Pearl Bailey's Version of the Hello, Dolly! Title Song...

I was so fortunate to see Pearl Bailey in HELLO, DOLLY! in a 1975 revival in Los Angeles, and yes, the title number was perfection.

But I remember a rather carping letter to the editor of the Los Angeles Times from a theatergoer who was unimpressed with Miss Bailey. The letter writer complained that DOLLY got lost in what had become 'The Pearl Bailey Show'. Apparently, the letter writer did not approve of Pearl's asides to the audience and felt the show suffered because of it. I'm pleased to report that the rest of the audience did not feel the same way. To steal a line from one critic, who, in reviewing the 1967 production, wrote of Miss Bailey 'The audience would've elected her governor if she'd only have named the state'.

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The night I saw Pearl on Broadway in HELLO DOLLY after the Curtain Call she took off her shoes (which was one of her trademarks) and introduced Bob Hope in the audience and they did a half hour of schtick and songs.
It was Really Terrific!
And yes She brings her own very special flavor to the Title Song.

im re-reading pearl bailey's autobiogrpahy THE RAW PEARL & ive been thinking of scanning a chapter to post here on the board....i'll do it, if anyones interested...

The highlight for me from the Peral Bailey caast recoding is her delivery of the following lines:

"And on those cold and lonely nights, Horace...

You can snuggle up to yo' ole' cash register...

It may be a little lumpy, but it RINGS!!!"

I wasn't aware that there was an official recording of Mary Martin doing it. I checked on Amazon and came up empty...where might I find it?

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I am in love with her version of the song! I cant help but smile when i hear it. she brings me so much joy!

I absolutely adored Pearl in Dolly ... what a fun event. I didn't see her original run, but saw her revival at the Minskoff. In addition to her doing "The Pearl Bailey Show" after the curtain call for about 1/2 hour, the highlight of the performance was after the Hello, Dolly number, the audience went wild, and Pearlie Mae looked out at the audience, and said "You enjoyed that, didn't you? So did I. Let's do it again! But I'm taking my shoes off this time." So she took off her shoes, climbed the red Harmonia Gardens staircase and did the whole number a second time. The audience was ecstatic!

A few years back, a friend of mine lent me a video tape of various Broadway numbers from the Ed Sullivan show and one of them was the entire "Before the Parade Passes By" with Pearl Bailey with the monologue to Horace in it.

And she was so moving, talking about the dried leaf that fell out of her Bible and realizing that she was like that leaf and wanting to rejoin life, that I just and to watch that number several times and be wowed by her performance of that monologue. I never realized what a marvelous actress she was.

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