From the heart: Vicki Lawrence tour targets cholesterol, high blood pressure

Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2001 | 8:34 a.m.

There's no question about it. Television's Mama Harper, the buxom, tight-jawed, quarrelsome mother in the floral smock, raised the blood pressure of all those around her.

The stress that the gray-haired mama brought to her bickering television family was exorbitant both on CBS' "The Carol Burnett Show" and later on NBC's '80s situation comedy "Mama's Family." In nearly every skit, Mama Harper, played by Vicki Lawrence, left audiences laughing, while driving her television daughter, Eunice (played by Burnett) to a near-nervous breakdown.

When asked what inspiration was used to breathe life into the role, Lawrence said recently in a telephone interview from her home in Los Angeles that she tells people she based the character loosely on mothers she has known so as "not to offend (specific) mothers."

"I was really just trying to do an older version of Carol (playing) Eunice," she added, explaining that Burnett saw the "Mama's Family" skit and its noisy clan as more of a "Tennessee Williams on acid" effort.

Ironically Lawrence, who so skillfully mastered the sharp-tongued mother character reigning over the dysfunctional family, is now working to lower blood pressures not increase them.

On Thursday she will be at the Target store at 9725 S. Eastern Ave., to sign autographs and encourage area residents to be have their blood pressure and cholesterol levels checked and be screened for diabetes.

The effort is part of the Heart Health Tour, a traveling education center that is open to the public and offers free blood-pressure and cholesterol level checks and diabetes screenings inside a state-of-the-art 73-foot semi-trailer.

Pfizer Pharmaceuticals Group is sponsoring the event in conjunction with Prevention, a national health and fitness magazine.

Lawrence said it is a good way to draw attention to three of the biggest health issues affecting Americans today: heart disease, cholesterol and late-onset diabetes.

"All three of these things are huge killers in this country," she added. "These are things you can nip in the bud, but preventatively."

Lawrence has seen up close the damaging results from heart disease. Both her father and her husband's father underwent bypass surgery. Her mother-in-law suffered a heart attack while in her 70s, and Lawrence's 24-year-old son, at age 19, was diagnosed with acute hypertension.

"We went through every test you could go through, only to find out sometimes it just happens," Lawrence said, referring to her son's health condition, which appeared with little warning.

But with her mother-in-law, she added, the symptoms of heart disease were there. She was short of breath, couldn't climb stairs and it was becoming more difficult to get around the golf course, Lawrence said. And, she added, she was retaining a lot of fluid, "which was a huge sign."

"She had been living with heart disease for God knows how many years," Lawrence said. But, she added, paying a visit to the doctor is not something women and men of her mother-in-law's generation are comfortable doing.

In an effort to encourage people to pay better attention to their health, the Heart Health Tour is stopping in 23 cities across the country. Lawrence joined it at its stop in Chicago in August and will also be at its Phoenix stop Oct. 18. Health information and risk assessments will also be offered to people of any age.

Catching up

Participating in a health-awareness effort isn't so unusual for the actress, comedian and former talk-show and game-show host. Since 1994 she has been traveling the country speaking to interested organizations on issues relating to women, such as health, motherhood, aging, stress and menopause.

"Things like being a woman in a man's world," Lawrence said, "it's difficult for all of us (women)."

Despite progress women have made in the working world, Lawrence said, "I don't think things have changed at all ... My education started when I was fired from my talk show."

In her 1995 autobiography, "Vicki! The True-Life Adventures of Miss Fireball" (Simon & Schuster), Lawrence wrote that "Vicki!," her syndicated 1992-94 television talk show, was the most "fun thing" she'd ever done in her professional career. Lawrence was nominated for a Daytime Emmy in the show's freshman year.

However, as she explained in the book, Lawrence never "meshed" with Group W (Westinghouse Broadcasting Company), which owned the show.

"We just didn't agree how the show should run," Lawrence said. "(They) felt I just didn't understand daytime.

"It got to be so incredibly stressful, them just picking at me constantly (because), literally, I was having too much fun ... I learned from the best lady in the world (Burnett) you should be having fun if you're in showbiz.

"I was completely devastated when they fired me," she said.

But Lawrence didn't separate herself from audiences entirely. In addition to her speaking engagements, she appeared this year on ABC's "Politically Incorrect," and in February she was invited to appear in the play "The Vagina Monologues," performed at Theatre On the Square in San Francisco.

"It was fun. It was empowering," Lawrence said, referring to playwright Eve Ensler's play that explores female sexuality.

"It's a really empowering show," Lawrence said. "I heard women say afterwards, 'I wish I had seen this when I was 5.'

"(The show) is very liberating for us."

In August Lawrence reunited with her friends from "The Carol Burnett Show" -- Burnett, Tim Conway and Harvey Korman -- to shoot a special that focused on scenes during the live tapings of "The Carol Burnett Show," in which the actors would break out laughing.

The special, called "The Carol Burnett Show: Show Stoppers," is scheduled to air Nov. 26 on CBS.

"It was really fun. We shot it in Studio 33 (at CBS Television City in Hollywood, Calif., where the original show was taped). It's funny how you fall right back in like we had never left."

Little sister

Lawrence spent 11 years on "The Carol Burnett Show," earning an Emmy Award and five nominations. How she landed on the show is a story in itself.

As a high school student and cheerleader living in Irvine, Calif., Lawrence's resume already included song-and-dance experience. She had sung with the musical group Young Americans and appeared in "Young Americans," a 1967 documentary about the group.

But her plans were to become a dental hygienist. All that changed, however, when she sent a fan letter to Burnett. The letter was attached to a newspaper article that mentioned Lawrence bore a striking resemblance to Carol Burnett.

The comparison was no surprise to Lawrence, who said, "Everybody just told me from the day I went into high school that I looked like Carol Burnett."

What was surprising, however, was that Burnett responded. Burnett took Lawrence's father's name from the article, looked it up in the phone book and called Lawrence at her home, telling her that she was looking for someone to play her younger sister on her upcoming show and would like to see her perform at an upcoming upcoming Fireman's Ball that was mentioned in the article.

"I thought, 'Well, she's nuts,' " Lawrence said. But Burnett went to the ball, watched Lawrence perform and hired her for "The Carol Burnett Show," of which "Mama's Family" was a spinoff. The show aired from 1983-90.

From 1987-89 Lawrence also hosted a daytime version of the game show "Win, Lose or Draw," which aired on NBC. But it was on the set of "The Carol Burnett Show" that Lawrence met her husband of 27 years, Al Schultz, who was the makeup artist at Television City.

From Schultz, Lawrence said, she learned a lot about makeup and beauty, which helped her in developing her line of Vicki Lawrence Cosmetics, launched this spring on the Home Shopping Network.

The makeup, which she describes as a "no-nonsense" line of cosmetics, has been a longtime dream, she said. The products can be ordered through the network's website, hsn.com.

"I've been thinking about it for years," she said. "I'm very particular about what I want ... (And) I think I know what works for the average woman."

Lawrence said she's busy promoting and developing her line of cosmetics. As far as putting together another show or even a comedy routine, she said, she has no immediate plans.

"I've thought about it," Lawrence said. "Right now I go around the country and speak and I hope that I make people laugh when I do."

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