Carol Channing on Wogan

now frankly I'm a little worried about my final guest of the week if there's anything that she's known for it it's a winsome ways and shy girlish charms I just hope we can eat a modest word or two out of her I'm sure little enthusiastic applause will encourage you the queen of Broadway the lady has made hello Don Carol Channing like like two sailors in the night we never say in Taylor ten million buttons here a Ralph Lauren a very good friend of mine old Ralphy is he yeah well I can see that yeah yeah having some of yours pardon me and some of yours too HM of yours yes it's hard for Americans to another schools original range well we don't get awfully well no we don't you know what does that mean these are early bird yeah yes lever brothers buildings yeah yeah you say never know you do Oh anyway what are we talking about it another performance you've got coming up as Dolly Levi is I thought you made your own you'll hear the Palladium on the weekend yes it's on Sunday and everybody's coming in for it from America Chita Rivera Delores gray all the people coming in oh you should see we've got and Mary Martin's coming in to see it because Mary Martin wants to see the show and she adores you so I was told to say hello to Terry Wogan for Mary Martin yes she's watching the show oh hello Mary yes Oh Mary you know we've been friends for years yes you know our theatres when I first was on Broadway in a little revue I was one of twenty unknowns in the Broadhurst theater on 44th Street and Mary was right next door in the Imperial and the fire escapes connected and she used to come out on the fire escape and she would say where's my baby girl and that was me she was calling and I'd come out there and you know she gave me what she said y'all gonna be up at which she's from Texas when she's yes but when she's on stage she sounds like a lady but when she's off stage she sounds like Texas and so Mary lent me her dresser for opening night in my very first starring part but then she took her back again yes of course it's a tough old business isn't it yes it is how did you break in to show business tell me how you started that how did you get people's attention well I went to Bennington College it's in Vermont Betty Graham yes you knew that well it's it's in the lower left-hand corner of Vermont on the map it's always purple you know yeah well Bennington I should explain it's a progressive college for young women although I didn't understand now they do allow some men to attend but the ratio is thirty to one so the girls have to be really progressive I'm very grateful demanding though because to this day I feel perfectly at home among intellectuals like you folks provided I can keep the topic of conversation within one of three areas medieval cloister pageants ceremonial dances of the Teutons or the sexual confusion in Shakespeare then I'm a broadchurch will keep it within those parameters so you left Bennington yes and I went down will they have a thing that's called a non-resident term you're supposed to get a job at whatever your majoring here I was a drama dance major I would have been a drama dance major but the drama teacher came from New England and the dance teacher came from the Middle West so as I say since I was a drama dance major I hotfoot it in New York to get a job performing well the biggest theatrical booking agency what I guess it still is is the William Morris office so I went straight away there and asked to speak with the president a mr. abe lastfogel you knew him well then you know that he's a man who's known as having a touch of genius and so of course as a result he never saw anyone yeah excepting occasionally John Wayne and mrs. laugh oh but we saw a lot of her somehow by some mistake of his secretaries Terry there I was face to face with a great man himself I swung right into my first number something I was sure because it was a big hit with a girl with girls at Bennington a simple ancient Gallic dirge in obsolete verse in jeddah expense you know VI Sanjay Tarly he was before all God was all together and it was adapted from the original Greek tragedy or rest ease and this was the most thrilling part of the whole thing the arrestees funeral chance I remember how much the last pose how his eyes filled with wonderment as I showed him how the women of the Greek chorus lamented the ravages of war and the shortage of men I had had these little drums he was in 95 very difficult call me mr. Lazzaro go thought that I should do someone better known than Orestes like a governor like Sophie Tucker yeah since that I was losing the great man's attention so I said no wait mr. Lasker I have another song here that the girls at Bennington just loved it's a Haitian corn grinding song he did he left at it yes it's rendered by the natives as they stomp out the kernels with their feet they sing of their lost youth and pray for rains he thought that he could see some signs of improvement but the perhaps it would be wiser for me to get out of ethnic music and into the straight classics like Ethel Merman so well as I say the man has a touch of genius as he was ushering me to the door and telling me not to phone him he would phone me I said now wait mr. lash Brogan I have one more song here that I ran across in my studies on Mitchell European cultures and before he could close the door in my face I sang it Terry when my shift I am on giving his best at halex economics worship him but it's me love the kids oh well he said his grandmother used to sing songs like that dear when he was a little boy he said he saw he said all of a sudden he said I think I see a glimmer of talent in this girl he sent me to Marc Blitzstein who wrote modern American operas it was a song called I'm simply fraught about you I got the job and do you know that I never went back to Bennington they said talk it over with your parents talked it over with the faculty they said you can't always get experience but you can always get your education I have one more year to go and I'm still getting my experience and the moment I get it I'm going back to that it's more than 25 years since you first appear them in hello dollies oh yes 26 years that was we opened on Bravo years how do you retain the vigor and vitality well truthfully you seem so interested that I can't