Carol Channing: “Tommy Tune’s My ‘Son’!”

Above: Carol Channing, Tommy Tune, and others on “The Dean Martin Show”

The Carol Channing news beat has been quiet for a couple weeks, and my heart stopped when someone who didn’t know the difference between Cyd Charisse and Carol told me she had died. But it’s not true—she’s still glowin’, she’s still crowin’, she’s still goin’ strong. And last week she made a special Tony night appearance with leggy Broadway stalwart Tommy Tune. The Los Angeles Daily News was on the scene:

“Did you know that I gave my son – well, he’s known as my son – I gave my spiritual son one of his Tony Awards?” Carol, 87, told me as she held on to Tommy’s arm.

He’s got nine of them, she pointed out.

Gee, where do you put nine Tonys?

“I just moved and I have a mantel in the new place and they link up just exactly right. It just fills it,” Tommy said. “I can’t win any more, otherwise I’d have to move! But I could move.”

Tommy’s many Tonys have come in several different categories, including performing, directing and choreography. And at 69, he’s not through yet.

“I have ideas and I have shows. I got shows I gotta do!” he said dramatically. “I’m directing a new show called `Turn of the Century’ and I hope it will be back on Broadway very soon. We’re trying it out in Chicago in September.”

With the Tony telecast about to begin in a few minutes, I asked Miss Channing about the night that she won her Tony for “Hello, Dolly!” in the mid-1960s.

“When you’re up for an award, you get a case of the willies,” she confessed. “`Dolly’ won for best sets and best orchestration and now they’re not gonna give it to me at the end? You get very nervous about it. You can’t lose or else it will look like everyone else won for the show in spite of me. But I could have lost it, because Barbra Streisand was up at the same time.”

Indeed, Miss Channing beat Streisand, who was nominated that year for “Funny Girl.”

Said Carol: “We don’t mention that whenever she’s anywhere near.”