Dubbed The First Lady of Musical Comedy, Carol Channing spent over five decades on the Broadway stage and... (Learn more)
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"It's happiness. What am I supposed to save myself for? This is pleasure. I'm using every faculty my brain and body can give me, to the hilt--everything I've got that is strong and healthy. Now, what on earth is better than that? That's magic!" --Channing on why she continues to work so hard at age 74, in Vanity Fair, October, 1995.
"Performing is like oxygen to her." --Comment about Channing by longtime friend, playwright Jean Kerr, in TheaterWeek, October 23, 1995.
"We don't have Hamlet or Lady Macbeth. Dolly is our classic." --Channing commenting on her enduring signature role in "Hello, Dolly!" in TheaterWeek, October 23, 1995.
Channing generally doesn't miss performances. And she once performed the entire second half of "Hello, Dolly!" with an untreated broken arm. In November 1996, however, after nearly 5,000 performances in "Hello, Dolly!", she was forced by illness to miss five performances in Kalamazoo, MI, due to dizziness. Doctors attributed her symptoms to a virus.
Channing has been known to bring her own food to restaurants, keeping to a strict, self-devised diet.
Channing was named on President Richard M. Nixon's "Enemies List" in 1972. It was suggested this was because of her association with President Lyndon B. Johnson, an unabashed fan.
Sometimes rumored to be bald underneath her signature blonde wig, Channing, in fact, has a healthy head of greyish-brown hair, as reported in USA Today, July 12, 1994.
The auditorium at Lowell High School in San Francisco is named for one of its most famous alumna, Channing.
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