then
Carrie was hired by Roseanne to write stand-up and special projects
like THE MTV MUSIC AWARDS, and the monologue
and sketches
when Roseanne
hosted SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. This segued into three seasons as a Story
Editor on ROSEANNE, where Carrie ran her own “joke room.” She
guest-starred on the sitcom as well. When Roseanne conceived her daily
talker, Carrie was an original hire. You’d have to buy her a
big strappin’ cocktail to hear any more about that.
A
book, “My Mom’s Meaner Than Your Mom: True Stories of
Mean Mothers,” is in Development. It just never ends. Carrie
practices anusara yoga and is trying to make the world a better place,
one laugh at a time. |