Loose Lips

DR. CHANNING, I PRESUME?
On Monday June 7, Carol Channing will be right back where she belongs — here in New York, receiving the York Theatre Company’s annual Oscar Hammerstein Award. The great star of Hello, Dolly! and Gentleman Prefer Blondes will be musically saluted by Kristin Chenoweth, Debra Monk, and the cast of Avenue Q, among others; she will also be surrounded by a bevy of her famous friends and admirers. “I am so looking forward it to it!” Channing gushes. “My whole gang will be there: Barbara Walters, Liz Smith, Gene Shalit, Marge Champion, Arlene Dahl, and Elizabeth Coleman, who is the president of Bennington College [where Channing graduated].”

While in town, Channing hopes to catch two current shows that have a lot of resonance for her. The first is Wonderful Town: Channing replaced star Rosalind Russell in the original Broaday production and also later did the musical in Chicago. “The least likely person to do that show was me,” she says. “It was the biggest challenge of my career to play this woman who could really only express herself on the printed page. But I also got the best reviews of my career, especially from Claudia Cassidy in Chicago, who was probably the meanest critic there ever was! I am sure Donna Murphy is wonderful. I’m calling for my tickets right after we hang up.”

Then there’s Thoroughly Modern Millie. Channing co-starred in the 1967 film version as heiress Muzzy Von Hossmere, a part that earned her an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe Award. (Her old pal Leslie Uggams is now playing the role at the Marquis.) According to Channing, she owes her success in the part to the film’s leading lady, Julie Andrews: “The film was a bit of an adjustment for me. I had just come from doing the first national tour of Hello, Dolly! in a 7,500-seat theater in Oklahoma City and I was having trouble doing my close-ups. I was supposed to do my big scene, a monologue, with Julie’s stand-in; it was Julie’s first day off in a long time. All of a sudden, Julie came in, sat down in her jeans, and listened to me and guided me through that scene. I told her later that it wouldn’t have been filmed that way if I had to talk to her stand-in and she said ‘I know, that’s why I came in.’ She is a true star.”

Channing first learned about star quality from Eve Arden, whom she understudied in the 1941 Cole Porter musical Let’s Face It. As fate would have it, Channing would take the stage in that show only once. “Eve had a terrible cold and she let me go on for a Wednesday matinee,” she recalls. “She was darling to me; she even gave me a big bottle of perfume from Bergdorf Goodman with a note that said, ‘To an understudy who really studied.'” Channing remembers that the orchestra leader decided to speed up the tempo for her part (the slow part) of “Let’s Not Talk About Love,” a patter duet between her and Danny Kaye. But Kaye’s wife, Sylvia Fine, didn’t like it. “I got fired the next day,” Channing says. “I didn’t know Sylvia had been at the matinee. I didn’t realize it would aggravate her so much. I thought Danny would enjoy having a partner; in fact, it didn’t bother him. But in retrospect I don’t blame her. It would be like having someone else come down that red stairway when I was on.”

Still active at 83, Channing has put together a one-woman show, now titled The Carol Channing Experience: The First Eighty Years are the Hardest. “This is the show I’ve always wanted to do,” she tells me. “I’ve always been a revue-type performer and I love being able to jump from one character to another, but it’s also the first time I’m playing myself — and that’s just heaven.”

Last month marked two big milestones for Channing: She earned an honorary doctorate from California State University and she celebrated her first wedding anniversary with her fourth husband, Harry Kullijian, who was her junior high school sweetheart: “We went to a local senior center, which we like to do when we have something to celebrate. Harry played the organ and I sang. They didn’t know we were coming but they were having brownies, so they put a candle on one and sang to us. They’re the cutest people! I can’t wait until I’m 90 because Harry has the strangest attraction to women over 90. And they all love him, too.”

A GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY
If you don’t get the chance to see Dr. Channing in person on June 7, you have the opportunity to see her on screen next week: She’s one of more than 50 theater luminaries who share their reminiscences of the Great White Way in Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There, an award-winning documentary by filmmaker Rick McKay. A big hit on the festival circuit, the film is having its star-studded gala New York premiere on June 7 before opening commercially at the Angelika on June 11. (It will also open that day at the Sunset Five Theaters in Los Angeles.)

For this years-in-the-making labor of love, McKay literally traveled all over the world to interview everyone from Edie Adams to Karen Ziemba — not to mention the reclusive Maureen Stapleton, the ever-outspoken Elizabeth Ashley, the legendary composers Stephen Sondheim and Jerry Herman, and both Rosemary and Julie Harris. “If Broadway is your thing, you really have to see this movie,” says Albert M. Tapper, the film’s producer and a noted composer and playwright. (His new play Bettinger’s Luggage gets a staged reading June 10-12 at The WorkShop Theater on West 36th Street.) “I was really impressed with the people Rick got to speak with.”

JERRY RIGGED
Is Jerry Mitchell the hardest working man in show business? Unquestionably, the past few weeks have been a whirlwind for the renowned choreographer. He’s been helping cast two of the season’s most anticipated musicals: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which begins September 22 at the Old Globe with John Lithgow, Norbert Leo Butz, Joanna Gleason, and new mom Sherie René Scott heading the cast; and the revival of La Cage aux Folles, which opens in November at the Palace. Plus he spent some time aiding new Hairspray stars Michael McKean and Carly Jibson in tackling their Broadway musical debuts. “They’re both just spectacular,” says Mitchell.

In fact, his plate is so full right now that he can’t even direct this year’s installment of Broadway Bares, the strip-down benefit for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS that he created 14 years ago. (Jodi Moccia will be helming the show, which will have two performances on June 20 at Roseland.) But, for a few hours on June 6, Mitchell will have to sit down — inside Radio City Music Hall. That’s because he’s a Tony Award nominee for his choreography of Never Gonna Dance.

“It was a huge step in my growth as a choreographer,” he says, “since it was the first show where my leading man and lady were actually dancers. It was such a great luxury to collaborate with Noah Racey and Nancy Lemenager.” The show ran only 127 total performances at the Broadhurst but it taught Mitchell a valuable lesson: “If I ever direct a musical, I will take it out of town first. Those four or five weeks are so useful in putting the show in front of audience; if you listen to them, they will never lead you astray.”

CONGRATULATIONS ARE IN ORDER…
…to Avenue Q star John Tartaglia for winning the Creative Artist Image Award from the Empire State Pride Agenda and the Human Rights Campaign…to former Aida star Maya Days and her husband, NYPD officer Keith Flannery, on the birth of their son, Boston…to Susan Stroman, Robin Wagner, William Ivey Long, and Peter Kazcorowski for their Dora Award nominations for the Toronto production of The Producers…to Roundabout Theatre Company subscribers for getting the opportunity to see the always brilliant Julie White in Steven Dietz‘s “Fiction,” beginning June 30 at the Laura Pels.