Photo: Kosboot, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The collection, now accessible to the public, documents the six-decade career of the preeminent actress capturing her work in musicals, theater, and film.
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts is pleased to announce that the Billy Rose Theatre Division has acquired the archive of Carol Channing, the actress, singer, comedian, and dancer. The acquisition continues the Library’s mission to preserve documents of important figures who have advanced theater through the 21st century—Channing’s collection will join other titans of the musical theater worlds, including Dorothy Loudon, Elaine Stritch, and Joel Grey.
This collection consists of working scripts, photographs, and scrapbooks from productions in which Channing appeared, correspondence with actors and public figures, and video and audio recordings of her performances. The material in Channing’s collection significantly extends the Library for the Performing Arts’ research holdings on women in musical theater, and helps document the life and work of this theatrical icon of the 20th century. The collection is housed in 191 boxes, 9 oversize folders, and two tubes.
Carol Channing (1921-2019) began her career on Broadway shortly after World War II, and soon became one of the most distinctive and beloved actors and comedians in theater and, later, in film and television. Although best known for her iconic and Tony-winning portrayal of Dolly in Jerry Herman’s Hello, Dolly!, she is also remembered for her definitive performance of the song “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” in the original cast of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and as Muzzy Van Hossmere in the film Thoroughly Modern Millie.
Channing also was the first celebrity artist to perform during the Super Bowl’s Half Time show in 1970.
From these roles and the public image that she cultivated, Channing became an icon in the drag community and is often imitated in drag performance. Of additional interest to researchers, Channing also celebrated her multi-racial heritage, speaking about her experiences in the 1920s and ‘30s growing up passing as white.
Channing died at age 97 on January 15, 2019.
About The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Located at Lincoln Center, the Library for the Performing Arts has one of the most extensive performing arts collections in the world. The Library is an archive of dance, theatre, music, and recorded sound, and our close to eight million archival items date back to the 11th Century and include Ludwig Beethoven’s hair, Clara Schuman’s nibbled pencils, a 15th-century dance treatise of dance master Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro, Anna Pavlova’s pointe shoes, the original set model for In the Heights, and the archives of many masters, including Bill T. Jones, Hal Prince, Jerome Robbins, Arturo Toscanini, and many more.