In addition to the Broadway role she owned in Hello, Dolly, (brought to the screen by Barbara Streisand), Carol Channing played Lorelei in the Broadway's "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes." (Movie version: Marilyn Monroe.) Here she is doing a number from that musical with Miss Piggy of the Muppets in 1980.
Farewell, Dolly. Variety:
She was an early activist for AIDS awareness, sadly noting that most of the chorus men from the original “Dolly” had died at a young age. She was also an avid supporter of the Actors Fund. When her 2002 autobiography “Just Lucky I Guess” was published, she talked about her parents, including the fact that her paternal grandmother was black. She kept that a secret for most of her career, but said she was proud to finally talk about it, 50 years after her first successes.
Obituaries for her inevitably used the phrase “Broadway legend.”
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