Effervescent ‘Hello, Dolly!’ icon Carol Channing mourned

NEW YORK >> Tributes from stars like Kristin Chenoweth and Bette Midler poured in to honor the life and career of Carol Channing, the threetime Tony Award-winning musical comedy star who delighted American audiences over 5,000 performances as the scheming Dolly Levi in “Hello, Dolly!” on Broadway and beyond. She died Tuesday at 97.

Publicist B. Harlan Boll said Channing died of natural causes at 12:31 a.m. Tuesday in Rancho Mirage, California. Boll says she had twice suffered strokes in the last 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.

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

Channing’s 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 came quickly, with the League of Professional Theatre Women saying Channing “was a gift of inspiration to so many.” Veteran actress Bernadette Peters said Channing “was show business and love personified” and Margaret Cho said “you will forever be missed.” 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. The critics followed suit. “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.

“Carol Channing was one of the great icons of the American theater, and a beloved ambassador for this art form. She possessed a quality so unique and so special that she became her own archetype,” said Heather Hitchens, president and CEO of the American Theatre Wing.

Broadway will pause on Wednesday to honor Channing by dimming all theater marquees for a minute at 7:45 p.m.

RICHARD DREW — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Carol Channing performs during her one woman show,”The First 80 Years are the Hardest,” at the cabaret Feinstein’s at the Regency in New York. 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 in Rancho Mirage