R.I.P. Carol Channing: How The ‘Hello, Dolly!’ Star Became The Queen of Broadway
In November 2001, the night before Carol Channing was due to perform alongside Angela Lansbury in a special Auntie Mame/Hello, Dolly! mash-up, conceived by Jerry Herman in an evening dedicated to celebrating his music, Channing fell down a flight of stairs.
Lansbury was going to sing Mame, and Channing Dolly Gallagher Levi, the role she was most famous for, with the two icons swapping between the roles, each serenaded by their own mini-male chorus, as the skit went on.
“It was sold out,” her longtime friend and publicist B. Harlan Boll recalled Tuesday. “She overheard the phone calls between doctors and her management saying that she wouldn't be appearing that night, and she wasn’t having any of it. She had stitches to her temple, a broken arm, and fractured thumb. She still went on the next night, and Harry Winston covered her arm-cast in diamonds. That cast had to have its own security. She couldn't imagine anyone saying, ‘Carol couldn't make it.’”