Don Saroyan spent most of his life working just outside the spotlight, even though the woman he married in 1955 became one of the most beloved entertainers in American television history. Long before Carol Burnett hosted her own hit variety show, she was a young UCLA theater student dating a fellow performer named Don Saroyan, and the two built a life together during the years when both of them were chasing the same dream. Their marriage did not last, but Saroyan’s own story, from his childhood in Nebraska to his decades of steady work in Hollywood, deserves to be told on its own terms rather than only as a footnote in someone else’s biography.
Quick Bio Table
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Harry Donald Sarooian (professionally credited as Don Saroyan) |
| Date of Birth | October 4, 1928 |
| Birthplace | Omaha, Nebraska, USA |
| Date of Death | November 24, 1990 (age 62) |
| Place of Death | Los Angeles, California |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), theater studies |
| Occupation | Actor, production coordinator, sound technician |
| Years Active | Roughly 1957 to 1986 |
| Known For | First husband of Carol Burnett; character actor and production coordinator on shows including Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In |
| Spouse | Carol Burnett (married December 15, 1955; divorced in the early 1960s), reportedly married once before, in the late 1940s |
| Children | None with Carol Burnett; some biographical sources cite a daughter from an earlier marriage who died in childhood |
Early Life and the Road to Acting
A Childhood Marked by Loss
Don Saroyan was born Harry Donald Sarooian on October 4, 1928, in Omaha, Nebraska, to parents who ran a small family business. According to genealogical and biographical sources, his family endured a string of hardships early on: a sibling reportedly died in infancy, and both of his parents passed away while he was still relatively young. Details about his childhood remain thin because Saroyan never became famous enough in his own right to attract the kind of biographical attention that public figures usually receive, so much of what is known about this period comes from secondary sources rather than interviews he gave himself.
By his late teens, Saroyan had already experienced a full chapter of adult life. Some accounts state that he married young, around age eighteen, and that the marriage produced a daughter before ending. Findagrave records list a first wife named Eleanor Pietrzak, whom he reportedly married in 1948, and a daughter, Barbara Sarooian Baux, born in 1949 and reported to have died in 1956 at only six or seven years old. These details are not confirmed by major entertainment outlets, so readers should treat them as reasonably sourced but not fully verified through mainstream reporting.
Finding Theater at UCLA
After that early chapter of his life closed, Saroyan moved to Los Angeles and enrolled in theater studies at UCLA, where he pursued both acting and singing. This is the setting where his name became permanently linked to Carol Burnett’s. UCLA in the early 1950s had an active theater program, and Saroyan quickly connected with other students who shared his ambitions, including a talkative, comedy minded coed named Carol Burnett.
How Don Saroyan Met Carol Burnett
Saroyan and Burnett met at UCLA in the early 1950s, most commonly dated to 1952, while both were studying theater and dreaming of careers in show business. Burnett has described Saroyan in later interviews and in her own memoirs as her college boyfriend, the person she spent hours with talking about Broadway, the craft of performing, and what a life in the theater might look like for two broke students with big plans.
Their relationship became part of one of the most famous stories in Burnett’s career. In 1954, during a party at a UCLA journalism professor’s home, an unidentified wealthy guest was impressed by a musical number Burnett and Saroyan performed together, reportedly a piece from Annie Get Your Gun. The man offered each of them an interest free loan of one thousand dollars (a substantial sum at the time, and worth roughly ten times that in today’s dollars) so they could move to New York and pursue acting professionally. His only conditions were that they repay the loan within five years, never reveal his identity, and, if they became successful, help other young performers the same way he had helped them. Burnett has told this story publicly many times over the decades, and it remains one of the most retold anecdotes about her early career. Saroyan’s role in it tends to get overshadowed by Burnett’s fame, but he was there at the very beginning of that pivotal moment.
Using the loan, the couple left UCLA and relocated to New York together to chase professional acting work, a decision that put both of their futures in motion.
Marriage and Divorce
A December Wedding
Don Saroyan and Carol Burnett married on December 15, 1955, after the couple had spent time building their lives and careers together in New York. At the time, both were young performers working to break into an extremely competitive industry, and the marriage represented a natural next step for two people who had already been a couple for several years.
Two Careers Moving in Different Directions
The years that followed were not easy for either of them professionally, but they diverged sharply in how their careers eventually unfolded. Burnett began landing stage and television work through the mid to late 1950s and broke through in a major way with her role in the Broadway musical Once Upon a Mattress in 1959, followed by a regular spot on The Garry Moore Show, where she won her first Emmy Award. Saroyan’s acting career, by contrast, developed much more slowly and never reached the same level of visibility. He worked in smaller film and television roles and, eventually, shifted much of his focus toward production and technical work behind the camera rather than performing in front of it.
That imbalance, along with the demands of two people trying to build careers in the same industry at the same time, put real strain on the marriage. Some accounts, drawing on details Burnett has shared in interviews and in her memoir, suggest the couple grew apart gradually rather than through any single dramatic conflict, describing it as two people who simply began leading separate lives as their circumstances diverged.
