Random Thoughts on Carol Channing and Hello, Dolly!

"You know, if you're lucky enough to have two smash hit shows, the traffic of the world goes through your dressing room."

-Carol Channing

Carol Channing was born in Seattle, Washington, on January 31, 1921, and grew up in San Francisco, California. During her career, she starred in movies, performed in many Broadway plays and musicals, and had her own nightclub act. Besides Dolly Levi, she also made famous the character of Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1949), singing "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend."
Carol learned early on that center stage "is the safest place in the world".

Check out this news item from The San Francisco Chronicle May 2nd, 1937:

 A girl with ideas and a purpose in life is Carol Channing. 
Carol is the girl who stood before a big crowd in Veterans Auditorium last Thursday and won the statewide oratorical contest in which 10,000 high school students entered. 
Carol is 16, has golden hair and brown eyes, lives at 1230 Washington Street with her parents and attends Lowell High School. Carol likes dancing and acting best, and public speaking next. 
She was to have attended summer dancing school at Bennington College, Vt., under such well known teachers as Mary Wigman, Doris Humphrey and Martha Graham.

But with the trophy she won on Thursday goes a trip to Honolulu, so Bennington is out of the picture. 

As for acting Carol has the feminine lead in "Kempy," the annual play to be presented at Lowell shortly. Her favorite sport, though, is impersonating actors and actresses. She has a golden voice that she hopes some day will carry her to fame. And with all her extra-curricular activities, Carol is a scholar. Two years ago, at Aptos Junior High School, she won the American Legion award for all around achievement, scholarship included.
Perhaps most important of all to the success she hopes for is Carol's rare combination of modesty and assurance. She was at perfect ease meeting an interviewer in the living room of her home yesterday.

It's great to go back and read about a young girl who had so much promise. Dolly Levi in Hello, Dolly! solidified her position as a bona-fide Broadway Legend. 
  
In 1963  it was decided that there was going to be a musical version of The Matchmaker by Thorton Wilder.  What was not known was that the show would create history.  Jerry Herman said to THEATER WEEK in October 1989:  “The Detroit tryout wasn’t a happy time.  Merrick over-panicked.  It was a little lumpy–but it rang!”  In October 1995 Herman told the same publication:  “I was not really treated very well by Mr. Merrick.”  The producer’s thumbprint was ever-apparent.  When Pearl Bailey gave the show a new lease on life beginning November 12, 1967, Merrick took an ad in the TIMES calling this “The Event of the Century.”  When Bailey got a call to do the Ed Sullivan show (aired December 10, 1967), Merrick sent along the entire company.  Mary Martin was well represented in the documentary “HELLO, DOLLY ‘Round-the-World” on February 7, 1966 and Carol Channing and Pearl Bailey toasted each other in their TV special, Carol Channing/Pearl Bailey on Broadway,  on March 16, 1969. Pearl said “Hello, to the first Dolly!”
 The Broadway of the early 1960s was lit with marquees of HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING, A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM, NO STRINGS at the Broadhurst.  There were MARY, MARY; CAMELOT, sans original cast; Nancy Dussault in THE SOUND OF MUSIC.  MILK AND HONEY did not have Jerry Herman’s name on the marquee, but it did proclaim “A Rousing Melodic Hit!”  CARNIVAL! – with exclamation point – was first at the Imperial: the names of David Merrick and Gower Champion were most clearly visible.  The show moved to the Winter Garden, the title – sans exclamation point – emblazoned in what would be called David Merrick red.  The names of Merrick, Champion and Herman would soon be collected for a new show, a show that would always have an exclamation point in its title– on Broadway or throughout the world.
 After his passing, Merrick’s influence continued to be relived in a February 25, 2002 VARIETY feature:  “Of course, the most popular model for replacement casting is the way David Merrick put Ginger Rogers, Pearl Bailey and Ethel Merman in HELLO, DOLLY! after Carol Channing went on the road.”
 The original working title was Dolly, That Damned Exasperating Woman. How’s that for a title!? But after the successful Louis Armstrong recording of the number one hit song Hello, Dolly!, which came out before the show made it to Broadway, the name of the show was mercifully changed to the title that we’ve all come to know and love. To THEATER WEEK on October 23, 1995 Jerry Herman related the story of when his publisher brought the Armstrong record to Detroit and put it on the loud speaker system:  “You know, you should call the show HELLO, DOLLY!“  The Messrs. Stewart, Champion and Merrick were present and the title was changed.  There is no documentation in the piece detailing what type of demo record was used.  It is known that the issued promotional 45 rpm recording did identify the show with its new, popular name.

 The role of Dolly Levi in the musical was originally written for Ethel Merman, but Merman turned it down, as did Mary Martin (although each eventually played it).
 I call it alchemy when all of the elements come together to create magic. To me, that is exactly what happened with Hello, Dolly! Jerry had already had a success on Broadway prior to Hello, Dolly! It was Milk and Honey. David Merrick had seen Milk and Honey and said to Jerry, "I don't know if you're American enough, but I would like to consider you to write the score for a musical version of The Matchmaker." 

  

Jerry Herman had to prove to Mr. Merrick that he was the right person, that he was truly American. 

Merrick petrified everyone around him. 

That was his usual way of doing business. Jerry went along with it because he desired the job. 

Mr. Merrick was difficult and was constantly changing and fixing things things. 

