Carol Channing on InnerVIEWS with Ernie Manouse (Season 11 Episode 2)

she has been called the first lady of musical comedy having spent over five decades on the Broadway stage creating such signature roles as Lorelei Lee and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Dolly Levi in Hello Dolly but the stage simply could not contain her and she took her larger-than-life persona to the silver screen in Thoroughly Modern Millie she's made countless special guest appearances on TV variety talk and game shows but it's always been her unique voice and sparkling personality that's made her a standout in a galaxy full of stars hello i'm ernie manouse coming up on interviews our conversation with oscar nominee and three-time Tony winner Carol Channing when did you first realize that you would become a legend oh I didn't realize it no one told you no no but I didn't know everybody thinks he's a legend you know a lot of people do but if you're smart you don't think oh oh well there has to come a time though when you realize everyone knows you you're Carol Channing oh that's fun yeah oh yes on the plane everybody leaned out and they had cameras and there we go I loved it so when was the first time you realized that uh it came slowly yes it did well it came way back in a little revue called Lyndon air and I did nine different characters and I loved that review because I got to go from a little baby flapper of the 20s who lost her way then and and then all of a sudden a terrible Madame Lafarge type that is it's people's names and yarn and oh I just played every kind of character and teaching a boy his first dance and oh it's a great business what was it that appealed to you about acting I wanted that oh I was standing on the stage for the first time in the fifth grade at the current theater no no no slow grammar school oh okay in San Francisco and I was standing on the stage and all of a sudden I realized oh I'm lifting their lives this is the most greatest privilege in the world and I realized I was lifting all of them were sitting there and slowly they began I was elected secretary right up until high school this was the fifth grade and really it was the best experience in the world I was being an only child is is lonely and means you can bring everybody home with you in your imagination and I brought miss Burrard the principal home she was apparently the forerunner of Julia Child's to you are you too young hell I remember Julia you do yes go to the polls girl and you know who laughed the most miss pirard I mean I found out there no malice I had no mouth I was crazy about her went in her office and so you love to do imitations of folks oh yes but this is the launching of the campaign the first campaign to bring arch back into public schools so that's that's taken up a good deal of your time now it's working on the Arts in school oh oh my time and I litters and everything and I'm it's so important that and the students are so grateful and there's in Palm Springs we have a house in Palm Springs and the children are in the orchestra are so thrilled with that they can get and Harry my husband gifts instruments for them oh he got wonderful brand new instruments from New York and they came and they opened and somebody put the phone right there in the room as they opened at home and I could hear that the petition paper and the other paper the box is being opened and a knife cutting that thus everything the Box open and all that and oh what's that I think it's an old bow and they were asking each other and guess what they learn first hello dollies they learn the first of course I cried my buckets yeah and the the we brought them to Harry's sister's house Lucille pilla Bastian they're their Armenians wonderful people they love the Arts the moment they make any money they put they they get a library for the town they get of any anything that was a museum that they're wonderful about the arts and it's deep in Harry soul to do and that's why he feels this way and I was imbued with it when I was 12 years old I got harry's love of the Arts she airy and I met when we were 12 and 13 which is a wonderful story oh is it yes you meet and then you don't see each other for years and years and years no but we didn't just meet we went to get women steady together he was Center on the soccer team oh he was so good and he won for the whole state of California and then it's like 60 years and then you get back together again yeah amazing isn't that amazing I just I wrote about him in my book my first love yeah that's my first love and it was and and oh so Mervin of Mervin's department stores he said he was reading the book on the plane he got off the plane called Harry Harry this girl is my favorite entertainer Harry she's still in love with you she's remembering everything and so Harry's wife had just died it was it was beautiful 60-year marriage and I know she's my friend I just know it she wanted him to marry again and and she said you've got to marry again here you can't live alone and I know you and Harry kept my picture with him in the loo in his living room really although scissors and she allowed it so I allow her picture in the living room mouth gorgeous girl oh this girl was beautiful now when you first met Harry were you interested in acting that and where you are oh yes I'm interested I was up here on the stage and nobody could get me off oh no no and and now and then Harry form the first school orchestra very small Orchestra that is not the big one that's down in the pit he played the saxophone and that but the the the the he formed it and saying I said Harry I'm gonna run for a vice president of the school can you help me I need a campaign song so he said sure they wrote it Harry wrote it he wrote it all by himself we had Sammy put otso on the drums he was better than Gene Rupa he was better than Pearl Bailey's husband he was uh well anyway so oh do you want to know the campaign songs if you know it do you remember yeah we want karo we want Carol when I'm vice president when I'm vice president we'll all leave school at 12 o'clock when I'm vice president we want Carol with and I kept it up we had about ten verses I think and and we kept it up until they were all singing we won care we won by a landslide so did they get to go home at noon at 12 o'clock oh I forgot about that but I did get to raise the flag they didn't allow that and those days girls couldn't raise the flag so a trendsetter would phantomon one as president do you remember you on the Groucho Marx show yes that was George Fenneman the president and I was the vice president and we got along just fine well that's some high school isn't that junior hot sub judice you started 12 in this school you she