Conversations 1967; 4; Carol Channing with Elliot Norton

Peace be upon you. Good evening. Good evening, Carol Channing and I going to talk about Carol Channing, which is a very nice topic. And since her show, Hello Dali, is part of her life, and a lively part of the life of the theater all over the United States, all over the world, we're also going to talk about Hello Dali, which is another pleasant topic because this is a very pleasant show. As Channing herself is in many ways unique, she's had a number of hits of huge proportions since the time of gentlemen prefer blondes, in which she was the blond gentleman prefer and who herself preferred diamonds.

She instructed a whole generation in the basic facts of life of which the most basic was that diamonds are a girl's best friend. Carol herself makes friends outside of Tiffany's all over the place, all over the United States and Canada. One columnist estimated, and I don't think he was joking, and Carol Channing has 5,000 close friends. And I think she has two, and a strange thing is that many of the 5,000 are critics. So far as I know, no critic, a man or woman, has said anything about her that was less than complimentary. She has that kind of personality and that kind of talent. She began acting in Hello Dali three and a half years ago, and in the years since then has broken almost every conceivable kind of theatrical record. In the role of Dali Galagoliva, the practical matchmaker of young girls. Carol Channing, have you counted up to you having any idea how many times you've played

Hello Dali? It'll be 1,300 by the time you leave Montreal, Mr. Norton. Isn't that amazing? I never missed a scheduled performance, not one, and I haven't taken my equity week off either. You know, they give you a week off a year, and I didn't take it, I thought I would wait until I got tired. And there's no side of that. No, no, there isn't. Isn't that wonderful? I'm delighted about that. But then I watch it carefully. I mean, I live in training like a boxer. Do you really have to do that all the time and all together in those eight performances? Oh, yes, it's a marathon. You know, someone asks her Lawrence Olivier, what's the most important quality for an actor or a star to have? And he said, health. No. And he said, not talent. He said, no health. And it is. It is. It's that rat razor. It's the eight shows a week. Any old fool can do a good show when you're not tired. I don't that. But it is. No, but I mean, it is, it's much simpler to do. It's the health.

It's the, see, what you do tonight to get through this show comes out of next week's show. So it's keeping that steady health over the, over the years when you have a long run. That's what the Lens have told me too. I'm very proud of my friendship with him. We played Milwaukee. They came to see gentlemen for blondes and I never let the friendship go because I was so proud of him. And so we talked a lot about touring. And they said, you've got to stay in training, darling. You will find with experience that is nothing but training. You stay. And that's what Lens are. It seems like sacrilege to call it a limb. Oh, everybody does. That's a great thing. Yes. He asked me to. Yes. An Alfred asked me to call him Alfred. So we stayed there. We were two weeks in Milwaukee. We stayed there two weekends in Genesine Depot with the happiest weekends. And they do. Of course, they just dedicate it when they're playing in a play. They don't do anything but act. Do they? No. Nothing.

Do you? Are you able to get away at all or do anything but act? Well, I expect to see Expo Swassal set. Get out of the way. You're blowing French to come up here. Oh, yes. Oh, I've been working on it now. All during the Toronto engagement. I've learned, oh, my new feat, Expo Teat. That's where we're playing. And isn't it an honor to be opening up there, Expo Teat? It's an honor. Perhaps. I think it's a kind of lucky thing for them, too, to have the number one musical attraction in America up here. Yes, well, we wanted to be here and they wanted us, but this is the third world's fair that I'm opening. The one in New York, yes, Henry Fonda and Lauren Green and I opened that and we went from exhibit to exhibit showing it on television. And then in Seattle, George Burns and I opened that. And we joined as an act with Gracie's Blessings. And then here we are opening Expo 67, that very theater. Have you enjoyed playing this?

I know it's adduous. It has to be adduous in this particular role, but do you get fun out of it, actually? When I saw you play it, you seem to be having a wonderful time. Well, that's it. You see, when you stay in training, the way Lyon says to stay in training, you can enjoy it. Then you can afford to enjoy it. There's nothing more embarrassing than standing up there, not being physically and healthily equipped to do the show, but I can enjoy my work this way. How can you do it so many 13, 100 times and not get tired? Is it because you moved from one place to another, one audience to another? No, we were two years in New York, but we left at the peak of our box office career, you know? We left $2 million in the box office till I put it in my contract that I could tour. So they put the New York company, I mean the touring company, Mr. Merrick, our producer, the lovable one, you know? Well, he said, all right, we'll put the touring company in New York and let you tour. And that's what they did.

