JUDY CARNE: MORE THAN JUST THE SOCK-IT-TO-ME GIRL

To most television fans actress Judy Carne is only remembered as the original Sock It To Me girl on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In.  But the bouncy auburn-haired British lass (born Joyce Audrey Botterill on April 27, 1939 in Northampton, England) had a prolific career on television before she literally made a splash on that groovy hit variety series.  The daughter of a London fruit merchant, she danced with the Bush-Davies ballet and made her stage debut in the 1956 revue For Amusement Only in the West End.  Before Carne headed for the U.S. she was a panelist on Juke Box Jury and a regular on the sitcom The Rag Trade.

Judy Carne was first introduced to American audiences as Heather Finch, a British exchange student who comes to stay with an American family in the first hour long comedy series Fair Exchange in 1962.  She next played the rich Barbara Wyntoon daughter of the snobbish Cecil Wyntoon (John Dehner) and in love with the poor Jim Bailey (Les Brown Jr.) on the long forgotten sitcom The Baileys of Balboa during the 1964-65 season.  And on the big screen she had a small role as one of the three “nameless broads” (the others being Janine Gray and Kathy Kersh) who are found in bed with James Coburn in the comedy The Americanization of Emily (1964).

With the advent of the Beatles in 1964, all things British were in during the mid-sixties so Carne with her cute looks and mod dress was perfect for the spy genre making two memorable appearances on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in 1965 and 1967.

In between, Judy Carne landed her third TV series called Love on a Rooftop during the 1966-67 TV season.  She played newlywed Julie Hammond Willis, the pampered daughter of a rich used car dealer, who is married to struggling architect David (Peter Duel) and living in a tiny windowless apartment, which sits on the roof of a building with a wonderful view of the San Francisco Bay area.   Though warm and original, critical kudos could not save it from cancellation after only 1 season. I remember this show and Carne in it quite fondly. It made me want to live in an apartment with incredible city views. Something I still have not achieved to this day. The sitcom was rerun at night during the summer of 1971, which was a few years after my first memories of watching prime time TV. Land of the Giants, Here Come the Brides, Here’s Lucy, Mayberry R.F.D., Petticoat Junction, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Mothers-in-Law, and the western Lancer still standout for me.

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Shortly after her last appearance on The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Judy Carne found “overnight” fame on the innovative new variety series Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In beginning in January 1968.  Though Carne had comedic talent she is best remembered as the Sock It to Me girl, in which she would invariably get doused with a bucket of water or fall through a trap door on the floor.  Also memorable were scenes of Carne gyrating in a bikini as the camera zoomed in on phrases and slogans painted in Day-Glo colors on her body.  She became one of the most popular actresses on the show (she was my favorite) rivaling even that of Goldie Hawn (who was funny but her incessant giggling annoyed this 8 year old). Capitalizing on her popular catchphrase, Carne even released a novelty single. Judy stayed with the series for two years and left part way through season three.  She told TV Guide in 1969, “Frankly, it has become a big bloody bore.”

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Post Laugh-In, whole Goldie Hawn went on to win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Cactus Flower and became a bona fide movie star, Judy Carne did not fare as well but remained popular nevertheless. She landed a one-year gig on The Kraft Music Hall, starred on Broadway in The Boy Friend, did a number of TV guest shots (including 6 appearances on Love, American Style always to my delight) and movies-of-the-week (most notably QB VII in 1974) and was a regular performer on the talk and game show circuits.

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The late seventies, however, really did sock it to Judy Carne.  She made headlines in the road company of Absurd Person Singular for an altercation with co-star Betsy Von Furstenburg who reportedly purposely spilled a glass of water on Carne during a performance.  A nightclub act she put together failed and was a big disappointment.  Her sixties experimentation with drugs developed into full-blown heroin addiction. In 1978 she was busted for illegal prescription drugs (she was acquitted) and suffered a broken neck in a car accident. People involved in accidents require a good lawyer to represent them Lawyers from Carlson Meissner Hart & Hayslett provide services as such.

In 1985 Carne co-authored (with former boyfriend Bob Merrill) her heartbreaking autobiography Laughing on the Outside, Crying on the Inside: The Bittersweet Saga of the Sock-It-To-Me Girl.  She candidly revealed details of her tumultuous three-year marriage to Burt Reynolds, her admitted bi-sexuality, her love affair with singer Lana Cantrell, life on Laugh-In and her drug addiction.  The book put her back in the spotlight for a short period and to capitalize on her newfound notoriety she put together a cabaret act entitled Only I….  Her show ran for a few months at the Duplex in Greenwich Village during the early nineties and she caught the attention of radio shock jock Howard Stern appearing on his radio and TV shows. Shortly after, she returned to England and lived the rest of her life out of the spotlight.

Rear more about Judy Carne’s spy genre appearances in my and Louis Paul’s book Film Fatales: Women in Espionage Films and Television, 1962-1973.