Broadway's exuberant Dolly dies

Carol Channing known to light up stage, movies, television

This Feb. 24, 1982 file photo shows actress Carol Channing at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. Channing, whose career spanned decades on Broadway and on television has died at age 97. Publicist B. Harlan Boll says Channing died of natural causes early Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019 in Rancho Mirage, Calif.(AP Photo/Doug Pizac, File)
This Feb. 24, 1982 file photo shows actress Carol Channing at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. Channing, whose career spanned decades on Broadway and on television has died at age 97. Publicist B. Harlan Boll says Channing died of natural causes early Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019 in Rancho Mirage, Calif.(AP Photo/Doug Pizac, File)

NEW YORK -- Carol Channing, the ebullient musical comedy star who delighted American audiences in more than 5,000 performances as the scheming Dolly Levi in Hello, Dolly! on Broadway and beyond, has died. She was 97.

Broadway theaters will dim their lights today to honor Channing, a three-time Tony Award-winner. Publicist B. Harlan Boll said Channing died at 12:31 a.m. Tuesday in Rancho Mirage, Calif. Boll said she had twice suffered strokes in the past year.

Channing starred in Broadway shows other than Hello, Dolly!, but none with equal magnetism. She often appeared on television and in nightclubs.

"Channing was one of the few who paved the path for so many women in theater and beyond," Kristin Chenoweth wrote on Twitter. "I will forever admire and look up to you, Carol." Bette Midler called Channing "a complete original" and "a legend." Playwright Paul Rudnick called Channing "the delirious soul of musical theater."

Channing made only a few movies, notably The First Traveling Saleslady with Ginger Rogers and Thoroughly Modern Millie with Julie Andrews.

Over the years, Channing continued as Dolly in national tours, the last in 1996, when she was in her 70s. Tom Shales of The Washington Post called her "the ninth wonder of the world."

Messages of love and appreciation came quickly with Channing's passing. The League of Professional Theatre Women said Channing "was a gift of inspiration to so many." Veteran actress Bernadette Peters said Channing "was show business and love personified." Viola Davis mourned: "You had a great run! Rest well."

Channing was not the immediate choice to play Dolly, a matchmaker who receives her toughest challenge yet when a rich grump seeks a suitable wife. The show, which features a rousing score by Jerry Herman that's bursting with joy and tunes like "Put On Your Sunday Clothes," "Before the Parade Passes By" and "It Only Takes a Moment," is a musical version of Thornton Wilder's play The Matchmaker.

Theater producer David Merrick told her: "I don't want that silly grin with all those teeth that go back to your ears." Even though director Gower Champion had worked on her first Broadway hit, Lend an Ear, he had doubts about Channing's casting.

She wowed them in an audition and was hired on the spot. At opening night on Jan. 16, 1964, when Channing appeared at the top of the stairs in a red gown with feathers in her hair and walked down the red carpet to the Harmonia Gardens restaurant, the New York audience went crazy. Hello, Dolly! collected 10 Tony Awards, including one for Channing as best actress in a musical. She would later win a special Tony in 1968 and a Tony for Lifetime Achievement in 1995.

Channing was born Jan. 31, 1921, in Seattle, where her father, George Channing, was a newspaper editor.

At the age of 7, Channing decided she wanted to become an entertainer. She credited her father with encouraging her: "He told me you can dedicate your life at 7 or 97. And the people who do that are happier people."

While majoring in drama and dance at Bennington College in Vermont, she was sent off to get experience in her chosen field. She found a job in a New York revue. The show lasted only two weeks, but a New Yorker magazine critic commented, "You will hear more about a satiric chanteuse named Carol Channing." She said later: "That was it. I said goodbye to trigonometry, zoology and English literature."

For several years she worked as an understudy, bit player and nightclub impressionist, taking jobs as a model, receptionist and sales clerk during lean times.

Landing in Los Angeles, Channing was the hit of Lend an Ear in a small Hollywood theater, and she captivated audiences and critics when the show moved to New York. As the innocent gold digger Lorelei Lee in the musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, her stardom was assured. The show's hit song, "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend," became her signature number.

Over and over again she returned to the surefire Hello, Dolly!, which earned her $5 million on one tour. She considered Dolly Levi "a role as deep as Lady Macbeth," but added that "the essence of her character was her unquenchable thirst for life."

Channing also made several stops in Arkansas over her career, including as the guest of honor for the 2004 Pine Bluff Film Festival.

Also, Channing and Rita Moreno performed at Little Rock's Robinson Auditorium in 1992 as Two Ladies of Broadway. In 1950, Little Rock's mayor at the time named her an honorary citizen, and a women's club sent her a doll-size rocking chair -- "a little rocker."

But her strongest connection remains the song "Little Girl from Little Rock," which she sang as Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

Channing had two early marriages that ended in divorce -- to novelist Theodore Naidish and pro footballer Alexander Carson, father of her only child, Channing. Her son became a successful political cartoonist.

In 1956 she married a television producer, Charles Lowe, who seemed like the perfect mate for a major star.

After 41 years of marriage, she sued for divorce in 1998, alleging that he misappropriated her funds and humiliated her in public. She remarked that they only had sex twice in four decades.

Channing moved to Rancho Mirage near Palm Springs, Calif., in 2000 to write her memoir. She called the book Just Lucky, I Guess.

Channing remarried in 2003 to Harry Kullijian, her childhood sweetheart from 70 years before. He died in 2011.

Information for this article was contributed by Shawn March of The Associated Press; and by Eric Harrison of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

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AP file photo

Carol Channing poses as Dolly Levi from Hello, Dolly! in this 1978 file photo. Channing, 97, died Tuesday in California.

A Section on 01/16/2019

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