Jerry, Gower, and Merrick all wanted Ethel Merman. 
She had just completed two years of Gypsy on the road after having done it on Broadway for two years. She was tired and not ready to head a new musical. She didn't even want to go to hear the score. She told them that she would be frustrated if she liked it because she really didn't want to do another show. Then they thought of Nanette Fabray. Merrick then auditioned Nancy Walker.

David Merrick

Champion's definitive 1960s triumph was Hello Dolly (1964 - 2,844 perfs) a musical version of Thornton Wilder's comedy The Matchmaker. With a giddy score by composer-lyricist Jerry Herman and a superb libretto by Michael Stewart, it told the story of a shrewd widow who brings young lovers together and finds a husband for herself (irascible Yonkers store owner, Horace Vandergelder) in 1890s New York. Producer David Merrick made the difficult pre-Broadway tour a nightmare for the entire creative team, threatening to replace most of them at one point or another. After extensive revisions, the show earned rave reviews in New York.

Champion's staging gave Hello Dolly! a stunning visual fluidity, evoking the gaslight era in a thrilling whirl of dancers and sets, capped by Channing's luminous Dolly. Herman's score caught the period to perfection, with "It Only Takes a Moment" as the standout ballad. The catchy title number became one of Broadway's all-time great showstoppers, with Channing descending a staircase to lead a line of waiters through a rollicking cakewalk. The number was considered a problem on the road, but Broadway's opening night audience demanded (and got) an encore. Choruses of apron-clad waiters have been escorting women of a certain age around runways ever since.

An all-black cast headed by Pearl Bailey and Cab Calloway revitalized the show for hundreds of additional performances. At one point, Merrick claimed he wanted Jack Benny as a drag Dolly with George Burns as Horace, a bizarre yet tantalizing possibility that never got beyond the discussion stage. Mary Martin took the show to London, followed by a tour of the Far East. Ethel Merman was the original production's last Dolly, making her final Broadway appearances in a role that had been conceived for her. 

But Channing was the one who became forever identified with Dolly, appearing in several revivals and performing the role more than 4,000 times over the years. (Source John Kenrick)

Gower did not want Carol in the role. She had taken on the persona of Lorelei Lee off as well as on stage and he didn't think she could shake it. 

Carol say's she wasn't crushed. "You don't have time to get crushed and still succeed." Carol told Gower she gave him everything she had in Lend An Ear. She wanted him to allow her to audition.

She auditioned for Gower at the St. James Theatre. They went through all of the major monologues from The Matchmaker. Gower would go across the street and watch Oliver as Carol prepared for her monologues and scenes and then would come back to see what she was doing with it. She finally won him over. Finally he said, "I buy what you're doing." and he embraced his Dolly Levi! Once they had Carol in place, they knew that with her at the helm that the show would take on a unique flavor.

Carol put her own unique stamp on Dolly Gallagher Levi. However, almost every popular actress "of a certain age" played Dolly. Channing's Broadway replacements included Ginger Rogers, Betty Grable, Martha Raye and Phyllis Diller. Pearl Bailey was adorable but difficult. When Merman finally did it, she was magnificent.  jerry Herman said he secretly regrets not doing it originally.

Gower choreographed the scenery and the flowers and the hat shop scene. He wanted everything to weave together. Thorton Wilder told Carol that he had re-written The Matchmaker for thirty-six years and he never got it the way he desired it until Mike Stewart and Jerry Herman and Gower Champion fixed it and got it where it should be. 

Marge Champion said until Gower got the idea of the ramp, he wasn't even interested in doing Hello, Dolly! 

The ramp was used to track through the show-where Dolly could talk to her husband, where the people would come out when Dolly "rejoined the human race."

Gower would say to Carol, "You come down the ramp and I want you on this spot here, in fourth position. I don't want second. I want fourth." And she never missed!

She said the way Gower directed Dolly! is riveted in her brain. Lee Roy, who directed the 1995 revival told me that he had trouble getting Carol to deviate from anything she had done under Gower's direction.

Channing played the part of Dolly Gallagher Levi in the debut of this classic American musical on January 16, 1964. 

"She is glorious," raved theater critic Walter Kerr, as Carol Channing made her appearance on stage wearing a carrot-colored wig and false eyelashes fluttering over her large, expressive eyes. 

It was a smash hit. It received ten Tony awards and was named Best Musical of the Year in 1963-64.

 Gower Champion had a definitive triumph with his direction and choreography of Hello, Dolly!  

This clip is from the 1994 Revival.  The show album Hello, Dolly! An Original Cast Recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002. 

The show has become one of the most enduring musical theatre hits, enjoying three Broadway revivals and international success. 

It was also made into a 1969 film that was nominated for seven Academy Awards.

 Champion's staging gave Hello Dolly! a stunning sense of visual fluidity, evoking the gaslight era in a thrilling whirl of dancers, sets and a luminous Channing. Herman's score caught the period to perfection, with "It Only Takes a Moment" as the standout ballad. The catchy title number became one of Broadway's all-time great showstoppers, with Channing descending a staircase to lead a line of waiters through a rollicking cakewalk. 

The number was considered a problem on the road, but Broadway's opening night audience demanded (and got) an encore. 

Choruses of apron-clad waiters have been escorting women of a certain age around runways ever since.

Director Gower Champion was not the producer's first choice, as Hal Prince and others (among them Jerome Robbins and Joe Layton) all turned down the job of directing the musical.

Thank you, to ALL of the Dollys stage past, present, and future, for the gifts you have given and continue to give to the world!

Your devoted fan,

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