48 January 31 • 2019
jn

soul

of blessed memory

(JTA) — Actress Carol Channing, 
who originated the starring role in 
Hello Dolly! on Broadway and won a 
Tony Award for her portrayal of the 
boisterous widow, died Jan. 15, 2019. 
She was 97.
Channing was the daughter of a 
Jewish mother and a Christian father 
and identified as “part Jewish.” 
At 16, she learned that her father 
was multi-racial, with an African-
American mother and a German 
father.
She wrote in her memoir of 
her five-year marriage to her first 
husband, Theodore Naidish, that she 
learned to speak fluent Yiddish from 
his grandfather, Sam Cohen, who 
lived in Brooklyn’
s Brighton Beach.
The Seattle native first became a 
star playing flapper Lorelei Lee in 
the 1949 production of Gentlemen 
Prefer Blondes, where she sang the 
iconic “Diamonds Are a Girl’
s Best 

Friend.”
Channing played Dolly Levi in 
Hello Dolly! winning the Tony in 
1964. She played the role for the 
last time in a 1995 revival. Barbra 
Streisand was Dolly in the 1969 film 
version and Bette Midler also won 
a Tony for her portrayal in the 2017 
Broadway revival.
Channing was recognized with 
a Lifetime Achievement Tony 
Award in 1995 and was inducted 
into the American Theatre Hall 
of Fame in 1981. She made guest 
appearances on many television 
shows including Sesame Street, 
where she performed a parody of 
Hello Dolly called “Hello Sammy,” 
a love song to the Jim Henson 
character Sammy the Snake.
She died of natural causes just 
days before her 98th birthday. 
Channing was married four times 
and had one son. ■

continued from page 47

Carol Channing, the Original Star
of ‘
Hello Dolly!,’
 Dies at 97

Carol Channing

He lent money to his close friend 
Ariel Sharon, the late Israeli prime min-
ister, to buy the Sharon family’
s ranch 
in southern Israel, according to Israel 
National News.
His third wife, Tali Sinai-Riklis, said 
in 2015 that Riklis had donated about 
$190 million throughout his life to 
Israeli charities and pro-Israel causes. 
He also was married to the actress Pia 
Zadora in 1977; they divorced in 1993. 
Riklis had four children in total.
Riklis, in addition to producing the 
1982 film Butterfly starring Zadora, 
financed G.L.O.W.: Gorgeous Ladies of 
Wrestling, a syndicated program fea-
turing women professional wrestlers. 
It was the inspiration for the current 
scripted series GLOW on Netflix, a 
fictionalized account of Riklis’
 creation, 
which ran from 1986 to 1990.
Riklis was born in Istanbul, Turke 
y, 
to parents who were on their way from 
Russia to prestate Israel. He moved 
to the United States in 1947 when he 
was 23 and later became a citizen. He 
moved permanently to Israel about a 
decade ago. ■

WIKIPEDIA

