Carol Channing - Fast Facts

Here's a look at the life of award winning comedienne, actress, and singer Carol Channing. Her most famous stage roles are Lorelei Lee in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and Dolly Gallagher Levi in "Hello, Dolly!"

Personal Birth date: January 31, 1921

Birth place: Seattle, Washington

Birth name: Carol Elaine Channing

Father: George Channing, a newspaper editor

Mother: Adelaide (Glaser) Channing

Marriages: Harry Kullijian (May 10, 2003 - December 26, 2011, his death); Charles Franklin Lowe (September 5, 1956 - August 2, 1999, his death); Alexander Carson (1949 - 1956, divorced); Theodore Naidish (1942 - 1944, divorced)

Children: with Carson, adopted by Lowe: Channing Lowe, 1953

Education: Attended Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont (1938 -1941)

Religion: Christian Scientist

Other Facts She is known for her wide eyes, platinum blonde wigs and speaking with a lisp.

Performed the role of Dolly Levi more than 5,000 times, missing only one performance due to food poisoning.

In her 1998 divorce complaint, she admitted that she and third husband Charles Lowe had only had sex once or twice in 41 years of marriage. The divorce was not yet final when Lowe died in 1999.

Considers her inclusion on Nixon's "Hate List" to be one of her highest honors.

She recovered from uterine cancer diagnosed in the late 1960s.

Timeline: 1941-1946 - Understudy for Eve Arden in "Let's Face It."

1948 - Broadway debut in Marge and Gower Champion production of "Lend an Ear."

1949 - Opens as the lead, Lorelei Lee, in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" on Broadway.

1956 - Nominee, Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for "The Vamp."

1961 - Nominee, Tony Award for Best Actress in a "Musical for Show Girl."

January 16, 1964 - "Hello, Dolly!" opens on Broadway.

May 24, 1964 - "Hello, Dolly!" wins ten Tony Awards including Best Actress in a Musical (Channing) and Best Musical.

1966 - "An Evening with Carol Channing" wins an Emmy for Outstanding Writing Achievement in Variety.

1968 - Winner, Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress for "Thoroughly Modern Millie" (from 1967); nominee, Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for "Thoroughly Modern Millie;" receives a Special Tony Award.

1971 - Named Hasty Pudding Theatricals' Woman of the Year by Harvard University.

1974 - Nominee, Tony Award for Best Actress in a "Musical for Lorelei."

1995 - Receives a Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement.

2002 - Receives the Actors Fund Julie Harris Award for Lifetime Achievement at the sixth annual Tony Awards Party.

2004 - Is awarded an honorary doctorate in entertainment arts by California State University.

October 2005 - Opens a new cabaret act in New York, The First Eighty Years Are the Hardest.

September 13, 2007 - Channing's luggage containing her rhinestone-studded costume from "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" is stolen at an L.A. hotel. The dress is worth at least $150,000 and had been promised to the Smithsonian; it is found the next day.

October 2009 - Releases a CD, "For Heaven's Sake."