ALL HER DREAMS CAME TRUE - AND MORE.

Byline: Daily News Staff and Wire Services

When people think of Carol Burnett, they're more than likely to summon the Tarzan yell or her ``Gone With the Wind'' parody made famous on her eponymous variety series, which ran from 1967 to 1978 and won 22 Emmys.

Or they may recall ``The Family,'' the series of sketches about Eunice, Ed and Mama, which evolved into the 1983-85 series ``Mama's Family,'' in which the supposed comedy was the veneer on a lot of anger and unhappiness.

These characters - loud, edgy, outrageous - allow Burnett to show a side of herself she is otherwise hesitant to reveal.

``I'm not a person to lose my temper or to scream at anybody or to confront, so it was a way to vent for me,'' she tells interviewer James Lipton in a Bravo special, ``Inside the Actors Studio,'' airing June 19. ``I would just be so calm after I did a Eunice skit, or Charro or do the Tarzan yell.

``You know, people can get out and play golf or they can play tennis or they can play handball,'' she says. ``It's so great to be able to scream, lose your temper, throw things and get paid for it.''

In fact, she says her whiny, insecure Eunice character is modeled after her own mother - a woman always waiting for the dreams to happen.

It's no surprise, then, that ``Mama's Family'' clearly reflected aspects of Burnett's own life, which began in San Antonio in 1933 with a quickly fractured family - her father, she says in the interview, was ``a drunk Jimmy Stewart'' whom she adored - but took even clearer shape after she moved to California when she was 7. There she lived with her grandmother in an apartment down the hall from her mother's and the seeds of an acting career were sown in constant trips to the movies.

That moviegoing also led to much of the comedy to come, as Burnett's variety series was famous for its parodies of old movies. When she tried to return to TV sketch comedy with ``Carol & Co.'' in 1990, the series' young writers were baffled how to write for a woman whose style was shaped by events shown on giant screens in darkened theaters in the '40s.

When Burnett started out in show business, her fondest dream was to be a working actor. In looking back at her long career, she remarks: ``Wow, I've been through a lot. But at the time I was going through it, I never, never thought I wouldn't make a living, and never got into this to be famous.''

The winner of five acting Emmys, eight Golden Globes and a dozen People's Choice awards believes humor is very personal to the audience.

``If you get 30 percent of the audience laughing,'' she says, ``you're home free.''

During ``Inside the Actors Studio,'' Burnett's statements focus primarily on her comedic talents. Yet she is a deft dramatic actress whose work in ``Friendly Fire,'' the 1979 TV movie about a mother seeking answers about the death of her son in Vietnam, earned her another Emmy nomination.

Burnett also has worked with renowned director Robert Altman in ``A Wedding'' in 1978 and ``Health'' in 1979.

INSIDE THE ACTORS STUDIO Bravo 7 p.m. June 19

Host: James Lipton

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4 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--color) Carol

So glad we had this timetogether

(2) Vicki Lawrence, left, Carol Burnett and Harvey Korman played the outrageous members of ``Mama's Family.''

(3) Carol Burnett poses beside a caricature of one of her most famous characters -- the cleaning woman.

(4) Tim Conway was a vital member of Carol Burnett's ensemble cast for her long-running variety show.