Just Lucky I Guess: A Memoir of Sorts »

Carol Channing has been performing for more than fifty years. Her many starring stage roles include Gentlemen Prefer Blondes; Hello, Dolly!; and Lorelei. She appeared in the film Thoroughly Modern Millie, for which she received an Academy Award nomination and won the Golden Globe award. Just Lucky I Guess is her first book. Miss Channing lives in Palm Springs, California. She has no intention of ever retiring.

Well, hello, Dolly!

Carol Channing, one of America's most beloved and enduring theatrical legends, takes on her most challenging role yet: as the author of this funny, ribald, and moving memoir.

Known across the nation for her portrayal of the irresistible Dolly Levi, the title character of the Broadway musical phenomenon, Hello, Dolly!, Carol Channing is perhaps the only living theatrical star whose name brings a smile to the face of people in virtually every city and town across America and Canada, to say nothing of London, Melbourne, and Sydney. Her performance as the droll and leggy Lorelei Lee in the Broadway version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes made her a star and launched a career that has spanned over fifty years and has included a number of Broadway plays, many television appearances, and two movies, including Thoroughly Modern Millie, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. Capping them all, of course, was her Tony award-winning signature performance as the irrepressible Dolly.

Conversational in style, and written entirely by Miss Channing, this star-studded chronicle gives you the feeling that you are sitting down with this fascinating woman and having her delight you with tales from her long and amazing life, both personal and professional. You'll be invited behind the scenes for stories featuring an all-star cast of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Barbra Streisand, Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, Tallulah Bankhead, Gower Champion, Clint Eastwood, Julie Andrews, Marlene Dietrich, David Merrick, Noël Coward, Al Pacino, and Yul Brynner. And you'll learn of the not-so-glamorous times, too, as Miss Channing reveals hertheatrical triumphs, her heritage, and her winning battle with ovarian cancer. Through it all, Carol Channing — the real star of this story — demonstrates with wit and candor how she kept up her spirits and forged fearlessly ahead.

From the first page to its triumphant conclusion — and including many never-before-seen photographs — Just Lucky I Guess is perhaps Miss Carol Channing's most engaging performance yet.

Publishers Weekly

Broadway's original Lorelei Lee and Dolly Levi recounts her charmed life, making her success sound like the perfectly normal outcome for a nearly six-foot-tall girl who used to deliver the Christian Science Monitor to San Francisco back stages. A veritable platter of patter, her memoir is laced with off-the-cuff openings like "Now, do you want to know..." and "Let me tell you..." Famous names are not dropped as much as unavoidably run into as Channing-now 81-charts the events of her life, such as the process of mounting Gentlemen Prefer Blondes with composer Jule Styne, lyricist Leo Robin, writer Anita Loos, actress Tallulah "Talloo" Bankhead, composer Richard Rodgers and, as consultants, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. As much as it is a memoir, Channing's book is also a valediction to her old friends, many of whom, like George Burns and Loretta Young, are gone. As she writes of their qualities, she straightforwardly tells readers what she learned from or enjoyed about them. Louis Armstrong was kind, Jimmy Durante generous and Barbra Streisand admirable, despite having peeved Channing by "kidnapping" her "baby"-the role of Dolly for the movie version of Hello, Dolly! (which flopped, Channing happily adds). The mix of plainness, largesse and purpose doesn't make for the most scintillating memoir (there's not much about her marriages, for example), but that seems true to the persona and perhaps to the person herself. Chatty and colorful, it's like having Channing as the only guest on an afternoon talk show-a big treat for the right person. Photos not seen by PW. Agent, Mel Berger. (Oct. 15) Forecast: A lengthy piece by Liz Smith in the New York Post earlier this summer started the buzz going on this title. It's been picked up by the Stage & Screen Book Club as a main selection, and the InsightOut Book Club has chosen it as an alternate. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.