LGBTQ news and entertainment
When Carol Channing heard that Johnny Depp wants to play her in a film, the 92-year-0ld responded with humor.
Her rep tells RumorFix, “Carol says she would be honored to have Johnny portray her in a bio-pic. The fact that he is a man, doesn’t phase her at all, she can’t recall having ever seen anyone imitate her who didn’t have five o’clock shadow.”
Johnny made the proclamation during a Q&A session at CinemaCon while promoting Lone Ranger.
(source)
A couple of years ago, I reunited with my “Hello, Dolly!” buds from the 1995 revival and we did a number at Gypsy of the Year with Carol Channing. Great, warm, wonderful time.
At that event they sold special “Hello, Dolly!” Christmas tree ornaments – so, of course, I had to have one.
Carol sits on my mantle overseeing all the holiday activity, much like ‘Dolly’ making her magic at the Harmonia Gardens restaurant.
Makes me smile.
Merry, merry everyone.
Dori Berinstein’s fab documentary on the life and career of Carol Channing is airing tonight on SHOWTIME at 6:30EST.
From the SHOWTIME website:”This biographical documentary takes a star-struck look at the life and career of show business legend Carol Channing, whose glittering career includes three Tony® Awards, Golden Globe® and Oscar® nominations, and originating iconic roles in the stage versions of “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and “Hello, Dolly!”
“Carol Channing: Larger Than Life,” the feature-film documentary about the life of Tony-winning Hello, Dolly! star Carol Channing, is released on DVD by Entertainment One today, May 22nd.
Directed by Dori Berinstein (“Show Business: The Road to Broadway”), the new film features interviews with Channing, her late husband Harry Kullijian, Jerry Herman, Lily Tomlin, Margie Champion, Betty Garrett (who has since died), Chita Rivera, Barbara Walters, Tyne Daly, Debbie Reynolds, Phyllis Diller, Loni Anderson, JoAnne Worley, Bruce Vilanch and many more. Running time is 89 minutes plus extras.
The bonus features on the DVD include “Creating Dolly,” Hello, Dolly! opening-night crew stories, “Barbara Walters on Carol” and Joan Crawford’s wedding, among others.
From Playbill: “The story of legendary performer Carol Channing’s life is as colorful as the lipstick on her big, bright smile,” according to production notes. In the film director Berinstein, with co-writer Adam Zucker, capture the “magic and vivacity of the 90-year-old icon — both onstage and off…past and present. The film is both an intimate love story and a rarefied journey inside Broadway’s most glamorous era. It is, above all, a look at an inspiring, incomparable and always entertaining American legend.”
Plus – I’m featured in the film working with Carol and I get to share a story about how caring Carol was with the cast of “Hello, Dolly!”
Check out the DVD today on Amazon.
In my hometown today for a screening of “Carol Channing: Larger Than Life” at the Fort Worth Modern Art Museum.
The Fort Worth Star Telegram gave the film 4 stars and ran a photo of me with Carol on Broadway at “Gypsy of the Year 2010.” Kinda cool for home-town boy.
I’ll be attending the 2pm screening with “Hello, Dolly!” Broadway cast mates Halden Michaels, Ashley Stover and Matthew Sipress. The museum invited us to attend and perhaps do a little “talk back” with the audience about the experience of working with Carol on Broadway.
Plus my friends John and Leslie Bell, Addester Williams and Jaynette Dubrowski Holland will also be attending so this is probably the closest thing to a high school reunion I’ll ever attend 🙂
Looking forward to it. The film is terrific and the audience will be too, so if you’re in Fort Worth this afternoon come by the Modern and take in a little afternoon cinema.
So excited this will be released soon. I’m very privileged to be a part of this wonderful documentary on Carol Channing’s extraordinary life and career.
I was lucky to be appearing on Broadway with Carol at the time the documentary was still filming. The director asked several of us who had appeared with Carol in the last Broadway revival of “Hello, Dolly!” to sit down and speak about our time living and working with this icon of Broadway. I’m very proud to say a story I felt very strongly about – which speaks to Carol’s beautiful character – is included in the film.
If you love Broadway; if you want to understand what it takes to make it in show business; and if you want to see the dedication and love people have for a true star – watch this film.
So proud I’m a part of it (and no, I make no money from the sales) and I love that people will get a sense of this amazing, incredible, great Broadway star.
Click here to order from Amazon. It’s a beautiful testament to a life lived fully.
My dear, wonderful Carol Channing is 91 today! As the New York Times said in it’s review of the last revival of Hello, Dolly! – “Celebrate her!”
Dori Bernstein’s wonderful documentary on the life and career of Carol – “Carol Channing: Larger Than Life” – opens this weekend in NYC at the AMC Empire (42nd and 8th).
The film also opens in San Francisco at the Landmark Opera Plaza Cinema and Landmark Shattuck Cinemas.
The DVD will be out end of April. AND the film will also air on Showtime sometime soon.
Until then, how about a few choice videos of the singular sensation herself?
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| Carol and I on Broadway last year for the Gypsy of the Year fundraiser |
So today is the day the Carol Channing documentary, “Carol Channing: Larger Than Life” is released in many cities across the US. So proud to be a part of this terrific tribute to Carol.
From The Advocate’s HotSheet: Acclaimed documentarian Dori Bernstein focuses her lens on the still-sprightly 90-year-old musical theater great who’s as cherished by fans for her flamboyant personality as for originating iconic roles in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Hello, Dolly!
The director uses Hirschfeld-inspired animation and interviews with an array of Channing’s pals such as Lily Tomlin, Chita Rivera, and even Barbara Walters to offer insight into the star’s colorful life.
Most telling though is an emotional anecdote from backup dancer Randy Slovacek, who shares the gallant words Channing had for Don Ives, another backup dancer determined to perform despite the difficulty brought on by his AIDS-related illness. Larger Than Life ultimately serves as a valentine to Channing’s late-in-life love affair with childhood sweetheart Harry Kullijian (who passed away earlier this month) after a 70-year separation.
For more info about the film and where you can see it, click here.
Broadway legend Carol Channing lost her husband, Harry Kullijian, Monday, just before his 92nd birthday.
Kullijian suffered an aneurism at the couple’s home in California. He died after being admitted to Eisenhower Medical Center.
The couple attended San Francisco’s Aptos Middle School together. They married in 2003, seventy years later. Their’s was a true love story that transcended time.
Kullijian, a former councilman from Modesto, had been recently widowed as was Channing. At the suggestion of a mutual friend, he called her for a date. Three months later, they became husband and wife.
“I was so in love with Harry I couldn’t stop hugging him,” Channing wrote in her memoir Just Lucky, I Guess, published in 2002.
Channing, 90, is known for her Broadway role in ‘Hello, Dolly!” Her films include Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), for which she earned an Academy Award nomination.
Kullijian was also a veteran of World War II and the Korean War. He and Channing formed the Channing-Kullijian Foundation, which supports arts education in schools.
As readers of The Randy Report know, I am fortunate to have worked with Carol for over two and a half years during the last revival of “Hello, Dolly!” on Broadway. I love and adore Carol, and my deepest condolences go out to her and her family at this time.