The cliché of the sad clown who laughs on the outside while crying on the inside holds more than a little truth when it comes to multi-talented actor and comedian Carol Burnett. For more insight, keep watching for a look inside Burnett's sad life.

Carol Burnett was born in 1933 in San Antonio, Texas, during the Great Depression. A few years after Burnett's birth, her parents, Joseph and Ina Louise Burnett, headed west to Los Angeles in search of a better life. She recounted in an interview with NPR:

"My parents came to Hollywood from Texas, and left me there with my grandmother. They were hoping that they were going to strike it big out here in Hollywood. And then they divorced. And so my grandmother and I followed my mother out to Hollywood in 1940."

As Burnett recalled in her 2011 autobiography This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection, her parents were big drinkers and low earners. Writing about her father, she said:

"He had a drinking problem, but he was a good-natured drunk."

However, being hooked on the drink kept Joseph out of steady work, and the family was forced to rely on government assistance to get by. Burnett told UPI in 1986, simply,:

"It was not a pleasant childhood."

However, she admitted that some others had it worse:

"There are some that were happier and some that have been really miserable. Mine was not miserable."

Watch the video for more about Inside Carol Burnett's Sad Life.

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Alcoholism marred her childhood | 0:00

She couldn't 'fix' her parents | 1:25

Raised by her impoverished grandmother | 2:26

Early career financial problems | 3:20

Her parents died young | 4:29

Bittersweet character inspiration | 5:23

Burnett's eldest battled addiction | 6:34

Her daughter's death | 7:34

Two divorces | 8:45

Deaths among her co-stars | 9:53

Guardian to her grandson | 11:00