RIP Carol Channing, “Just lucky I guess”
Over the years, ‘Just lucky I guess’ has become the standard reply which I give to anyone who suggests I’ve had a great life, or some extra measure of happiness up to now. Ha-ha, if they only knew! I simply can’t imagine how few of these well-wishers would actually realize that I’m paying homage in my little way to the wit of the great Carol Channing, who loved to tell the story of how the big city guy walks into a dive, sees a sleek blond at the bar with an empty glass, and inquires with the standard pick-up line, ‘How does a nice girl like you end up in a dump like this?’ To which she replies ‘Just lucky I guess!’
Carol used this one-liner as the title of her memoir (of sorts) published in 2002. But like anyone of my generation, she came into the picture in the magical early 60s with the advent of Jerry Herman’s musical ‘Hello Dolly!’ with its vast publicity and it’s enormous success. The Original Broadway Cast album was even available in the large ‘Musicals’ section at the Big N in Batavia, NY, and I had to have it. Needless to say for this star-struck kid, it was worshipped and played constantly until you could practically hear the other side. I memorized every song, all the lyrics, and of course still remember them today. Carol brought Dolly to the Auditorium Theater in Rochester, and our Drama Club from Pavilion Central School managed to get through the snow in a school bus and see it live. For me, it was a life-changing event.
Many of my stage directors over the years have discovered that her humor, her timing, and her stylized – and perfectly controlled – body movements have inspired my own stage work endlessly (along with my other comic idols including Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Red Skelton, and Lucille Ball) in comic/sad roles, notably Don Quichotte. On the more serious side, Dolly’s famous ‘Oak Leaf soliloquy’ (video below in the comments) is a touching example of her sincere, pouring-from-the-heart nature.
It’s Carol Channing’s onstage sparkle and generosity that made her lasting legend stick, and if I may only mention one example, it would be her world-famous descent of the staircase at the Harmonia Gardens, coming at the top of the 2nd act of ‘Hello Dolly!’ She’s decked in an outrageous feather-crowned hat and red-sequined red dress. And there are those endless long white gloves, and her 10-foot wide arm reach that has become an unforgettable icon for the play, the show-stopping number that is the centerpiece of Dolly’s success. On Broadway I’ve seen Pearl Bailey as well, I’ve seen Bette Midler too, I’ve even seen Phyliss Diller in the role; they were all terrific, but Carol was the real deal.
An oversized poster of that scene is still on the walls of a certain rehearsal room at the 46th Street Studios in New York City, and many is the winter morning I would roll in at 9 o’clock to warm up with one of those wonderfully battered Steinway grands. Without fail, Carol would simply make me smile and feel right again, ready for another day of the rigors of show business, protected and welcomed into her outreached arms, smiling as only she could do to light up an entire street on the Great White Way.