Singer, actor and comedian who made her zany mark in the American hit sketch show Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In
Comedians are often defined by one stock expression, from Jack Benny’s sighing “...well!” to Homer Simpson’s “Doh!” For Judy Carne, who has died aged 76, the phrase was “sock it to me” and every time she uttered it, or anything close to it, on America’s hit comedy sketch show Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, she would be doused in water, disappear down a trap door, or worse. The producer George Schlatter had appropriated the phrase from black musicians with whom he worked. It made Carne the show’s central figure, and put “sock it to me” into 1960s vernacular.
Carne was a vivacious singer and dancer whose rise to something close to stardom had been rapid in the US, and which Laugh-In wound up bringing to a screeching halt.
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