Carol Burnett:

Few entertainers in any field anywhere have endeared themselves to the American public as overwhelmingly, as sweetly as Carol Burnett. Burnett has played everything from nervous klutz to earth-mother, has sung everything from Tarzan yells to Sondheim anthems, has conquered television, triumphed on stage, written a best-selling memoir, as well as the Broadway hit Hollywood Arms.

Burnett's melancholy charlady is a comedic gem as unforgettable as the best of Chaplin. Her Scarlett O'Hara opposite Harvey Korman's Rhett Butler, her hilarious Norma Desmond, her dim, gum-chewing Miss Wiggins, and her disarmingly straightforward Everywoman before a studio audience are the stuff of television history. "The Carol Burnett Show" won a total of 22 Emmy Awards during its eleven years on CBS, and Burnett herself has hardly stood still since then. She gathered new fans in Robert Altman's picture A Wedding, delighted in Pete 'n Tillie opposite Walter Matthau, and made the most of the juicy role of Miss Hannigan in the film version of Annie. On stage, she created improbably, irresistible chemistry opposite Rock Hudson in I Do! I Do! and later gave one of her most complex comic creations in Moon Over Buffalo. In 1999, she blazed her way through Stephen Sondheim's revue Putting It Together.

Her early years were not easy, but hers is also a true American success story, a classic show biz saga. Carol Burnett was born in Texas but grew up in Hollywood. Her parents died young and Carol lived mostly with her grandmother, Mabel Eudora White, the eccentric and beloved "Nanny" for whom the loving granddaughter would give a little ear-tug at the end of each television broadcast. Most of the time, the family lived on welfare.....

Loretta Lynn:

Few things in life are sweeter than a real country song, and when Loretta Lynn is singing, her song is always as sweet as it rings true. Her name is synonymous with country music itself. She has sung for royalty, teamed up with Luciano Pavarotti as well as Conway Twitty, called American Presidents friends, and headlined everywhere from "The Muppet Show" to the Grand Ole Opry. Through it all, the first woman ever to become the Country Music Association's Entertainer of the Year has stayed faithful to her roots and strayed not at all from the music she makes best. "A song delivered by Loretta," said her fellow country singer Roy Acuff, "is from the deepest part of her heart."

She was born the second of eight children of Ted and Clara Webb. She was married to a serviceman at 13, became a mother at 14, and a grandmother by 29. Part Cherokee, all country, she got her name from her mother's love for the actress Loretta Young. The story of her beginnings caries the heartbreaking simplicity and ineffable emotional resonance of a modern American myth, best told in the song, autobiography, and motion picture that carried her fame beyond the borders of country music into the world's imagination. "I was born a coal miner's daughter," Lynn sang, "In a cabin on a hill in Butcher Holler.'' " We were poor but we had love," the song continued, "That's one thing my Daddy made sure of / He shoveled coal to make a poor man's dollar / Mama rocked the babies at night / Read the Bible by a coal oil light / And everythin' would start all over come break of morn'."

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