Introduced to an acting career purely by accident while doing church work for her mother and experiencing and overwhelming feeling of belonging when her mother left her standing alone on the church stage.

Carol Channing was born in Seattle, Washington pnm January 31^st 1921 as the only child to a father of German and African American descent, born in Georgia, and an American mother. She kept the secret of her father’s heritage until she 81 years old, in an attempt to prevent her from being type cast in the world of stage and screen.

When just a few weeks old her parents moved to San Francisco and Carol attended Aptos Junior High School and it was at this time that she met the love of her life, Harry Kullijian, who would elude her as a husband until she was in her eighties. Following high school Carol moved her life to Vermont where she attended Bennington College.

Carol’s first acting job came with a role No For an Answer in New York in 1941 following which she moved to Broadway where she was the understudy for Eve Arden in Let’s Face It.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes would ultimately be the Broadway show with which Carol would be forever remembered. It opened in 1949 and closed its doors after the final performance in 1951. Another star who would be forever remembered for the screen version of the Broadway show was Marilyn Monroe in the 1953 film adaptation, released by 20th century Fox, which also starred Jane Russell.

Channing’s next big role was the one that would catapult her into national prominence as the star of Hello Dolly. But she would suffer a great disappointment when the film role of Dolly Levi was offered to Barbra Streisand and not to her after Streisand had been the star of Funny Girl in 1968 when she starred with Omar Sharif.

Losing out to the film version didn’t stop Carol winning her first Tony Award for her stage role for Best Actress in a Musical when her competition was in fact Barbra Streisand.

Channing’s film career was yet to blossom and in the late 1960’s she appeared in several movies such as Skidoo with Mickey Rooney, Frankie Avalon and Cesar Romero. 1967 saw Carol starring opposite Julie Andrews and Mary Tyler Moore in Thoroughly Modern Millie, for which she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Carol’s unusual style of acting, her expressions and distinctive voice and wide eyed look landed her a cameo role in The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1978.

During her adult years Carol has had four husbands, her first being Theodore Naidish, her second, Alexander Carson and in 1956 she married Charles Lowe but after 42 years of marriage to Charles she suddenly decided to divorce him in 1998.

In 2002, after writing her memoirs and mentioning her childhood school sweetheart, Harry Kullijian, he sought her out and the pair were married in 2003, making him her fourth husband.

Carol's style and persona have often been likened to that of Marilyn Monroe and Goldie Hawn, without the sexy overtone, a demented manner like Phyllis Diller and the capability to belt out a song in the same astounding way as the late Judy Garland.

Channing was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Tony Award in 1995.

ABB