- Born
- Died
- Birth nameJoyce Audrey Botterill
- Height5′ 3″ (1.60 m)
- Trained in music and dance, tiny-framed, pixie-like Judy Carne was born Joyce Botterill in Northampton, England on April 27, 1939, the daughter of a grocer. Trained in dance, she appeared in music revues as a teenager and changed her name at the advice of a dance teacher.
Slowly building up a career on British TV, she arrived in America in 1962, the eve of the mid-60s "British invasion," and appeared to good advantage on the TV series Fair Exchange (1962). Beginning unobtrusively in film, she developed enough as a light comedienne to score well on the smaller screen and won a regular role on the sitcom The Baileys of Balboa (1964). Stardom came with her own romantic comedy series Love on a Rooftop (1966) opposite the late Pete Duel. The latter series, though short-lived, was quite popular and showcased Carne's appeal to maximum advantage. She found herself embraced by America as a cute, pert-nosed Cockney lass with a Peter Pan-like effervescence.
It was no surprise when a couple of years later she soared to "flower power" stardom on the hip and highly irreverent TV cult variety show Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (1967), where she introduced the phrase "Sock it to me!" to the American vernacular. As the plucky brunette, she always seemed to be on the receiving end of a slapstick prank, but the audiences loved her for it. The show also made instant household names out of fellow Laugh-In comrades Arte Johnson, Ruth Buzzi, Henry Gibson, Jo Anne Worley, Lily Tomlin, and, notably, Goldie Hawn, who managed to out-perk even Judy and grab the lion's share of attention. Judy proved herself a game sport for a while, but made the decision to leave the series after only two seasons-- tired of the grind, the typecast, and the disappointment of having her singing/dancing skills undermined.
In the long run it probably was a major career mistake. With the exception of her role as Polly (the Julie Andrews roles) in a Broadway revival of "The Boy Friend" that also featured Sandy Duncan, Judy's post "Laugh-In" professional life was unexceptional with a surprising quick descent. There were a couple of mini-movies, a failed TV idea for a sitcom called "Poor Judy", a failed Las Vegas music act, and the TV talk show circuit. Nothing panned out. Despite an innocent, bubbly, cheery exterior, her private life was anything but. Her 1963 marriage to rising star Burt Reynolds was over within a couple of years. The divorce was acrimonious, to say the least, with nasty, below-the-belt accusations being flung from both sides and feeding the tabloid sheets. A second marriage to TV producer Robert Bergman in 1970 lasted even less than that. More problematic, however, was Judy's escalating financial problems and a drug problem which started with marijuana and hallucinogens and developed into a full-fledged heroin addiction.
In the late 60s and 70s she tried to maintain somewhat with scattered appearances on the musical and comedy stage with roles in "Cabaret" (as Sally Bowles), "Absurd Person Singular," "There's a Girl in My Soup", "The Owl and the Pussycat" and "Blithe Spirit". Her career pretty much in shambles, she fell quickly into the lifestyle of a junkie and began living in squalor. For the next decade, she literally dropped out of sight. The only time she was heard from was when she was busted for a drug arrest or when she made unhappy headlines for a near-fatal 1978 car crash (her ex-husband Robert was driving) that left her with a broken neck.
Judy's tell-all 1985 autobiography, "Laughing on the Outside, Crying on the Inside", was a harrowing and heart-wrenching read with explicit detailing of her descent into degradation. Despite the book, the adorable English girl who captured America's heart in the late 1960s failed to win back a now-disinterested audience. She remains a prime example of what the flip side of a glamorous Hollywood can turn out to be.
In later years, Judy lived and was not heard of much since the publishing of the book. She has allegedly been married twice more since then. She was also in attendance for the televised 25th anniversary of "Laugh-In" and a televised "Laugh-In" Christmas show both in 1993. Out of the picture since the early 1980's, she was a 1990 guest for talk show hosts Geraldo Rivera and Howard Stern and made an isolated appearance as a homeless person in the downbeat urban movie drama What About Me (1993), written and directed by the film's star Rachel Amodeo.
Living quietly in the village of Pitsford for two decades, she died from pneumonia on September 3, 2015, at a hospital in Northampton.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net - As a child in Northampton she decided early on to become an actress and would dance or sing a song at the drop of a hat. Her parents paid for her to have tuition at a boarding school in Sussex, Her introduction began with small parts in tv variety shows and song and dance spectaculars then she was in a West End musical Chrysanthemum, Lionel Bart remembers her as a very chirpy girl full of bounce and lots of laughs. but it never occurred to him that she would turn out to be a great comedienne and he wouldn't have thought of her for straight drama at all, Her success as a cheeky outspoken independent member of Juke Box Jury led to her first big West End part in On the Brighter Side with Stanley Baxter who always thought that she had great potential for comedy, particularly as she was full of energy for apart from the sketches she had two solo numbers including the song Little Instant Me, She was too full of bounce and energy to be considered for anything but comedy, Some of her best were with Miriam Karlin and Sheila Hancock in The Rag Trade then her career really took off when she was invited to Hollywood for Fair Exchange about the adventures of an English family who change places with an American one which did well here but flopped in the States. When she enquired about it she was told that it was because of her limey accent so she sat down with a tape recorder determined to teach herself an American accent which worked as she landed a part in The Baileys of Bilbao which ran for a year., she came to Britain in 69 to do a few episodes of Music Hall and a straight dramatic role in the film All the Right Noises with Tom Bell and Olivia Hussey- IMDb Mini Biography By: Tonyman 5
- SpousesRobert Bergman(May 3, 1970 - 1978) (divorced)Burt Reynolds(June 28, 1963 - July 9, 1965) (divorced)John McCook
- The 'Sock It to Me' Girl
- Ex-husband Burt Reynolds invited Judy as his guest the first time he guest-hosted The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962) in the early 70s. They hadn't spoken in six years.
- While on a promotional tour for the TV series Fair Exchange (1962) Judy met Burt Reynolds. After a six-month courtship the two were married on June 28th 1963. The marriage lasted but two years. She never asked for alimony. Reynolds would be there for her in later years when she was dealing with financial woes amid her drug problems.
- Living in her birth town of Northampton, England.
- Judy auditioned for and won the lead role of Julie Willis in the sitcom called Love on a Rooftop (1966). She was paired with actor Pete Duel, someone she knew and had met when she did a one-episode stint on the "Gidget" TV series. She later guested on his "Alias Smith and Jones" TV series. Duel later committed suicide.
- When she was nine she was accepted to the prestigious Bush-Davies Theatrical School for Girls, in East Grinstead, England near London. An instructor there began calling her "Judy" explaining that "Joyce" wasn't a good professional name. At sixteen she took her professional name Judy Carne. Carne comes from a character in the play "Sister Bonaventure.".
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