Tim Conway wasn't interested in becoming a performer — until Rose Marie stepped in

As a young man, Conway wasn't interested in the Hollywood lifestyle.

Everett Collection

Anyone who knows anything understands that it's important to take the good with the bad. You're not bound to win all the time, but keeping a pessimistic attitude won't help you. It's important to remember that those bad experiences help you grow as a human being, and they help you prepare for all the good coming your way.

As one of the stars of The Carol Burnett Show, it can be hard to picture Tim Conway having an unsuccessful moment. However, years before he joined the cast of the hit series, Conway was a part of one of the biggest television failures of the decade. Conway appeared as a guest on the very short-lived series, Turn-On. The sketch comedy series lasted roughly one episode before being canceled by the network. Still, Conway, who had served as the guest host for the singular episode, wasn't discouraged by the failure.

"I've always treated this business very lightly and I never considered myself permanent here," said Conway during an interview with the Associated Press. "Still don't."

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In fact, Conway didn't even have any aspirations to work as an actor when he was a young man living in Ohio.

"I didn't want to be a performer in the first place," said Conway. "I was working at a TV station in Cleveland when they needed an afternoon show. Ernie Anderson, who does voice-overs for a lot of shows here now, and I put together a show that was so bad we couldn't get guest stars...finally, we were reduced to interviewing each other, and I posed as the man in the street."

Luckily, a fellow Hollywood star gave Conway the advice he needed that would jump-start his career.

"Rose Marie, who was on The Dick Van Dyke Show visited Cleveland and said I should come to Hollywood to appear with Steve Allen," said Conway. Thus began his illustrious career in comedy, both good and bad.

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13 Comments

CortneyNicole 28 days ago
Tim Conway was a funny and a talented man on the Carol Burnett show. He cracks me up when he did an Elephant jokes, when he also played as Mickey Hart on The Family sketch. And he played as The Old Man he when down the stairs in slow motion 🤣 this show never gets any old to watch with all the cast a crew members. I'll have to watch it again someday MeTV...Thank you!
hootrs23 1 month ago
ALL of these articles about Tim seem to forget that he got his TV start on McHale's navy first. He was a riot on that show too.
LalaLucy 1 month ago
Oh, yes! I remember reading the stories of some of Tim's beginnings and his thoughts in his autobiography. Always such humble, self-deprecating humor he had. Thank you, Rose Marie. What a talent we might have missed out on otherwise.
JoeGuenther 1 month ago
I urge anyone who is a Tim Conway fan to seek out the episode of Match Game that Carol,Vicki,Jim Neighbors and Tim Conway invaded. The four played a round of Match Game where Tim Conway's brilliance is on display. Even though METV doesn't air McHale's Navy Tims work with Joe Flynn was hilarious. Tim was a guest on numerous variety shows including Laugh-In. and Flip Wilson show years before Carol hired him as a regular.
WordsmithWorks 1 month ago
It would be cool to see that one episode.
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Tim Conway was the first episode and the only one broadcast! It wasn't even seen on the West Coast!
Right. But Conway also guested on the third episode, which I didn't know about--So I didn't realize an additional show had been posted.
I've now watched all three, and if I'm reading the notes right the third one was pieced together from an incomplete film along with scraps from Schlatter's personal archive.
Yeah, that's proably all we're gonna get! However, I still hope to see more of Take A Good Look, Ernie Kovacs' game show takeoff! Fun Fact: George's wife worked on that show! They're STILL together after over 65 years of marrage!
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