Thirty-five years ago television viewers laughed at the antics of the heavy-set comedian on the long-running comedy and variety show “Hee-Haw.”

Little did they know the pain that Lulu Roman hid. At least, not until she was busted for drugs and ousted from the show by producers who thought sponsors would dump the family-oriented show because of her notoriety.

But her firing was part of a series of events that literally saved her life and launched her Christian ministry.

Roman will tell her story at 6 p.m. Nov. 1 at Sardis Springs Baptist Church. A popular Christian speaker, Roman spends nearly every weekend away from her Nashville home giving her testimony.

Life began for Roman in a home for unwed mothers in Dallas, Texas, where her mother had taken refuge to await the birth.

Roman steadfastly believes that every event in life is part of a divine plan meant to draw one ever closer to God.

As an infant and toddler Roman was cared for by a great-grandmother while her grandmother worked. She said she had “no relationship” with her birth mother. At the age of 3, relatives no longer able to care for her deposited her in an orphanage. She was to grow up in the orphanage, leaving at 18. But even at 18, she had already learned to abuse drugs.

“When I was a teenager and went off campus to public schools I tried uppers—speed—and then started to smoke marijuana,” she said.



Laughing at herself

But along with developing a drug habit, Roman also discovered a talent for making people laugh. She said it was a defense mechanism. A life-long metabolic problem led to her being extremely overweight and the target of ruthless teasing by other children.

“I was the fat kid, so I had to make kids laugh with me instead of laughing at me because that was not so painful,” she said. “I could make a funny face and people would fall down laughing.”

Roman was pretty heavily into the drug scene when she began to work as a stand-up comedian and singer in 1964. Country singer Buck Owens, who was to become a lifelong friend, worked in the same nightclub.

“He said that I was the funniest thing he’d ever seen and I said, ‘Keep talking,’” she said. “It was all part of God’s plan.”

Owens told Roman about a new show being produced in Nashville, “Hee-Haw,” and got her an audition in 1969. She commuted between Dallas and Nashville throughout the four years she was a part of the cast. She was the dour-faced sister of the dull-witted Culhanes, the sassy truck-stop waitress and the “love interest” of comedian Junior Samples. She was also the sweet, soulful voice of the show’s gospel numbers.

But all the while her career escalated, so did her drug habit.

“What didn’t I get into?” she answers to a question about her drug of choice. “I’d take 25 hits of acid at once and fly. Before it was over I stuck needles in every part of my body—acid, speed, heroin—I did it all. But as the song says, “He was there all the time.”

Roman knows the exact day when her life turned around.



‘A remarkable day’

“It was April 11, 1973, and it was a remarkable day,” she said. “I got out of jail and ran into a kid from the orphanage, Diane, outside the medical arts building where I had gone to get more drugs. She began to come over to my house and take care of me. At that time, I had been eased out of Hee-Haw because they thought the sponsors would dump the show. Diane and her friends brought food for me and my baby boy.”

Four months before that, Roman had given birth to her first son, who was born addicted to drugs.

“Diane said she wanted to take me to her church and I said uh-uh, no way,” she said. “At the orphanage where I grew up they were very religious and I had religion literally crammed down my throat. But, eventually, I went to church with her and met the most remarkable man, the Rev. Howard Conatser.

“I said I don’t know what you people are doing, but I want in on it. I got on my knees in his office and got instantly off drugs—no withdrawal or anything.”

Roman moved to Nashville permanently in 1991 and based her ministry there. She also had lab-band surgery and dropped 192 pounds from her highest weight of 360. Today, her sons, of whom she refers as “two precious souls,” are the light of her life.

Her oldest son lives in Bellingham, Wash., and works for the state in social services. Her youngest son and his wife live with her in Nashville.

Since 1974, she has recorded 18 gospel albums, made guest appearance on numerous television shows, won two Dove Awards from the Gospel Music Association, performed in Ronald Reagan’s 1980 Inaugural Celebration, and was inducted into the Country Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1999.