What A `Dolly'! Carol Says Hello Again

`HELLO DOLLY!' --------------------------- Carol Channing appears in "Hello Dolly!" by Jerry Herman at the Paramount Theatre July 11 through July 23. Tickets ($23 to $45) can be purchased at the Paramount box office and at TicketMaster outlets, or charge by phone at 292-ARTS.

There is no one else in American show business quite like her, this seemingly ageless pop-eyed blonde, this cross between an icon and a cartoon figure.

Writers reach for metaphors when they describe actress Carol Channing because she's so, well, extraordinary.

The leathery-voiced Broadway star, slender and youthful at 74, is touring again in her signature role of matchmaker Dolly Levi in the Jerry Herman musical "Hello, Dolly!" It plays at the Paramount Theatre July 11-23.

And Channing is still forcing critics to come up with new phrases that capture her ingratiating uniqueness. Her gait was recently likened to "a mixture of gawky giraffe and manic stork with a touch of praying mantis."

A wildly enthusiastic San Francisco scribe crowned her "a true American treasure." And former Seattle Times critic Wayne Johnson (observing Channing onstage in 1986, in a doomed Broadway-bound dud titled "Legends!") voted Channing "a natural wonder on the scale of, say, Yosemite Falls."

Not bad for someone who isn't much of a singer or dancer, never made it big on TV or in movies (despite an Oscar nomination for her participation in "Thoroughly Modern Millie") and whose reputation rests primarily on starring in two aged musical comedies.

However you describe Channing, there's no doubt she is a trouper of the first order - one of these tireless headliners who wouldn't dream of packing it in for the peace and quiet of her Beverly Hills manse.

In a recent phone interview, Channing said she's logged in well over 4,000 performances of "Hello, Dolly!" since introducing the role on Broadway in 1964. (The show won 10 Tony Awards, including one for her.)

Ask what she does to relax on her current grueling, 40-city road tour (which hits Broadway in October), and Channing responds in that unmistakable bullfrog twang, "Relax? What's that? We never stop.

"We perform two shows a day many days, and on my day off I do press, which I feel is the obligation of anybody whose name is over the title. It's my responsibility to keep that box office busy. We also do a lot of benefits, especially for AIDS causes."

With no serious physical problems to hamper her, Channing remains one of those stage fixtures who glories in the spotlight - and in slyly spoofing herself. Be it a pops concert for public television, or a Larry King interview, or appearances at benefits, or this national tour (her third excursion with "Hello, Dolly!" in 30 years), she's a full-service Celebrities 'R Us.

And the good-natured star insists, emphatically, that she still loves doing Dolly. No, r-e-e-e-e-a-lly.

"I'm having the most fabulous time with it," she says. "It's the most soul-satisfying year of my life. It's really this company, which is the best we've ever had for the show. And I'm still learning about Dolly. Every night I understand some little thing about her better."

Such as? "Well, there were a lot of things we couldn't do 30 years ago without offending people. Let's just say that today's Dolly is much more in touch with her five physical senses."

Channing, who was born in Seattle but relocated with her family to San Francisco as an infant, has not stopped acting since high school. She attended Bennington College because "it was the only school at the time, except for Reed College in Oregon, that let you major in the performing arts."

Her big Broadway break came playing the wide-eyed gold-digger Lorilei Lee in the 1949 musical hit "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes." It was Channing who introduced that immortal anthem to material girlhood, "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend." Marilyn Monroe, however, got to do it on film.

Channing also got aced out of playing Dolly onscreen. Barbra Streisand won the part, and when asked about that performance Channing replies with mock innocence, "You know I saw it but I've totally blanked it out. Isn't that just a-w-w-w-ful?"

Never mind. On stage, Channing owns Dolly - lock, stock and feathered headdress. She credits much of the success of her portrayal to the late director-choreographer Gower Champion. His staging of this musical version of Thornton Wilder's play "The Matchmaker" blended turn-of-the-century gaudiness with whiz-bang Broadway razzmatazz. And Herman's peppy score yielded such pop standards as "Before the Parade Passes By," "It Only Takes a Moment" and, of course, "Hello, Dolly!"

"Gower was a bloody genius," Channing declares. "He told me, this is going to be an intimate little musical. But it got bigger and bigger. In the cafe number he kept adding more stairs, more dancing waiters.

"I instantly loved the part of Dolly, but he knew how to set it off. So I just trusted him implicitly: I was the statue of `The Thinker,' and Gower was Rodin."

Channing says Wilder lived long enough to see the show in its original incarnation, and loved it.

"I know that dear Thornton wrote himself into Dolly, put his own feelings into her character. One Wednesday matinee I was standing there on stage and I realized, `I see! I'm playing Thornton Wilder!' "

The current road show of "Hello, Dolly!" is a careful recreation of the Broadway original, staged by noted performer-director LeRoy Reams. (Reams starred in another of Champion's hits, "42nd Street.")

Channing insists she and her longtime husband and manager, Charles Lowe, had no interest in another "Dolly!" revival until theater managers around the country clamored for one.

But you sense it didn't take much to persuade this veteran entertainer to get on board when the package came together. And reviews in the 30-some cities where she's already appeared in the past year have been excellent - for Channing, and the spangly production surrounding her.

She's also looking forward to invading Broadway again. As a recent recipient of a lifetime Tony Award, she feels the Great White Way's demise has been exaggerated.

"People have been saying that live theater is dying since mankind began," Channing laments. "In 1938, when I was still at Bennington, all the critics were pounding the nails in the coffin - and that's when `Our Town' and so many other great things came out.

"But you see, I don't think live theater can die. Once you've been exposed it, it becomes a human necessity."