Wow when do you decide that you can leave home and become an actress when you go out into the world I was already an actor so I was doing it like crazy and so I wanted to go to Bennington where you can major in the arts yeah and boy am I glad I was a manager it worked out for you it worked out for me Stanislavski tells you how to find the spine of every single creative piece of work in the theater in the live theater oh my Constantine Stanislavsky and Richard bowlers love ski and I everybody I think of and I think I must call him and tell him how I'm grateful that they're all gone yeah I'm 90 I know oh it's hard to remember that yeah well do you feel like you're 90 when when someone says Carol you're 90 does that catch you off-guard no I just keep needing thank you for the one for for all that I've learned the first thing I learned I felt it is to lift people's lives that was my ambition I found out Bobby smalls nominated me you don't know him and I went up the five steps and to the stage they're still there and I stood there and I was shaking like a leaf and slowly slowly I was able to talk to them and I thought I know what I'll do what I do best I'll turn to somebody else so I just did mr. Schwartz then kill I did there Everett the whole faculty it went over so big and I asked my father can i daddy dedicate my life right now to lifting people's lives the feeling of lifting those children's lives and having them go along with you and applaud and all that that the oh it's the greatest feeling in the world and you see it's a privilege to be an only child never feel sorry for an only child does it hurt you then when you hear about all the arts programs being cut from the school oh they're cutting the life out of us do you know what they did this is what they did just before the fall of the Holy Roman Empire Albert Einstein said the theory of relativity is great but the Mona Lisa is greater he got it and you do you know that's the way all art is it it's fertilizer on the brain it absolutely is something seeps into your you do creative work and if you've ever had the feeling of creating Lorelei Lee or Hello Dolly I did some 10 shows on Broadway and I created all kinds of characters let me ask you a little about dolly you brought up dolly yeah and what I'm curious about what I find fascinating about the character is I know that you've done 5,000 plus performances of this much blood you're iconic as this role to the whole world what is it that you brought to the role that made people identify so with you and that character oh well I was the first one to do it right but and I played it to the hill I didn't let anybody else I wouldn't it went on for years no I'm here there have been others that have tried it Pearl Bailey has been and it was long after endless and you and then we are not went on tour and we just went all over yeah oh it was wonderful to bring down was it you that made the character or was the character well written in the page and she will were in Thorton Wilder yeah he said he used to go around to people to say this is my Dolly's people looked at him like he's crazy he was getting on a ship to go overseas and he went around to every table before the ship the horn blew and said I had to get off the ship and this is my dollies and so I'd see Hello Dolly just to help him out you know we hadn't opened yet it really thought was before it opened oh yes he was so proud was one of our sixth greatest playwrights and I found the spine to Hello Dolly and the spine is to rejoin the human race that's the spine of every character in it has to have the same spine including the main character which is dolly and it's to every one of them Ephram let me go it's been long enough there for me every evening for all these years our last speech to her dead husband I locked the door I put out the cat I made myself a little rum toddy and all that and she says and Ephram I'm you know it what I want now I want to rejoin the human race other that's the spine I asked Thornton Wilder he says I don't know I gotta think about that noted honestly and truly if you write and play it honestly and truly you don't have to talk about the spine and finally I said well Constantin Stanislavski says very often the great man who writes the character doesn't realize that he captured that once and for all he captured all the way which is so important for the actor for people to realize that is the work of the actor oh you realize it perhaps a life oh it's got to be you get Barnaby and Cornelius out of that Faceman and get them up and have them rejoin the human race that's it has to be a verb and get mrs. Molloy who hates hats she's and get out of that millinery shop and go to New York and dolly says to Ephram I want to rejoin the human race Ephram and you gotta help me I'm alone and I want you I want you to help me I'm gonna rejoin the human race and if hram I want you to give me away before the parade passes by I'm gonna get in step while there's still time left before the parade passes before it all moves on and only I'm left I'm ready to move out in front I've had enough of just passing by life with the rest of them with the best of them I can hold my head up high for I've got a goal again I've got a drive again I'm gonna feel my heart coming alive again before the parade trombones coming oh that's amazing well Jerry Harlan wrote yeah from what we were doing with that one oh it's thrilling to have it to be able to at this art thing you're alive again yeah you're alive so how do you take your thrill and excitement about the arts and get children today to realize it to come back into the fold get them to do it they've got to find the spine they've got to find what it's about they've what is this story really about so we need the artists out the arts Oh to help people throw and think and learn and explore yes you see graffiti is vicious and but that's their only means of expression now all they've got is these darned IQ tests well I want to take you back to Dali again yes a moment with all of the performances you've done of that role for an actor it's probably a dumb question but for those of us that aren't how do you keep it vibrant alive and interesting after so many performances you must be able to just say the speeches in your sleep but you bring such life to it each time what is the secret oh like no coward said he said put me in your audience put someone who loves you in the audience I put herring my husband I put my father sometimes I get terribly stage fright but Helen he said stage fright is god-given it makes its fertilizer on the brain your brain starts cooking with with stage fright and normal College did you put me in your audience love and you'll see it'll work it