Fond Farewell: A Carol-ing We Go!

Zany. Zealous. Infectious. Unique. These are but several of the hundreds of words that could be used to describe the truly one-of-a-kind performer Miss Carol Channing, who passed away on Tuesday, January 15th of natural causes at the tender age of ninety-seven. Lean and lanky at 5'9" (though in truth she always seemed about 7 feet tall!) with a shock of blonde hair and an unmistakable voice that sounded as if an alto was grinding coffee beans with her throat, she was a force of nature who seemed as if she'd be here forever. In some ways, she always will be. We celebrate her life and legacy today with a set of pictures.

Born January 31st (she was almost ninety-eight!) in 1921 in Seattle, Washington, Channing was the child of a mother with German ancestry and a father who was half-German and half-Black, something she necessarily kept to herself for the greatest part of her life (and, in fact, was not informed of herself until she was sixteen) if she wanted to pursue a mainstream performing career. With driving force, she made an impression in high school, performed in the Pocano resort arena and soon headed off to The Big Apple, truly on the other side of the nation.

Channing toiled dutifully in many stage productions, including three Broadway shows, until landing the role of a lifetime in 1949's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (opposite Yvonne Adair as seen here.) No one ever heard of Adair again in the wake of this show, but Channing was soon to become a household name.

As the wide-eyed, jewelry-crazed, yet kindly, Lorelei Lee, Channing introduced the song "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" to the world and played the role until 1951. The 1954 film was done with Marilyn Monroe (unforgettable in her own right) with nary a question of Channing being granted the part. (The studio bought the property for Betty Grable, but went with the far less expensive Monroe in the end.)

Nonetheless, a Broadway star was born and thereafter Channing built a reputation for appearing in dazzling, oversized jewels and performing all sorts of songs with gusto.

It became such that to see Channing in anything other than a flashy evening gown, dripping in diamonds and wearing a huge smile was a jarring anomaly.

At last in 1956, Miss Channing was given the opportunity to try a costarring role in a movie, The First Traveling Saleslady opposite Ginger Rogers and Barry Nelson.

The middling comedy was not a success and it would be a decade before Channing appeared in another Hollywood feature film, but it did give us the mind-blowing combination of the effervescent blonde brushing up against a fledgling Clint Eastwood!

Licking any possible wounds that her failed big-screen attempt might have left, Channing nonetheless kept busy back on Broadway and on countless television variety shows. She's seen here with Tennessee Ernie Ford during on of many such appearances. In 1956, she was Tony-nominated for her part in show called The Vamp, but the statuette went to Gwen Verdon in Damn Yankees! A second nomination came in 1961 for her revue Show Girl, but the award went to Elizabeth Seal for Irma La Douce (who also won over Julie Andrews in Camelot.)

Her place in Broadway iconography was secured forever, though, in 1964 when she essayed the title role in the smash musical Hello, Dolly! As matchmaker Dolly Gallagher Levi, she won the hearts of hordes of theatregoers and also took home the coveted Tony Award.  Dolly! would carry Channing all over the world as well as bring the world to her.

Every imaginable celebrity of note (in this case, Joan Crawford) came to see Channing portray Dolly Levi. In the wake of the John F. Kennedy assassination, Jacqueline Kennedy and her two young children made their first public appearance at one performance. The show won ten of its eleven Tony nominations, tying a record with South Pacific that stood until The Producers broke it in 2001. (Charles Nelson Reilly was the lone loser, with the Tony going to Jack Cassidy in She Loves Me.)

Having departed the show (for now!) in 1965 to a raft of other ladies including Ginger Rogers, Martha Raye, Betty Grable, Pearl Bailey, Phyllis Diller and Ethel Merman (who'd turned the role down at its inception!), Channing was on to other things.

Still a staple of television variety shows and quiz programs (including all the classics such as I've Got a Secret, What's My Line?, Password and To Tell the Truth), she was riding high on a wave of love and adulation.

To pause for a moment on the subject of love, Channing was married four times. Her first marriage, to a Jewish writer, was from 1941-1944. Her second (to a pro football center!) was from 1950 to 1956 and yielded a son, Channing. Channing was almost immediately adopted by her third husband and manager Charles Lowe (the three of them shown here.) Their union lasted until his death in 1998 (though she had filed for divorce prior to that!) Chan Lowe became a successful cartoonist. From 2003 till 2011, she was wed a fourth time to a long-ago sweetheart from high school to whom she'd become reacquainted.

