Carol Channing on Ethel Merman

[Unknown User]

Posted: 7/30/06 at 10:38pm

from Carol Channing's book JUST LUCKY I GUESS

---
Now Doug Cramer , the producer of television's HOTEL and THE LOVE BOAT, wanted to win the TV sweeps that year. In case you dont know what the sweeps are, all the television programs put on one special show to raise the average of their ratings. He asked me to go to Hollywood and do a two-hour special with Ann Miller, Merman, and Della Reese. I went. The driver of the limousine picked me up where I lived in Los Angeles and started driving up to the Beverly Hills Hotel. He explained, "We're going to pick up Miss Merman on the way to the studio." Profound silence from me. I decided, There's only one way out of this, I'll be dilligently learning my lines, squeezed into the back corner.
Well, out came Ethel! Into the bright California sunrise. She looked oddly like Harry Langdon, the silent film star. Her famous beaded eyelashes were coagulated after she'd slept on them, so that they made one straight, black, perpendicular spike, like the circus clowns wear from the center of their upper eyelids to the center below the lowers.
She got in the backseat with me and yelled, "Hi, Carol!"
Oh good, she's talking to me.
Ethel: I had the strangest airplane trip out here. A passenger was bleeding from the rectum.
Now that's the first thing she'd said to me since 1964. Why was she so chatty when I was invisible for so long? Later, Mary Martin told me Ethel had that tumor in her brain and nobody knew how long it had been growing. I told Mary I thought it must have been ever since GIRL CRAZY, since Ethel was never any different that I knew of.
Anyway, I repeated, "A passenger was bleeding from the rectum?"
Ethel: Yeah.
Naturally, I said what you would have said, "How did you know?"
"Well," she said, "there was no doctor on the plane, but I'm a nurse. What the hell are yuh laughin' at? I'm a good nurse. I volunteered to serve at Roosevelt Hospital for every Thursday!"
Now I ask you, if you were strung up in Roosevelt Hospital, wouldnt you dread Thursdays? I mean, this woman walks into your room with her little white nurse's band above her forehead and screams, "Ah'm your nurse! Roll over!" Wouldnt you? Dread Thursdays?

---

[jimnysf]

Posted: 7/30/06 at 11:15pm

LOL! So why didn't Merman speak to her from 1964 until that cab ride? Was it related to "Dolly"?

Also, segments from that "Love Boat" episode can be found on that website that dare not speak it's name.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 7/30/06 at 11:28pm

In her stage show, Carol completes the story. She tells how Ethel went into the cockpit where the sick passenger was taken. After some time she emerged and came back to her seat saying it was a case of "diverticulosis". Carol then corrected, cautiously explaining that she had people in her family with medical backgrounds and she had never heard of "diverticulosis". She asked whether Ethel might have meant "diverticulitis" and Ethel responded, "No, it's 'diverticulosis'--the plural."

[vbplayer]

Posted: 7/31/06 at 9:33am

....this thread title gave me a visual that I really don't want.

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/31/06 at 10:17am

Dollypop--Why wouldn't they have been speaking since 1964?

I always heard that "Hello, Dolly!" was written with Merman in mind, but she turned it down (I think for scheduling reasons?) and the part went to Channing. So, why wouldn't Merman speak to Channing ever since Dolly's opening year? Is there more to it than that?

(I just KNOW Loretta Swit is involved in this story somewhere. )

...And Merman ended up playing Dolly at the end of the run, so why the bad blood? Did Channing crap in her coffee or something?

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/31/06 at 10:19am

"Corn? I don't remember eating corn."

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/31/06 at 10:22am

LOL!

Ethel: What the hell is CORN doing in my coffee???

[PalJoey]

Posted: 7/31/06 at 10:24am

I believe the exact quote is "Corn? When did I eat corn?"

It was told to me by a dancer who SWORE he was backstage at the performance when the sound man left Carol's body mike on during intermission.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 7/31/06 at 10:33am

oh please tell me this "corn" story!!!!!

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/31/06 at 10:39am

PJ pretty much just did.

Carol's mic was left on, during a bathroom break... and she allegedly made this infamous comment about her own efforts in the john.

EDIT: "This Maxwell House Moment was brought to you by Scratch-N-Sniff."

Updated On: 7/31/06 at 10:39 AM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 7/31/06 at 11:05am

The extended version, which varies from gypsy to gypsy, involves her entire backstage intermission routine, all of which was inadvertently broadcast to every backstage and dressing-room speaker, although not to the audience speakers. She hums to herself and talks about food and the audience, she berates her poor husband, she talks to the dresser, to the stage manager.

Then she announces to Charles that she has to "go to the john," which is usually folllowed by a long pause and then some grunts and groans and finally the "Corn!" line and a flush, all of which is performed in the gypsy's best Carol Channing imitation.

Along with Ethel's "Call me Miss Birds Eye" (or "Miss Frigidaire") and Jerome Robbins falling backwards into the orchestra pit during an abusive notes session, it is the ne plus ultra of 20th-century theater anecdotes.

Updated On: 7/31/06 at 11:05 AM

[Parks]

Posted: 7/31/06 at 11:16am

I'm actually laughing out loud--I had never heard that story before. That's f***ing hillarious!...and disturbing.

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 7/31/06 at 11:19am

I heard that story ages ago when I lived in NYC, but I honestly can't remember who told it to me.

[Bobby457]

Posted: 7/31/06 at 12:30pm

The corn story is an Urban Legand

[Bobby457]

Posted: 7/31/06 at 12:31pm

altho the story below is not a legend. Carol told me that story herself!

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 7/31/06 at 12:37pm

I have two problems believing the first story in this post (not the corn legend). First, why would the sick passenger be taken to the cockpit, and secondly, and more crucial, who the fvck is Carol Channing to comment on ANYONE'S make-up? Clown, indeed!

[vbplayer]

Posted: 7/31/06 at 1:27pm

Well, Corney the Clown would fit I guess.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 7/31/06 at 1:37pm

If Bobby says it, it's from the horse's mouth.

[Kringas]

Posted: 7/31/06 at 1:58pm

Any who who is remotely connected to the theatre knows someone who knew someone who swears the Carol Channing corn story happened. She must eat a lot of corn.

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 7/31/06 at 3:32pm

The funny thing is, the corn story was an urban legend of a former counselor at my church's youth camp, too. I think it's just something that jumps genres.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 7/31/06 at 3:36pm

I've learned to take much of what Carol says with a grain of corn. At 85 she's entitled to get her facts mixed up. Still, when she tells these tales, they're very entertaining.

[fflagg]

Posted: 7/31/06 at 4:16pm

Love Ethel!

Hate Carol.

[BSoBW2]

Posted: 7/31/06 at 4:19pm

Well one day it will get so messed up in Carol's mind that Ethel will have saved someone leaking corn from his anus.

[fflagg]

Posted: 7/31/06 at 4:20pm

I bet Carol likes her corn. . .

[Dollypop]

Posted: 7/31/06 at 4:32pm

Love Carol.

Hate fflagg