Broadway musical icon Carol Channing dies at 97

Carol Channing, an  icon of the stage and screen through the 1960s, has died at the age of 97.

Channing was best known for her starring role in Hello, Dolly! which she played more than 5,000 times on Broadway along with touring revivals in 1978 and 1995.

While starring in Gentleman Prefer Blondes, Channing performed what would become her signature song, Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend.

The three-time Tony winner also won a Golden Globe and got an Oscar nomination for her role in Thoroughly Modern Millie in 1967.

She died of natural causes at her home in Rancho Mirage California.

In a statement on Facebook, Channing’s publicist B Harlan Boll described her as an industry pioneer, legend and icon.

“I admired her before I met her, and have loved her since the day she stepped … or fell rather … into my life. It is so very hard to see the final curtain lower on a woman who has been a daily part of my life for more than a third of it. We supported each other, cried with each other, argued with each other, but always ended up laughing with each other. Saying good-bye is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do, but I know that when I feel those uncontrollable urges to laugh at everything and/or nothing at all, it will be because she is with me, tickling my funny bone.”

Channing was born on Jan. 31, 1921 in Seattle where her father was a newspaper editor.

She decided she wanted to become an entertainer at the age of 7. She credited her father with encouraging her: “He told me you can dedicate your life at 7 or 97. And the people who do that are happier people.”

Her first stage job in a New York revue lasted only two weeks, but a New Yorker magazine critic commented, “You will hear more about a satiric chanteuse named Carol Channing.” She said later: “That was it. I said goodbye to trigonometry, zoology and English literature.”

— With files from The Associated Press