In 1967, she took another flying leap into cinemas as the dazzling, wealthy, outre aviatrix and socialite Muzzy Von Hossmere in Thoroughly Modern Millie. The film starred fellow Broadway sensation Julie Andrews who was now a top film actress.

This time out was triumphal, resulting in a Golden Globe Award and even an Oscar nomination, though Estelle Parsons was granted the statuette this time for Bonnie and Clyde.

Millie was followed swiftly by the crazed and badly-misfired Skidoo (1968) which found her married to former mobster Jackie Gleason, cavorting with hippie John Phillip Law and doing a striptease for Frankie Avalon. She donned a pirate get-up to sing the title song during the finale. One year after this, the belated film version of Hello, Dolly! (1969) came along and the title role went to one of the actresses Channing had bested at the Tonys the years she won, Barbra Streisand, now an established movie actress, indeed one with an Oscar under her belt.

But for voiceover work (and a fleeting appearance in the finale of 1978's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band!), that was the end of Channing's career on the big screen. She nevertheless was a tireless performer on stage and TV. She was one of the very first celebrity performers to take the stage at halftime during a Super Bowl in 1972 (as part of a salute to Louis Armstrong.) My how times have changed...

Among her later Broadway appearances was the collection of one-acts, Four on a Garden, a musical called Lorelei, based on her earlier hit (and which garnered her another Tony nomination, losing to Virginia Capers in Raisin) and two more turns as Dolly, the final one ending in 1996, more than three decades after her debut in the part!

There was also the infamous debacle Legends, a comedy that paired her with Mary Martin and whose highly-troubled tour (on the way to, but stopping short of, Broadway) became the source of a book all its own!

In the late-1950s, Channing had done the near impossible in taking over the part of Gracie Allen's dim bulb persona alongside George Burns when his wife became terminally ill. The two formed a long friendship over the years and she may have learned a secret or two about career (and life!) longevity from the funnyman.

Channing even worked with Underworld legend Irwin Allen, though not in one of his many disaster epics. She played The White Queen (to Ann Jillian's Red Queen) in the star-packed television project Alice in Wonderland (1985.)

Channing seemed omnipresent and ever-effervescent, seen here as Santa Claus with Loretta Young.

Always a delight to everyone in her path, she won a Golden Apple award for her accommodating presence with the press, seen here with Patrick Swayze. Was there anyone anywhere who she didn't know...?

The answer is a resounding "NO!" She was spotted with anyone and everyone. Seen here are Mitzi Gaynor, Peggy Lee, Ringo Starr, Gilbert Gottfried, Mary Martin, Lena Horne and even Mark Hamill.

I suspect my own first encounter with Miss Channing was during one of her appearances on The Love Boat, which in this two-hour edition had her performing alongside Della Reese, Van Johnson, Ann Miller and Ethel Merman. They don't make 'em like this anymore...

No star was too great to come backstage and visit with Miss Channing. She was given a second Tony in 1968, a "Special Award," and a third one for Lifetime Achievement in 1995. She portrayed the iconic role of Dolly more than 5,000 times and was a devout fan of the story's underlying message to "rejoin the human race."

Treasured as she was by virtually everyone over the course of her staggering six-decade career as a performer, it blows my mind that she was never selected as a Kennedy Center Honoree. (Take a gander at some of the people who won that honor when she didn't sometime...)

Channing was a tireless advocate for AIDS patients and out-of-work actors, but one of her other less-heralded gifts to the world was her consent to interviews. Whether to promote a project or (more deliciously!) in lending her voice to a documentary about a fellow performer, she made anything, ANYTHING, she said instantaneously captivating, insightful and hilariously her own. I could never count the many times she nearly made me spray my family room with Coke Zero. My own favorites were of her recounting a production of Hello, Dolly! at her old high school which happened to be filled with Korean children and her last visit to Ethel Merman's hospital bed (in which the stroke victim was utterly unable to speak, but suddenly could get across what she wanted by bursting into song! - shades of Private Horowitz!) Imitators are abundant, but there will only ever be one Carol Channing...

Farewell, Dolly! You will never truly go away!