Carol Channing reveals her father was Black

Jet, Nov 4, 2002

Carol Channing is perhaps one of entertainment's most beloved theatrical legends. Her bubbly personality and lively performances made her the toast of Broadway with starring roles in Hello Dolly! and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

And while her celebrated career in show business has spanned more than five decades, it wasn't until recently, in her autobiography, Just Lucky I Guess, where the 81-year-old performer told the story of the day she learned that she is biracial.

She recalled that she was 16 years old and heading to college when her mother told her that she was "part Negro."

"I'm only telling you this," Channing recalls her mother, Peggy, saying, "because the Darwinian law shows that you could easily have a Black baby."

Her mother continued by explaining Carol's unique look. She told the doe-eyed performer that because of her heritage that was "why my eyes were bigger than hers (I wasn't aware of this) and why I danced with such elasticity and why I had so many of the qualities that made me me."

The revelation didn't bother Channing, who said, "I thought I had the greatest genes in showbiz."

George Channing, Carol's father, was the son of a German American father and a Black mother. While still very young, his mother, who worked as a domestic, moved him and his sister from his birthplace of Augusta, GA, to Providence, RI, where she thought people would never recognize his "full features."

Channing's paternal grandmother didn't raise her father and his sister because she "didn't want anyone to see her around her children" because she was "colored," the performer surmised.

Channing's stunning portrayal of the irresistible Dolly Levi, the title character in Hello Dolly!, won her a Tony award. Her role in the film Thoroughly Modern Millie, now a Broadway musical starring Sheryl Lee Ralph, earned her an Oscar nomination.