Carol Channing

Carol Channing, ca. 2000

Carol Elaine Channing (born on January 31, 1921 in Seattle, Washington) is an American actress whose career was built largely on two roles, Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Dolly Gallagher Levi in Hello, Dolly!. She is easily recognized by her distinctive voice and wide eyes. Carol Channing has been the beloved stage and screen star of many films and productions, and her unusual mannerisms and personality are frequently parodied.

Childhood and education

Channing was born, an only child on January 31, 1921 in Seattle, Washington. Her father's newspaper career took the family to San Francisco when Channing was only two weeks old. She went to school at Aptos Junior High School, where she met an Armenian-American man named Harry Kullijian with whom she fell in love. They lost touch when she went to Lowell High School in San Francisco. At Lowell, Channing was a member of its famed Lowell Forensic Society, the nation's oldest high school debate team.

When she left home to attend Bennington College in Vermont, her mother informed her that her father, a journalist who she had believed was born in Rhode Island, was actually a light-skinned man of half German American and half African American descent, born in Augusta, Georgia, who had passed for white, saying that the only reason she was telling her was so she wouldn't be surprised "if she had a black baby". She kept her heritage secret so she would not be typecast on Broadway and in Hollywood, ultimately revealing it only in her autobiography, Just Lucky I Guess, which was published in 2002, when she was more than 80 years old.

Career

Carol Channing photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1956

Channing was introduced to the stage while doing church work for her mother. In a 2005 interview with the Austin Chronicle, Channing recounted this experience:

"My mother said, 'Carol, would you like to help me distribute Christian Science Monitors backstage at the live theatres in San Francisco?' And I said, 'All right, I'll help you.' I don't know how old I was. I must have been little. We went through the stage door alley [for the Curran Theatre], and I couldn't get the stage door open. My mother came and opened it very easily. Anyway, my mother went to put the Monitors where they were supposed to go for the actors and the crew and the musicians, and she left me alone. And I stood there and realized – I'll never forget it because it came over me so strongly – that this is a temple. This is a cathedral. It's a mosque. It's a mother church. This is for people who have gotten a glimpse of creation and all they do is recreate it. I stood there and wanted to kiss the floorboards."

Channing was also introduced to the stage as a debater and monologue performer in high school as a member of the Lowell Forensic Society, the nation's longest running high school debate program.

Channing's first Broadway play was Let's Face It, where she was an understudy for Eve Arden. She had a featured role in a review, Lend an Ear, where she was spotted by Anita Loos and cast in the role of Lorelei Lee, which was to bring her to prominence. (Her signature song from the production was "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend.") Channing's persona and that of the character were strikingly alike: simultaneously smart yet scattered, naïve but worldly. Channing came to national prominence as the star of Jerry Herman's Hello, Dolly! She never missed a performance during her run, attributing her good health to her Christian Science faith. Her performance won her the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, in a year when her chief competition was Barbra Streisand for Funny Girl. She was deeply disappointed when Streisand, who many believed to be far too young for the role, successfully campaigned to play the role of Dolly Levi in the film, which also starred Walter Matthau and Michael Crawford. (Channing may have been comforted when the film ended up a critical and box office fiasco.)

She reprised the role of Lorelei Lee in the musical Lorelei, and appeared in two New York revivals of Hello, Dolly!, in addition to touring with it extensively throughout the United States. She also appeared in a number of movies, including the cult film Skidoo and Thoroughly Modern Millie, opposite Julie Andrews and Mary Tyler Moore, for which she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress .

In 1966 she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre.

William Goldman, in his book The Season, refers to Channing as a classic example of a "critic's darling" -- an actress who is always praised by critics no matter the caliber of her work, chiefly because she is simply so unusual and bizarre (other actresses he places in this category include Sandy Dennis and Beatrice Lillie.)

Family life

She married four times. Her first husband, Theodore Naidish, was a writer; her second, Alexander Carson, was center for the Ottawa Rough Riders Canadian football team (they had one son, Channing Lowe, who is a cartoonist and who took his step-father's surname). In 1956 she married her manager and publicist Charles Lowe. They remained married for 42 years, but she abruptly filed for divorce in 1998, alleging that she and Lowe had not had marital relations in many years and only twice in that timespan; she also alleged that Lowe was gay, a fact she evidently did not realize when they wed, but he denied her allegations. He died before the divorce was finalized.

On May 10, 2003, she married Harry Kullijian, her fourth husband and her old junior high school sweetheart, who reunited with her after she mentioned him fondly in her memoir. The two performed at their old junior high school, which had become Aptos Middle School, in a benefit for the school. At Lowell High School, they renamed the school's auditorium "The Carol Channing Theatre" in honor of her. On February 25, 2002, the City of San Francisco, California proclaimed it was Carol Channing Day, possibly for her advocacy of gay rights and her appearance one year as the celebrity host of the Gay Pride Day festivities in Hollywood.

2002 autobiography

Her autobiography entitled "Just Lucky I Guess" was released on October 8, 2002. In her memoirs, Channing reveals her "long kept secret" that she has African American ancestry, through her father, George Channing, who she claims was a light-skinned African-American who kept his racial identity a secret. In a 2002 interview with CNN's Larry King, when asked about her parents' faith, she said that they were Christian Scientists and that she herself "believed in it," although she did not always practice it.

Channing has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6233 Hollywood Boulevard.

The New York Times reported on June 27, 1973, that Channing had been included on Nixon's Enemies List.

Her voice and mannerisms have been parodied a number of times on the improv comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway?, especially by Ryan Stiles, and on Family Guy, where she is portrayed boxing Mike Tyson and eventually defeating him (she provided her own voice). New York actor Richard Skipper, is one of Channing's best known and most established impersonators.

Channing was parodied by the cast of the Off-Broadway cast Forbidden Broadway on repeated occasions and appeared on the cast's third album, Forbidden Broadway, Vol. 3, asking the cast for instructions on how to properly do a Channing impression.

Stage Performances

• Let's Face It! (1941)
• Proof Through the Night (1942)
• Lend an Ear (1948)
• Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1949)
• Wonderful Town (1953) (replaced Rosalind Russell for a few months)
• The Vamp (1955)
• Show Girl (1961)
• Hello, Dolly! (1964)
• Four on a Garden (1971)
• Lorelei (a reworking of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) (1974)
• Jule's Friends at the Palace (benefit) (1974)
• Hello, Dolly! (revival) (1978)
• Hello, Dolly! (revival) (1995)
• Singular Sensations with Carol Channing

Filmography

• Paid in Full (1950)
• The First Traveling Saleslady (1956)
• All About People (1967) (short subject) (narrator)
• Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967)
• Skidoo (1968)
• Shinbone Alley (1971) (voice)
• Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978) (cameo)
• Alice in Wonderland (1985)
• Happily Ever After (1993) (voice)
• Thumbelina (1994) (voice)
• Edie & Pen (1997)
• Homo Heights (1998) (cameo)
• Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There (2003) (documentary)

The Wizard Of Oz (2005)

External links

• Carol Channing at IMDb
• Carol Channing at the Internet Broadway Database
• Carol Channing Downstage Center interview at American Theatre Wing