Big lips, saucer-huge eyes, a maelstrom of blond hair, a deep... raspy... meaty... mouth-full-of-used-plastic-wrap voice that any god-fearin' hobo missus would kill her last muskrat for... who else could it be?
Carol Channing was born January 31, 1921 at Seattle, Washington, the daughter of a prominent newspaper editor, who was very active in the Christian Science movement. Among many things you may not know about Ms. Channing is that her trademark, poofy blonde hair has always been achieved by the use of wigs, as she's allergic to bleach. But that's just the beginning...
She attended high school in San Francisco and later worked as a model in Los Angeles. She attended prestigious Bennington College in Vermont and majored in drama and dance and supplemented her work by taking parts in nearby Pocono Resort area. 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 of German American and African American descent, born in Augusta, Georgia, 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, published in 2002 when she was 81 years old. It should be noted, at the same time, that part of Carol's wide-eyed charm is her penchant for tall tales and exaggeration; no photographs of her father are available, and his birth certificate lost. "My mother said to me, 'You're revolting. And on top of that, you're not very feminine.' Well, that led me to the stage, which is an accepting and comfortable place. So in a way I have my mother to thank."
The winner of three Tony Awards (including a lifetime achievement award), a Golden Globe and an Academy Award nominee, Channing is best remembered for two roles: Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Dolly Gallagher Levi in Hello, Dolly!
Channing's first job on stage in New York was in Marc Blitzstein's No For an Answer, which was given two special Sunday performances starting January 5, 1941 at the Mecca Temple (later New York's City Center). Channing then moved to Broadway for Let's Face It, in which she was an understudy for Eve Arden. In 1942 Channing was cast in a supporting role in Proof Through the Night, a drama which ran only eleven performances. This play was extremely unusual: a war drama with an all-female cast. Except for one native girl, all the onstage characters are U.S. Navy nurses who have been sent to a remote location in the South Pacific. They envision a frolic on the beach with furloughed sailors, until they learn that Japanese troops are advancing in their direction. In the depressing finale, all the nurses are captured or killed by offstage Japanese. Channing's role exploited her unusually deep voice: she played a nurse with a male name and mannish traits; the script's dialogue implied that the character played by Channing in this drama was secretly a lesbian.
Channing had a featured role in a revue, 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. The musical won ten Tony awards in 1964, including Channing's for best actress in a comedy. Jacqueline Kennedy and her two children made their first public appearance after John F. Kennedy's death by seeing her perform in Hello Dolly and later visited her backstage.
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.
She reprized 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 Millie she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and was awarded a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress.
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.
She has been 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 Pulitzer Prize-nominated finalist cartoonist. 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 time-span; she also alleged that Lowe was gay, but he denied her allegations. He died before the divorce was finalized.
On May 10, 2003, she married Harry Kullijian, her fourth husband and 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 her honor. The City of San Francisco, California proclaimed February 25, 2002 to be Carol Channing Day, for her advocacy of gay rights and her appearance as the celebrity host of the Gay Pride Day festivities in Hollywood.
The most astonishing fact of Carol Channing's life: it's not over yet! Most recently, she played herself on "Family Guy" - Celebrity Boxing (1 episode, 2006). When she's not playing herself on TV, she's doing voices for children's movies, the last of which was the Ceiling Fan in "The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars" in 1998.
The career of Carol Channing is varied and continuing. She performs with the gusto of a young aspiring actress. However, her heart will remain on stage even though she has recently committed her life to bring a refocus of the Arts in the public educational system of California. Scholarships, teaching and lecturing and performing, hoping to engage the public support for education in the Arts."I'm terribly shy, but of course no one believes me. Come to think of it, neither would I." You're right Carol, we don't believe, not for a damned second.
References:
imdb.com, wikipedia,org, and my personal fav- the Official Carol Channing Website: www.carolchanning.org. I encourage you to treat yourself to that delicious site on the world wide web.
For added fun, re-read this article aloud in your best Channing impression!