doesn't work unless the person loves you that you put in your imagination I put I put different people and it never is the same never I mean it's all and no said you do that and you'll see it work whatever compliment what a great favor he do you mentioned no coward and you've had the pleasure of meeting many other famous people they come backstage yeah yeah and he gets he gets stage fright something awful so I told him what Helen he said yeah didn't help him what about Tallulah Bankhead units of all yes well you see the most noticeable thing about Tallulah is that she had trouble keeping her close honest a strange thing and so I learned never to look down that wasn't easy she had nothing on and so I would write there there's some kind of a psychological disease she had it's not her fault it's just an illness you know she didn't mean so she stands there she said hello Kelly I want to tell you and then I I kept my chin up and just looked at her head and talked to her it wasn't easy and I never looked down and it was wonderful and she asked me if I'd like to go see you want to come in oh yeah see a movie oh I'm making a movie where she would just get lost in these growls you see oh she was wonderful what about sophie tommy agit oh oh how do you know this I I do my research I adored Sophie Tucker I just adored well Sophie walked out you know she was a ample built and she had she was had well she was amply as she was fat is what you are so she just walked she was boring in fourth position ballet you know that way feet boom boom boom you know oh she was my friend we were good friends come on Carol sit down with me we'll have a little toasty coffee it turned out to be Viennese toast which is whipped cream powdered sugar a whole lot of stuff on it and the coffee was she dumped everything into it and she said there but she was my friend and she said I want you to do the movie of me well they haven't done the movie yet so I'd be happy to gain a hundred pounds and do it I can do it I know I can because I love her so much if you really love the character you're doing and you really understand it you can't stop doing her you answer the garbage collector as Sophie Tucker you answer you know and you just walk down the street that way how much it was so how much is my ticket to the bus man what's my ticket to the you know how much do you what in those days it was only ten cents it's gone up a bit that's how old but now you mentioned movies and you didn't do a whole bunch of movies but you did what you did was very well received for example Thoroughly Modern Millie oh well that's Julie Andrews oh no that was you - somebody got an Oscar nomination in that oh yeah and that would be you oh that Julie she's she's so not having to work with and she came in on her day off I've got to tell you the first day since Mary Poppins she didn't have any debt you just made movie after movie after Mary Poppins and she came in on a Saturday she walked forward they were shooting MIDI and it was me telling her - I was talking to Julie and telling her you mustn't just want the emeralds we would have made it my husband and I on green glass without emeralds you got it has to be there first and I'm trying to tell her and she came in in her jeans no makeup hair looking terrible and she walked forward to me took both my hands she held onto them and she said tell me about it and she made it possible for me to win the Golden Globe Award which is the job the movie critic from all over the world they are the critics all over the world not just Hollywood she wanted me to win that that's Julie she made up her mind that she wanted me to win that and she just I I talked to her and I've talked to one of the critics in parrot in Paris about it and I said why did you vote for me why did I you sure this doesn't work a lot but I did I thought it was mostly funny on top of that xylophone and he said he said it was that scene with Julie he said I saw you looking at Julie and I and we got the back of her head and that's all and he said it was a way you just looked at her and relaxed completely and told her I could cry over that girl she is so won now she's won this wonderful award she oh she deserves it it's you know the Queen yes he's giving her the award for I forget exactly what it's called but she certainly deserves it yeah and and she she you know what she thinks the world and all of everybody she's working with really yes that's what happens to her is it important to the relationship you have with those you act with to get a good product oh yes oh yes I've always been crazy about everybody I worked with and and there were when they came to my birthday party and they we just kissed and hugged each other and carried on it was we did love each other dearly I know everyone will get mad at me if I don't mention Gentlemen Prefer Blondes oh yeah Lorelei Lee yeah how does that character sit with you today do you feel like you know her still oh yes Oh she'll always be yeah I think Lorelei is oh yes she'll she's she's just a baby flapper from the foot of the Ozarks and she went to New York and she doesn't turn she just isn't doing anything wrong she just baby I it was the most well-written character a need a loose rotor oh boy can she write comedy but it was satire and it was wonderful satire it was a Marilyn Monroe did it in the movies and she came to see you on stage did you do it all day yeah they made her go time and time again to see what you were doing yeah for a month and she sat in the third row center Milt Rosenstock was the conductor and he said the whole the brass section the fiddle section to this section all that they saw this beautiful blonde girl and they just their mouth fell open and they could hardly play and they kept looking at and he it's just well anyway so there she sat for one solid month and they just wait and look at her but she was adorable she did it for real yeah I did it first after her but you can do that on Broadway people who buy tickets for Broadway shows and they know what satire is and well all I can say is thank you for all the work you've done for all you've given us and for all you're doing for the Arts oh thank you do you think so did I give you something you did you have given me a lot of joy and pleasure through the years and even today just sitting here I love hearing that my goal was achieved with you I lived it your life thank you Oh Carol Channing you to order a DVD of this or any episode of interviews please visit two stone pbs.org you

Channel: HoustonPBS

Views: 14,706

Rating: 4.9298244 out of 5

Keywords: Carol Channing, Ernie Manouse, PBS, Houston PBS

Id: UFZACuprMnQ

Length: 26min 48sec (1608 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 14 2012