Carol Channing

Carol Channing (born on January 31, 1921 in Seattle, Washington) is a American actress whose career was built largely on two roles, Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Dolly Gallagher Levi in Hello Dolly!. She is easi

Carol Channing (born on January 31, 1921 in Seattle, Washington) is a American actress whose career was built largely on two roles, Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Dolly Gallagher Levi in Hello Dolly!. She is easily recognized by her distinctive voice and wide eyes.

She was born an only child in Seattle, Washington. Her father was an editor and moved the family to San Francisco when she was younger. She went to school at Aptos Junior High School, where she met an Armenian American man named Harry Kullijian whom she fell in love with. They lost touch when she went to Lowell High School in San Francisco. Her high I.Q. led her to the most prestigious high school in the American West at that time. When she left home to attend another prestigious school, Bennington College in Vermont, her mother informed her that her father, a journalist who she had believed was born in Rhode Island, was actually a light-skinned man of half German American and half African-American descent, born in Augusta, Georgia, who had passed for white, saying that the only reason she was telling her was so she wouldn't be surprised "if she had a black baby". She kept her heritage secret so she would not be typecast on Broadway and in Hollywood, ultimately revealing it only in her autobiography, Just Lucky I Guess, which was published in 2002, when she was more than 80 years old.