INQUISITR.COM / Entertainment

Judy Carne: The Sad Life Of A Comic Actress

By Aaron Homer
Published on: 06:10 PST, Sep 9, 2015

Judy Carne could be counted on, week after week, to bring laughter into American homes — at least, for a couple of years. For a period of time in the late 1960s, the comic actress was a running gag unto herself on the hugely-popular TV show, Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. Unfortunately, following drug problems that made her unemployable and a series of bad marriages, Ms. Carne died alone and all but forgotten.

As previously reported by the Inquisitr, Judy Carne, who passed away earlier this month at the age of 76, had a series of stage and screen credits under her belt, usually playing bit parts. However, in 1968, she joined the cast of Laugh-In.

Considered edgy at the time, Laugh-In took on somewhat taboo subjects — sex, politics, race — that were not otherwise broached on TV in the 1960s. Sure, the sexual content consisted largely of innuendo backed up by women — Carne, as well as Goldie Hawn — in skimpy outfits. The humor was broad and slapstick, and any semblance of format was thrown out the window. And Judy Carne was right there in the middle of it. In fact, she was arguably one of the show’s stars, thanks to a tired vaudeville gag that would be unthinkable to today’s TV audiences. Judy Carne became known as the “Sock It to Me” Girl – which is to say, whenever she would utter the phrase “Sock it to me,” either intentionally or unintentionally, she would be doused with water.

Unfortunately, the role that defined Judy Carne’s career would also become her cross to bear. Carne grew tired of the role after two seasons, saying that she was so deeply associated with the “Sock It to Me” bit that random people would throw buckets of water on her as she walked down the street. She made only infrequent appearances on Laugh-In in the third season and quit altogether after Season 3.

While she was making America laugh, Judy Carne’s personal life was anything but funny. By the time she scored her gig on Laugh-In, Carne had already been married and divorced. She had a two-year marriage to Burt Reynolds, which she would later claim was abusive in her 1985 book, Laughing on the Outside, Crying on the Inside: The Bittersweet Saga of the Sock-It-To-Me Girl.

A later marriage to Robert Bergmann in 1971 would also end in divorce after only a few months.

In between unhappy marriages, Judy Carne also struggled with the same problem that has been the undoing of many other comic geniuses, including Chris Farley and John Belushi, which, sadly, was drug abuse. Specifically, Judy was addicted to heroin. A series of drug-related arrests, including one for forging prescriptions, made her all but unemployable, and she struggled to find work, before eventually moving back to England to live out the remainder of her days in anonymity.

Carne still performed in and around her home of Pitsford, doing small-time gigs like cabaret shows and dinner theater. She never had any children and died all but friendless — her death was reported by her hairdresser, Jon Barrett.

As of this post, Judy Carne’s official cause of death has not been made public, although she most likely died of pneumonia.

[Image courtesy of Getty Images/Keystone]

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