So no, no, you see, it's the first time the audience hears it, and that's all we're aware of. All we know is how it sounds to them, our tentacles go out to them. So it sounds brand new to us truly, Mr. Newton, every night. And do you get always that big response that you've got when I saw it in New York, years and years ago, you were playing it first to New York? I mean, do they yell at that number? More so. People seem to be so grateful as we tour, that's why I wanted to tour, it's the most rewarding thing you can do, because people seem to feel that you've come to their living rooms, you've come to their own homes. Even at the center, but that's that? Yes, they do. I remember I got a cold in, it was some North Carolina, and I had a cold. And these dear people sent home remedies. I took every one of them, one of them, most of them, and certainly straightened out. But they sent everything, a caramel cake, and marvelous things, you know, they said caramel would, and the honey biscuits, and biscuits and honey that they made, I mean, one of you

were ever get on, and I did beautifully, something did it, something cured me. And each time they, you go out there figuring, well, this time, this is going to be more exciting the last time, do you, or you're just, no, no, that's where some people make the mistake. You mustn't do it to excite yourself, you do it to excite the audience, and what excites the audience is not what excites you, therefore you don't keep trying to top yourself, that's when you get sick on the death of the show, that the trick is recreate the emotion that made it come out just like it did last night, but not for so. I've watched some people who tried to make it different for themselves, and then they're in trouble. You mean they make it different in order to, to very fresh for themselves? No, that's not the way, the thing is recreate the emotion, but don't make it go further than it did last night.

Once you get a sudden, in other words. Yes, that's the difference between the amateur and the, you know, you must, you must, you must set it, but recreate it, make it fresh, make the emotion fresh, but don't make the emotion more so. Otherwise you get it way out of hand, and then all of a sudden the show doesn't look like it did on opening night in New York, do it right where you had it, but you know, I believe, I talk to Noel Coward once, and he said he gets very tired of his show, but takes about three months, and he just can't stand it anymore. Well, that's because he's another kind of talent, he's a writing, he's half playwright, and half performer, but I believe there is a talent for recreating. I talk to Angela Lansbury about that, and I think that some people have a talent for recreating, she thinks so, we love recreating it, we treasure it, you know, not going further than you did, but some people get more so, and more so, and more so until it's so out of hand, it doesn't look like any really emotion anymore.

This is what happens, of course, with many actors touring, with many touring companies. They try to keep it fresh, especially with comedy, but also then they, I think they try to press too hard for human, don't you, is it not a temptation to press, I mean, to try to be a little funnier this time than you were last time? I've always, with me, it's an automatic thing, if I lost this laugh here, it must be that it wasn't real enough, that's my automatic reaction, oh, well, then it isn't real enough, and I can't get beyond that. So you don't punch any harder, you try to be more accurate, more true, because with me, I don't laugh if it isn't real, so then I realize, oh my goodness, I must have not been real enough. How long does it take you to get something like this, not in Detroit, or let's try it out? You had a little trouble getting it right, didn't you, or was it the show, or was it Dali, or the show?

I think goodness, they gave me good reviews, so Gower realized, all right, switch it to Carol, switch the show, as he changed, to change everything to go to a Dali, and do you know the Thornton Wilder saw the show and loved it and said he spent his whole life rewriting that darn matchmaker, and never could figure out what it was, and he said, Gower Champion out of instinct had straightened it out, and he said, you know why? Because there's no time with all the choreography, and all of the music that's going on, he said, I made it a three-way story, he said, I Thornton Wilder made it a three-way story, what's the three-way story? Thornton Wilder made it so that it was the story of the matchmaker, how I made my first half million dollars, which was Vandergilder, and Cornelius's, I have a million dollars is worth one perfect day, and he said he made it deliberately three ways, and once, and never realized, the thing to do is make it the story of the matchmaker, that's all, and Gower

Champion did it out of instinct, and he said, does Gower Champion realize what he did? He's straightened it out, and for the first time it was a money-making proposition, and never made money before, it suddenly was box office. And tell me, Thornton Wilder liked it then, he adored it, he said, why this is the answer, why did I keep fooling with three stories going at words? I don't know why I thought that was so necessary, because I have the impression that he didn't like the idea originally of having the matchmaker made into a musical, is that correct or am I missing form? Well, he kissed every last one of us, he came backstage and hugged us like a baby, and now he just said, as he does, he says me a little, wherever he is, he said me a little sweetie sangel from my Christmas tree, and then he sent a valentine from Italy, and now I'll know he's delighted, he's beautiful. No, I mean, I thought in the beginning that he did it, the idea of... I didn't hear that, I didn't know that, where did you hear that?

