Annie star Carol Burnett was on top of the world when she welcomed her three kids — Jodie, Erin and Carrie — into her life. However, everything soon changed for the actress when her firstborn daughter died from pneumonia following a complication with lung cancer in 2002 at age 38.
“I think of her every day,” Carol once revealed to People. “She never leaves me … I just feel her.” Losing Carrie was not easy for the doting mom, who shares her three children with late ex-husband Joe Hamilton. It was especially difficult for her because they had very similar personalities. Carol remembers her daughter as a socialite who was “very interested in people.”
“She never met a stranger. I think it’s in our genes …[knowing] you can make somebody’s day by being kind,” the TV personality explained. “She also loved to write. One time she was in New York and it was the winter, and homeless people would come up and ask for money. She would say, ‘I’ll give you $10 if you tell me your story.’ She would collect those stories and write about them.”
Carrie was as sweet as they come and a lot of her friends noticed she got her caring personality from her mom, who hosted the Carol Burnett Show for 11 years. Everyone couldn’t get enough of Carol as she was very entertaining and funny.
“By the 1990s, I think Carol realized, ‘Look, people love my show. I’m proud of my show. Let’s at least acknowledge it and start giving it its due.’ And you can make a great case that it was the best comedy-variety show ever,” Wesley Hyatt, author of the book The Carol Burnett Show: So Glad We Had This Time, previously told Closer Weekly in April 2019.
“It was very consistent in what it set out to do,” he added. “And there was a lot of love there: Carol’s love for her audience and guest stars and everyone on the crew, and they loved her back. What comes through more than anything is that there’s a show that loved people and that people loved.”
Scroll below to learn more about Carol’s three kids.
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