Carol Channing, the Broadway legend who grew up in San Francisco, reportedly discussed several unique ideas for returning to her hometown after her death, including being buried in the alley between two of the city’s most famous theaters, the Curran and the Geary.
Whether Channing was serious or joking about such burial plans, city ordinances are certain to make such a final resting place impossible, a show business insider told Page Six. Still, Curran owner Carole Shorenstein Hays reportedly is exploring other options to honor her lifelong friend, who died Jan. 15 at age 97.
One option could be a parade down Geary Street, the source told Page Six.
“Carole wants to give Ms. Channing the greatest send-off in San Francisco history,” the source said. “Don’t be shocked to see a full-scale parade down Geary Street.”
There is precedence for the city honoring the three-time Tony Award winner and Lowell High School graduate in a big way: The city declared Feb. 25, 2002, to be Carol Channing Day, according to ABC7.com.
“It’s so nice to be back home where I belong,” Channing said that day on the steps of City Hall, borrowing some lines from the title song of “Hello Dolly.” The long-running Broadway show, which first premiered in 1964, elevated Channing to national prominence and earned her a Tony Award for playing matchmaker Dolly Gallagher Levi.
But if Channing can’t be buried near the Geary and Curran theaters, she herself offered another idea for what to do with her remains. On Carol Channing Day she said, “I want my ashes spread over the Golden Gate Bridge when I go.”
Channing moved to San Francisco in 1921 when she was 3 months old with her mother, Adelaide, and her father, George, a newspaper editor who became a writer and editor for the Christian Science Monitor.
In a 1992 interview, Carol Channing said that growing up in San Francisco and attending theater productions here when she was young inspired her to want to become a singer and actress.
“I was lucky enough to grow up in San Francisco and it was the best theater town that (theater impresario) Sol Hurok knew, and he brought everybody from all over the world and we schoolchildren got to see them with just 50-cent tickets,” she said.
In another interview, Channing recalled seeing Ethel Waters perform on a San Francisco stage when she was in the fourth grade.
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Channing first made her mark as a performer doing shows at Lowell High. She graduated from the school in 1938.
Channing headed off to university at Bennington College in Vermont when she was 16, about the same time she learned she was biracial, as she revealed in her 2003 autobiography. Her German-American father had been born in Georgia to an African-American mother.
Channing credited her father for encouraging her to pursue a career in show business, saying, “He told me you can dedicate your life at 7 or 97. And the people who do that are happier people.”