I don't know, I heard that, you don't know one of those rumors that you pick up in the theater, that he wasn't keen on the idea of having it made into a musical, I assume that since it's begun to win a musical, and since it's making him a rich man, I'm sure that he would be happy about it now. Oh, he's delighted, he couldn't wait to come and he sent his opening night wires and opening night letters. Was he in Detroit when you were working out at there in the city? No, he wasn't. He saw it in New York. He waited until it opened there. Yes. No, he couldn't be happier, and sends little things all the time. And he just hugged our champion, and he just said, well, he was so happy that he... A champion had been able to work a course. He didn't work. A champion, it is a really artistic job. That's a case where everything in the play has been fitted into one single, what you say, one single pattern, but the dance is part of the pattern and the music is part of the pattern.

The whole thing is love. It's an artistic achievement, as a matter of fact. And Thornton Wilder said, he said, and isn't it funny how the great people are like babies? You know, he's a baby, and he just cried and kissed and cried and carried on. And he said, he said, you know, this is the spirit exactly of the turn of the century. Before we got, he said, you throw love out and love comes right back again. It's just as naive and simple as that. He said, and he said, it's just so much... You don't think about it. You don't think of this as a masterpiece when he really wrote a classic character in Dolly Levi, and in Vander Geller, of course, he writes classic characters. But he said, this was the spirit of the turn of the century. Before the Depression, before, it was just after the Civil War and apparently everybody loved everybody. You know, they didn't have to be miserable. Yeah, or discussed social problems, they didn't have them. I was just wondering, isn't that one of the reasons why it's been so popular that it

gives people a chance to escape from our contemporary problems and themes and so on? It throws you back into a different atmosphere, doesn't it? A different era. You know, I really don't notice you're not never seen the show from the front. So I don't know why it goes so well. There is that sense of gayity and joy, this is all through it, isn't it? Yes. Yes, because a Russian writers came to see Hello Dolly, they say they were the ten, one was introduced as the Tennessee Williams of Russia, and there were six Russian writers, and they didn't speak a word of English. And the State Department brought them backstage and they kissed, you know, and we did all the Panama and we couldn't. The State Department translated and they said, the Russians are trying to say to you, this is so optimistic. Ah, well that's what I was talking about. It is optimistic.

And they didn't speak a word of English, they just got the spirit of its optimistic. Well it's not, I think it's not only optimistic, that would be, I mean you could take a difficult problem and be optimistic about it, but this, I think also was joyful. From the very beginning, don't you think as a sense of joy and an exuberance as a matter of fact? Oh, grueling. Don't you think that's enough? I guess so. Well, I'm thinking of Dolly's character, I'm known crazy about Dolly Gallagher, leave out, that's all I know. She's a practical girl too, I love that part where she embraces the cash register. Even do you like that vibe? Yes, a very practical girl, yes, she's a wheeler dealer, isn't she? Yes. But not a wicked one. But isn't it fun to go as we tour, it is rewarding because they applaud before the curtain goes up, which doesn't seem fair, we haven't done anything yet. You don't get mad at them, go out and say don't support them. Don't look like no, we don't resent that at all, but they are friendly. And you know what's wonderful, when we went to, for instance, Little Rock, Arkansas, which is usually off the beaten track in theater, we're covering as many cities as we can,

because that's what I want to do. And it's too seldom you have a hell of a dolly, you know, to bring to the province, as Leslie says, but when we came here, they said, oh, I like this show, let's see another, so they booked a violin, they booked another shows, and we're very proud of that. We feel we're carrying a banner. Of course, that is exciting, because I would think a play like this would, well, it's become a kind of national, international phenomenon, no, it hasn't a hell of a dolly, it's all by itself. Well, box office wise, it has, yes, but I mean, it's something people think of hell of a dolly, that's hell of a dolly, that's not the theater at large, that's one extraordinary show. But if they say, well, this is the theater, and I like this, and maybe I like other plays, then you're really doing missionary work. Yes, isn't that lovely, and they've booked it in, but people came who never went in the