The End of the Marriage
Most biographical sources place the divorce in 1962, though a smaller number of accounts cite 1963, and the exact legal date is not something easily confirmed through public records. What is consistent across sources is that the marriage lasted roughly seven years and ended without children. Some accounts describe the split as amicable, framing it as the natural result of two lives that had grown in different directions rather than a bitter or public falling out. Burnett went on to marry television producer Joe Hamilton in 1963 and later married Brian Miller in 2001, while Saroyan’s subsequent personal life received far less public attention.
Don Saroyan’s Acting Career and Notable Roles
Television and Film Appearances
Don Saroyan worked steadily, if modestly, in Hollywood for roughly three decades. His credited acting roles include appearances in the 1961 crime film Blast of Silence, where he played a supporting role, along with guest spots on a number of television series across the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. His television credits include Decoy, one of his earliest roles, as well as appearances on McHale’s Navy, The Fugitive, Occasional Wife, installments of The Wonderful World of Disney, and, later in his career, an episode of the 1980s helicopter action series Airwolf. According to several sources, that Airwolf appearance, which aired around 1986, was among his final on screen acting credits.
Saroyan’s filmography was never large by industry standards, and he never became a household name as a performer. His work fits the profile of a working character actor: dependable guest roles rather than starring parts, spread out across a long career rather than concentrated in a short, high profile run.
Behind the Camera: Laugh-In and Production Work
Where Saroyan built a more substantial and steady career was behind the camera. He worked in the sound department on the 1959 film Cuban Rebel Girls (also released under the title Assault of the Rebel Girls), an early credit that pointed toward the technical and production side of the industry he would return to later. His most significant production credit came from his work as a production coordinator on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, the groundbreaking sketch comedy series that dominated ratings in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Reports indicate he worked on roughly two dozen episodes of the show in that role, putting him behind one of the most influential comedy programs of its era, even though his name rarely appeared in the credits in a way casual viewers would notice.
This blend of acting and behind the scenes production work suggests that Saroyan, like many performers who do not become stars, found ways to stay employed in the entertainment industry by taking on whatever roles were available, whether in front of the camera or coordinating production logistics for someone else’s show.
Life After Carol Burnett
Public information about Don Saroyan’s life after his divorce from Carol Burnett is limited, which is common for entertainment industry professionals who worked mostly in supporting and technical roles rather than as headline performers. What is documented is that he continued working in Hollywood in various capacities through the mid 1980s, mixing occasional acting parts with steadier production work. Unlike Burnett, whose career expanded dramatically after their split, Saroyan appears to have settled into a quieter, more workmanlike career that kept him in the industry without ever making him a celebrity in his own right.
Don Saroyan died on November 24, 1990, in Los Angeles, California, at age 62. His cause of death has not been widely reported or publicly disclosed in the sources available. He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills area of Los Angeles, a cemetery known for being the resting place of numerous entertainment industry figures.
Why People Still Search for Don Saroyan Today
Interest in Don Saroyan almost always traces back to his connection to Carol Burnett rather than to his own body of work, and that makes sense given how differently their careers unfolded. Burnett remains one of the most recognized and celebrated figures in American television, known for The Carol Burnett Show, her Emmy and Golden Globe wins, and a career that has spanned more than seven decades. Whenever her biography, marriages, or early career come up in interviews, documentaries, or retrospectives, Saroyan’s name resurfaces as the man she married first, the college boyfriend who was there for the famous loan story and the move to New York that helped launch her career.
Fans who search for information about him are typically trying to fill in a piece of Burnett’s early biography rather than looking for details about a public figure they already know well. That is part of why comprehensive information about Saroyan is harder to find than information about most Hollywood figures from his era: he was a working actor and production professional, not a headline name, and the historical record reflects that reality. Genealogy sites, entertainment retrospectives, and biography focused outlets have pieced together what is publicly available, but gaps remain, and readers should expect that some details about his personal life carry more uncertainty than the well documented facts of his UCLA years and his marriage to Burnett.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Don Saroyan? Don Saroyan was an American actor and television production coordinator best known publicly as the first husband of comedian and actress Carol Burnett. He worked in film and television from the late 1950s through the mid 1980s, both as a performer and behind the camera.
How did Don Saroyan meet Carol Burnett? The two met as theater students at UCLA in the early 1950s and became a couple while pursuing acting together. They were together when an anonymous benefactor loaned them each one thousand dollars in 1954 to move to New York and pursue their careers.
When did Don Saroyan and Carol Burnett get married and divorced? They married on December 15, 1955, in New York after relocating there together. Most sources place their divorce in 1962, after roughly seven years of marriage, though a few accounts cite 1963.
What was Don Saroyan’s acting career like? Saroyan appeared in the 1961 film Blast of Silence and had guest roles on television shows including Decoy, McHale’s Navy, The Fugitive, Occasional Wife, and Airwolf. He also worked extensively behind the camera, most notably as a production coordinator on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.
When did Don Saroyan die? Don Saroyan died on November 24, 1990, in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 62. He is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills, and his cause of death was not widely publicized.
Conclusion
Don Saroyan’s life offers a useful reminder that not everyone connected to a famous person becomes famous themselves, and that a career built mostly in supporting roles and production work can still be a full and legitimate one. He met Carol Burnett as a fellow theater student, shared in the early loan story that helped launch her toward stardom, and spent nearly three decades working steadily in film and television, even as his former wife’s career grew into something far larger. His story stands as its own small piece of Hollywood history, not just a footnote to hers.