stop telling you I mean you just pull it out of me true of course it wouldn't do would it to fall asleep on the Terry Wogan I mean the figure in the vitality I mean how do you retain this I'm not aware of it I know but but I must tell you that if there's going to be a lot of vigor and vitality on Sunday you know why Jerry Herman's Hello Dolly is being done by 70 singers and dancers a hundred and thirty people all together it's the most serious and costumes and what-have-you wait till you see I've never been seen to show that enormous and it's all for the Ormond Street Children's House Ormond Street Children's Hospital fund that's a great ormond san Great Ormond Street do you ever do you have a feel ill yourself do you ever oh yes yes but there's no tonic like getting out and having to do the show with with an audience you worry more about the audience and do they see the beauties and glories of this marvelous character that you're playing no that cures you of anything yeah but is it how is it Halley's watch Oh he didn't finish asking the question he does he take this long get the part in the movie of Hello Dolly oh yes well I wanted to jump out the window when I read it in the paper and I don't know except that you know Barbara Streisand thank God he's a tremendous creative force and she lived through that movie of Hello Dolly and has she's remained she built and grew and grew from there if I had done it it would have been it would have been the end of me well the movie was nothing like the play you liked the show no so they only used thank goodness Jerry Herman's songs and his lyrics isn't that wonderful did it make you feel sick not to have very deathly sick do you have to take care of your health you're very careful of your diet well I was born and raised in a Christian Science family and we don't believe in doctors it's not that we don't get sick it's just that of course they're my best friends I mean I have nothing against doctors and also we don't believe in age you see and so it's perfectly permissible with Christian Scientists never to discuss your age now of course I know a few Catholic and Jewish girls who do the same thing but with me it's legal yeah we never discuss it so the only time that I was really really ill was my last flight from London to New York City not that it was such a rough trip the other passengers enjoyed it but for me it was rough because they were showing Hello Dolly with Barbra Streisand tell me about working with George Burns we've had George Burns on the show a couple of times he told me yeah he likes you oh yes he does I just had Mother's Day with George Burns and I was his mother wasn't that an honor she's no longer with us and he's 94 you know and George when I got the part in Hello Dolly I he's been my mentor aren't I lucky I've had George for a friend all my working life and I called George and I said George do you think that I am up to singing a tremendous score like Hello Dolly and George said Carol what are you worried about your voice is as good as mine doesn't that give you confidence though yes that's the kind of thing that fills a person feels a person with confidence and then I said to him George how did you learn all that for your act in Las Vegas in two days I couldn't do that and he said Carol you're not 94 years old yeah you don't think that's funny it loses something in the translation see Americans just don't speak the same language but they sing yes yes do you know who we've got here the foremost conductor on Broadway Don Pippin what he's very her music man Jerry Herman wanted to be on this show with me you know to talk to you but he's got these terrible cold and he's deaf in one ear so he'll be there for the greater ormond street all children but he couldn't make the woven Joe his doctor wouldn't let him come so we thought the last thing we need is a deaf composer don't you think can I ask you a question yes sure I'm sorry did I not let you know well you do seem to take your time I'm gonna have gone Pippin yes yes what do it every time cherry that I sing this song it makes me so happy because this song is from one of my favorite musical shows I sang it first on Broadway and then around the world and back again for over 3,000 performances looking you're still glowing you're still pro in you're still going strong Swain Oh honestly it's no good cherry without all those seventy boys singers and dancers come on Sunday it sounds so good with just me to the Palladium and see it as a production number every time I sing that song I think of its composer and lyricist Jerry Herman Jerry wrote oh so many Broadway hits he wrote mein milk and honey LoCascio fall the Grand Tour Mack and Mabel parade Hello Dolly the words and the music Jerry has a peculiar knack for capturing all of our innermost feelings at least he does mine the ones I have whenever I'm with an audience like you Jerry well you see the first time I ever set photos was in the fourth grade oh he's going like that have I spoken too long have i overstepped oh dear alright IG Rhea I must tell you fourth grade I stepped on the stage on the school auditorium stage and I vowed then and there I'd do anything to get back on that stage again to have that safe warm feeling with the audience I told my father about it and he said there's an adage that says be careful what you set your heart upon for you shall surely get it well I got it and I'm grateful and as Jerry Herman says in his song I only hope that it's simply called surviving ship before the dawn this fragile world might crack someone's got to try to put the the ruble you'll hear a little voice say life is worth the trouble have you a better choice so let the skeptic say tonight we're almost thanks to pretend with we wish you well for the concert on some thank you young days the concert in the Palladium you probably didn't hear that thanks the pretenders to mark Rattray and Amanda Donahoe they were all good well yes we hope you'll have a good weekend so music mark excellent my pet faith yes mark Rattray yes Don Pippin is going to tell Jerry you

Channel: DeletedLadies

Views: 21,123

Rating: 4.9187818 out of 5

Keywords: carol channing, teryy wogan, wogan, hello dolly, jerry herman

Id: c9J9_71btC4

Length: 18min 56sec (1136 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 21 2014