theater in Mobile, Alabama, because naturally, no show ever came there. The last show they had was Roy Rogers' livestock, and we beat, don't beat, we beat, Roy Rogers' livestock, so with his horse and the, what do you call those people, the, oh, it's some television group, that he had with him, the Hollywood, but I can't get to watch television, everything good is on at the time we're doing the show, but it's the, you know, those Hollywood things. And you are gross then, huh? Way out gross then, isn't it lovely? Oh, it's lovely. How about playing all those big houses? You've been playing theaters now, Xbox, what, 12,000 seats. Oh, it's leaning in comparison. Yeah, well, you've been playing an auditorium, an outdoor stadium. Yes, Mr. Merrick has booked us in basket ballerinas, bullfighting arenas, the key auditorium, they opened up the, where the boxing arena goes and all that, or that's in St. Louis.

They have a boxing part in the back and, and the theater part on the other side, it's a complete arena, and they just closed this iron curtain in between. And so you see, we grossed 5,500 people a night in Oklahoma City, which is the biggest theater in the whole world, indoor theater. So we set the whole record of, Mr. Merrick said, I just want to read the headline in variety when you do it. And then we were, they held us over and booked in several more matinee, so we did 10 shows a week. And how do you do that physically, though, by living like Lynn says, find out what agrees with you and stick to it. And I do. And I carry food. Yes. And I don't smoke a drink. And I live just in training like a boxer, and then I eat simple, plain food, roast like a lamb, roast chicken, roast, you know, fun, just simple, plain food.

And don't get all, every chef wants to cook the finest thing for you. You know, and that gets pretty rich and you can't do eight shows a week on that. So I just live. I found out what agrees with me and I stick to it. That's amazing. Do you go out and exercise? Do you play golf or tennis, or do you walk? No, the show is enough exercise. It's enough right there. But I expect to walk around next post 67, our 14 year old boy is going to join us here. Do you know that they say that this fair is so educational, they're giving him three days off from school, so he can see it, since his parents are here. We're delighted. Oh, dolly is kind of educational, too, I think. He's seen that once or twice, though, hasn't he? He doesn't mind. He's seen it 18 times now, and he's the roving critic, he says, and he says that this company is the best that we've had. Don't you think it's bad enough to have stationary critics without roving ones, too? Oh, I must tell you that the White House got all foot touched about our fourth and going into our fourth year, they got as sentimental as we did about it.

And President Johnson, this is just between you and me, isn't it? Yes. Yes. President Johnson came to me, and after he'll give me a big bear hug, we did a capsule version of Hello, Dolly. And he came to me with a glass of champagne and offered to do me, and I said, oh, I'm sorry, Mr. President, I can't have any champagne. We have to face a battery of critics tomorrow night and date in Ohio. You wouldn't understand. He said, where is this girl bin? I wouldn't understand facing critics. Where have countries she been in? Oh, I love that. Yes, he has them, too. Yes, he has them, too. It is for your work. They're all around, it's awful. When you get into Oklahoma City with 5,000 seats and find them all around you in Arena, what do you do then? You hold it down. You say, I'll pitch it up now. I take a deep breath, and I was in the same auditorium that my father happened to lecture in. He was a Christian science lecturer and teacher, and people said, do you realize that your

feet are standing right where your father stood only a few years ago? And I think, well, Daddy, if you can reach them, I guess I can, too. And I take a deep breath, and I just think, and it gives you a wonderful feeling that your own heredity was able to reach all those people. So often I have to say to myself, all right, if you did it, Daddy, I guess you're going to say, yes, I can do it, too. So I just take a deep breath, and somehow it reaches. But surely we must look like a dot on the horizon to that balcony. The very, very top balcony, it's a city block away, but they can hear us, thank goodness. Well, you use amplifiers. Yes. We do in the footlights. Everybody uses them. Every 30 years of them not, I'll say. Yes, because people are educated to them, but in 5,500 we could never reach. Without amplifiers. So thank goodness we're able to do that. What are they all respond to as the big thing in the show is the Dolly, the Hello Dolly number, isn't it?

