NEW YORK (AP) – Carol Channing, the lanky, ebullient musical comedy star who delighted American audiences over 5,000 performances as the scheming Dolly Levi in “Hello, Dolly!” on Broadway and beyond, has died. She was 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.
This June 27, 2007 file photo shows singer and actress Carol Channing in Concord, N.H. 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, Jan. 15, 2019 in Rancho Mirage, Calif. (AP Photo/Jim Cole, File)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.
Her 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.”