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Stage icon best known for her ebullient ‘Hello, Dolly!’
Carol Channing, the lanky, ebullient musical comedy star who delighted American audiences over almost 5,000 performances as Dolly Levi in “Hello, Dolly!” on Broadway and beyond, has died. She was 97.
Publicist B. Harlan Boll said Channing died of natural causes early Tuesday in Rancho Mirage, Calif. Boll says she had twice suffered strokes in the past year.
Besides “Hello, Dolly!,” Channing starred in other Broadway shows, but none with equal magnetism. She often appeared on television and in nightclubs, for a time partnering with George Burns in Las Vegas and a national tour.
Her outsized personality seemed too much for the screen, and she 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 lit up Twitter on Tuesday, with the League of Professional Theatre Women saying Channing “was a gift of inspiration to so many.” Fans who saw her work also took to social media, calling her a “firecracker” and saying she was “matchmaking for the angels now.”
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.” But Channing 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. The critics followed suit. “Hello, Dolly!” collected 10 Tony Awards, including one for Channing as best actress in a musical.
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 satirical chanteuse named Carol Channing.”
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, she was the hit of the revue “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 in the musical “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” her stardom was assured.
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.” That description fit Carol Channing.