The Hello Dolly Appreciation Thread

Its all about Babs!!! She is absolutley Incredible in the role.

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Calling Dollypop! He saw all of the Dolly's. Everyone one.

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I LOVVVVVVED this movie so much as an elementary-middle school kid! Sorry, pop, I loved Streisand and am kinda a young'n to have seen Channing. Though the clip of her from Lost Treasures is amazing - I'm sure she really was definitive. It's SUCH a PRESENCE role, but also takes a great voice. I really wanted my school to do this, but alas, we didn't. As a character actress, I WILL play Ernestina Money some day!

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I played Irene last year, and I had an incredible time! It was so much fun!

We've got elegance, if you ain't got elegance, you can never, ever carry it off...

The middle school near where I live just put it on. Like I just got home from it. For a bunch of 12 and 13 year olds, it was really amazing!

This is absolutely my favorite musical ever. I love everything about it. It's so optimistic. I adore Carol Channing who will always be Dolly to me.

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I was in the audience on the Opening Night of TWHM (Jan 16,1964) I was also at its closing performance. Since then I have been to every opening and closing of the show in New York. All totalled, I saw the original version 47 times and have seen the various revivals and tours about the same.

The great ladies I saw play Dolly Gallagher Levi are: Carol Channing, Ginger Rogers, Martha Raye, Betty Grable, Pearl Bailey, Bibi Osterwald (she went on for Pearl), Phyllis Diller. Ethel Merman. On tour I've seen Mary Martin, Dorothy Lamour and
Eve Arden. I've also seen Jaye P. Morgan and Dorothy Collins do summer stock versions of the show. There is hardly a day that goes by that I don't listen to one of the many recording I have of the score as I drive to work. When I told Jerry Herman this, he openly began to weep.

Yes, it's true, I have a shrine to the show in my home and regard January 16th as a National Holiday. This year friends and I met for a matinee of LA CAGE and dinner.

The newer members of this site may enjoy the interview I did with Carol Channing in honor of the 40th anniversary of the show. It's archived in the "interviews" section and is called "Broadway's Living Doll". Writing it was an act of love for me.

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Updated On: 1/22/05 at 01:45 PM

They made a film of the show?

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Please read Carol Channing's book: JUST LUCKY I GUESS: A MEMIOR OF SORTS.

In that very entertaining tome, TGC (The Goddess Carol) details the backstabbing and subterfuge that That Streisand Woman sank to in order to get cast as Dolly Levi. The end results almost bankrupted 20th Century Fox.

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i guess it's too bad some of us just weren't around (or old enough at the time) to have seen Carol Channing in the original production and it's many revivals since then. it sounds like we really missed out on something.

i have seen the movie and even if it's not one of my favorites I still think the score is great.

"Put On Your Sunday Clothes" is one of my favorites from the score.

I recently saw a stage production of THE MATCHMAKER and it was so frustrating - I kept on hearing the song cues. Dolly says, "I put mhy hand in here, I put my hand in there..." Horace does the whole monologue that leads into "It Takes a Woman". Cornelius tells Barnaby, "Put on your Sunday clothes - we're going to New York City, and we're not coming back until we've each kissed a girl!" Irene declres, "We'll be wearing ribbons down our backs this summer!" The monologues that lead into "Before the Paradwe Passes By" and "It Only Takes a Moment" are there, almost word for word.

By the way, the movie version of THE MATCHMAKER is rather fun. Shirley Booth as Dolly, Paul Ford as Horace, Anthony Perkins as Cornelius, Shirley McLaine as Irene, and Robert Morse as Barnaby. It is a bit odd when they talk directly into the camera, but over all it is quite enjoyable, even without the songs.