Carol Burnett Recalls Being Fired from Movie Theater Job at 18. Now Her Hollywood Star Is ‘Right in Front of That Theater’ (Exclusive)

Tereza Shkurtaj, Scott HuverSun, April 26, 2026 at 9:29 AM UTC

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Carol Burnett.Credit: Weiss Eubanks/NBCUniversal via Getty -

At age 18, Carol Burnett worked as an usherette at a Warner Brothers theater while attending UCLA

Speaking to PEOPLE, the actress recalled being fired after a dispute with customers when films ran on continuous loops and audiences came and went mid-screening

Years later, Burnett saw the story come full circle when her Hollywood Walk of Fame star was placed in front of that same theater in 1975

Long before she became a television icon, Carol Burnett spent a summer working inside a movie theater while she was a college student at UCLA. The job put her right inside the film world she already loved, and only a short walk from the neighborhood where she grew up.

Speaking with PEOPLE exclusively ahead of her appearance at the TCM Classic Film Festival, Burnett looks back on those days in detail, noting it was also where she began to realize just how deeply she cared about the craft of filmmaking.

“I was an usherette, as they call it, when I was 18 during the summer, a hiatus when I was at UCLA…at the Warner Brothers theater on Hollywood and Wilcox,” she recalls. “And we lived just on Wilcox and Yucca. So it was a block away.”

The Warner Hollywood Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard.Credit: Underwood Archives/Getty

Working at the theater gave Burnett an up-close education in moviegoing culture at the time.

She remembers being completely captivated by films like Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train, which happened to be screening during her shifts. Burnett was especially struck by Robert Walker’s performance and Hitchcock’s storytelling style, which she admired even as a young usher.

But the job also revealed the chaotic reality of theaters in that era, where films played continuously and audiences would come and go mid-story without much concern for where they landed in the plot.

“So people would come in, buy a ticket and come in in the middle of a movie and sit down and watch it till the end. And then when it started again, they would watch the beginning and they'd say, ‘Oh, this is where we came in,’ and they would leave,” Burnett explains. “I mean, it was insane! It never made any sense.”

That tension between her love of movies and the rules of her job eventually led to an unforgettable moment.

“I remember I was in front of the aisle two door this one night, and this couple came in and wanted to be seated the last five minutes of Strangers on a Train. And I said, ‘Are you crazy? Please, no!...it'll ruin it for you if you see the ending before you see the whole beginning,’” Burnett remembers saying to the couple.

Despite the couple being “adamant” that she show them to their seats, Burnett argued her case, determined to preserve the audience experience. That, however, is when management intervened.

“So the manager came up — Mr. Batten, I'll never forget his name — and he said, ‘What's going on here?’ And this woman said, ‘She won't let us sit down,’” Burnett recalls. “[Mr. Batten] looked at me, literally he drew his index finger across his neck like he was chopping off my head, ripped off my epaulets and fired me on the spot.”

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Carol Burnett receiving her Hollywood Star in 1975.Credit: Vinnie Zuffante/Getty

Looking back now, Burnett can laugh at how it all unfolded — and in a way, the story has come full circle.

Years later, when she was being honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, she knew exactly where she wanted it.

"The lovely ending to this story is that years later, when they said, 'Where do you want your star on Hollywood Boulevard?' It's right in front of that theater," she says.

Carol Burnett.Credit: Robin L Marshall/WireImage

When the building was later gutted after an earthquake, her husband, Brian Miller, even managed to rescue a piece of its history — and his wife's backstory.

"My husband went and said, 'What are you going to do with some of these doors and stuff?' And they said, 'Well, we're just going to dump them,'" she recalls.

But Miller had another idea, and ultimately brought home the door from the aisle where she was fired.

"So now we have the aisle two door that I was fired in front of. I'm looking at it right now in my office," she shares.

At the upcoming festival running April 30 through May 3 in Hollywood, Burnett says she will revisit that chapter when she introduces Strangers on a Train.

“I'm going to tell this story before they show the movie, of course,” she reveals. “It's one of Hitchcock's best.”

When asked if she ever got to share the incident with Hitchcock himself, Burnett clarified that while they never spoke directly about it, the story reached him through her press agent.

“So in my home now, I have the original poster of Strangers on a Train that Alfred Hitchcock autographed to me: ‘To Carol – Alfred Hitchcock,’” she tells PEOPLE. “And he even drew — he was kind of like a cartoonist, and he drew a little cartoon of himself, and I have that on my wall.”

on People

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”