Petition and Upcoming PSA Support Carol Channing for Kennedy Center Honor

By: Jul. 11, 2013
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By Patricia Gay
The Weston Forum

Carol Channing fans are hoping 2013 will be the year the Broadway legend gets a Kennedy Center Honor for her contribution to American culture in the performing arts.

Richard Skipper, an entertainer, celebrity blogger and MAC award winner, started a petition on change.org asking the Kennedy Center Honors committee to recognize Channing for her lifetime of work and accomplishment.

With more than 1,000 signatures to date, Skipper is arranging for the petition to be hand delivered this week to the Kennedy Center. "It's time. I've known Carol for 20 years. She is loved and respected and truly deserves this award," he said.

Skipper has also filmed a PSA video, which he plans to launch next week, featuring Lee Roy Reams, Marge Champion, and Julie Budd expressing their support for Channing.

While she is most known for her iconic performances as Dolly Levi in Hello, Dolly!, and Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, those were just two of the 10 shows Channing appeared in on Broadway. "Carol epitomizes what Broadway used to be about. Did you know she never missed a performance? She believed that if her fans had saved up their money to see her she needed to be there for them," Skipper said.

Over the span of a long career that started in the 1940's, Channing, 92, has won three Tony Awards (including one for lifetime achievement), as well as the Oscar Hammerstein Award for Lifetime Achievement in Musical Theater. In film, she won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Oscar for Thoroughly Modern Millie. Channing had the honor of giving Clint Eastwood his first onscreen kiss in the film The First Traveling Saleslady. In another first, in 1970 she was the first star to appear in the Super Bowl halftime show.

She has recorded 10 gold albums and appeared in nearly every grand ballroom and concert hall in the country. She has also been a tireless activist for keeping arts education programs in public schools. Channing's career was chronicled by Dori Berinstein in the documentary film Carol Channing: Larger than Life which made its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2011.

For his upcoming book, an oral history that celebrates 50 years of Hello, Dolly!, Skipper conducted 175 interviews, including many people who worked with Channing in Dolly on Broadway and road tours. "Carol employed a lot of people during that time and those I spoke with raved about her unparalleled work ethic and what she brought to the theater. She was a true professional and very much loved," he said.

With the petition being submitted this week, Skipper encourages Carol Channing fans to write to the Kennedy Center directly to make a recommendation.


Carol Channing leads the way at the 1970 Super Bowl halftime show.


Carol Channing on stage.


The many faces of Carol Channing


Actress Carol Channing performs at the opening night of her show 'Razzle Dazzle' held at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian CentreTheatre on July 23, 2004 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)


Carol Channing as Muzzy in Thoroughly Modern Millie



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