“You Know, Carol, Comedy Variety’s a Man’s Game”
By the mid-sixties, dames of the Broadway and film musical were taking their much-deserved bows as variety’s small-screen headliners, but why? Changes were surely occurring everywhere: the small screen, the Broadway stage, the form of the musical book, and in the American culture at large. This chapter contextualizes the rise of crossover stars like Carol Burnett, Carol Channing, Pearl Bailey, Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, and Leslie Uggams, and positions their ascent within larger theatrical, televisual, and cultural contexts. It asks how they and their television appearances differ from the less prominent women of the earlier television era and how changes occurring in Shubert Alley and Hollywood helped to open up this space for the dames of Broadway. Ultimately this chapter addresses why and how television welcomed these divas and how this new embrace spoke to earlier and emergent norms of American popular culture, the musical, and a maturing television industry.