Carol Burnett rang a CBS vice president over the holidays in 1966 to say she wanted to use a clause in her contract. He asked her what clause she was talking about. Four years earlier she had signed a ten-year deal with the network that guaranteed her one hour-long special a year and two guest spots on their sitcoms. It was steady, comfortable work. Her agent had put in one more line. Within the first five years, if Burnett decided she wanted an hour-long comedy variety show, CBS had to put thirty of them on the air, pay or play, whether the network wanted to or not. Nobody expected her to use it, including her. She had spent years on somebody else's variety programme and doubted she could carry one of her own, so the clause sat there unused while the deadline came closer. In the final week of the fifth year she and her husband looked at each other and decided to make the call. She was 33. The executive had to send lawyers to find the clause. He rang back the next day and told her that comedy variety was a man's game, then listed the men who owned it, from Sid Caesar and Jackie Gleason through Milton Berle to Dean Martin. Then he offered her the alternative the network had lined up, a sitcom called Here's Agnes. She said she did not want to be Agnes. She wanted sketches, guest stars, a repertory company, a 28-piece orchestra and the costume changes that went with all of it. The contract was the contract, so they put it on the air. The Carol Burnett Show ran eleven years, 279 episodes and 25 Emmys, and she got it by reading a contract back to a man who had forgotten he signed it. cbsnews.com/news/how-carol-b…