We can time our watches on the response on Hello Dolly. How do you mean? It's the same in every city. Ah, yes. They all, you mean the same kind of the same length of response to it? Yes. And each city comes back and says, well, weren't we marvelous? Did you ever hear such an audience? And I say, no, I never did. I swear, no, we never heard such an audience, because it is rewarding. You see, they're better than they were in New York. I must say. They are better? Yes, yes. On the road, the audience is more appreciative than in New York. You mean in New York? Maybe they take it for granted. No, the lens explained it to me. After the first two or three months, you're playing to tourists anyway in New York. And so when I toured, for instance, when I went to Istanbul and I saw the belly dancers, I never realized they were an artistic, beautiful thing. I wouldn't stand up and cheer. I just wanted to say, bravo. This is the most beautiful thing since an art gallery, you know? And I wouldn't stand up, but I thought, well, now wait, I'm in Istanbul. I will wait and find out what the more A's are in Istanbul. And by the time we all finished waiting, it was over.

Well, that's what tourists do in New York. I didn't know that. Yes. After the first few months, you see the audience reaction is waiting to see what what do they do in New York. That's so. Do you find out what they're doing? So, but when we're in their hometown, they stand up and cheer. Oh. Have you found out? Because they knew there were, I knew in San Francisco, as I was growing up, I'll stand up and cheer if I wonder. This is my hometown. I knew exactly what we do in San Francisco. What do you think? Have you had that experience with other shows in New York after the first couple of months that they're all afraid of? They're afraid. Oh. That's what I found, and they come back and hug me and follow me and say, oh, I loved it. And I think, well, how interesting. Why didn't you show it? Why didn't you respond? They do respond, but not like they do in their own hometown, just as I didn't. I didn't respond in Istanbul, but I certainly would stand up and cheer in my own hometown. The, now that you've been on the road all this like the time, the response doesn't vary.

I mean, there aren't towns that, or you said the, the hallowed alley numbers, the one that they always like, anyway, but are there parts of it that sometimes hold towns, miss? Are there any other places? Oh, yes. I see what you mean, yes. When you're playing, we, in Houston, this marvelous Jesse Jones auditorium, oh dear, they have some beautiful new theaters around the country you should see, gorgeous big theaters, and good acoustics, and good, and they can see everything, and it's just the right, well, this Jesse Jones auditorium in Houston, they decided Dali was sweet, and you and I just spoke of what a wheeler dealer she was, and what a crafty one, and how she knows how to handle so many things that she manipulates everyone's lives, you know, and I have to think of the craftiest people I know when I think of Dali, and yet I have to love them too, and I do. But it should be a manipulite, like someone sitting at the head of the William Morris agent here.

I mean, sometimes I think of Abe Lasfogore, I think of a smartest, wildest people I can to get in Dali, and Dali is an amalgamation of all those people, and people that I love dearly at the same time, if I didn't love them, it wouldn't work. So, but in Houston, Dali is sweet. She is sweet, because that's the standard in the South. But if they love you, you're sweet, and they don't see that side of her. They don't see the wheeler dealer over, and I keep trying to get it through to them, isn't that funny? Like, I want to get through the Dali's and wheel it, no, no, you're sweet, because we love you, and we're so glad to see you, and you're sweet. And then you reach out and embrace the cash register, and then they, they, uh, just think that's very dear, and that's a sweet thing to do to a cash register, you know, just grasping it all. I think it's the way you do it, Carol. I hope you're coming to Boston pretty soon. Oh, I hope so. We're going to, we're making every effort. This is an outrageous thing that you haven't been to Boston. It is outrageous.

And so, Mr. Merrick, I have, I've nagged and nagged on him, because it says the key cities in my contract that I get to tour, so that means I'll be able to come to Boston, and I hope in September, I hope so. After the whole tour is over, I have to make another picture for universal thank goodness after Thoroughly Mountain Milley, which means it must have gone well. And so I'll make two more pictures for Universal and then maybe I can go back to Boston. Good. Well, we'll be always glad to see you there, just as everybody is everywhere else. And hello, Dolly. Or any, any who can help. What a beautiful introduction you gave me, Mr. Norton, especially the part about the critics, because I do feel that. It's true. As I travel, my friends are the critics. I, wherever we go, they're the ones I knew from before. Yeah. And I'm very proud of that. And we're a mean race, but we all love you. Well, I enjoy putting my feet up on the table and just visiting with you, I've always liked that. Thank you. And good night, Carol Channing. Good night, Mr. Norton.

Good night, Mr. Norton. This is NET, the National Educational Television Network. Good night, Mr. Norton.