Broadway icon Carol Channing, who starred in hit musicals including "Hello, Dolly!" and "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," has died, her publicist said Tuesday. She was 97 years old.
"It is with extreme heartache, that I have to announce the passing of an original Industry Pioneer, Legend and Icon," her publicist B Harlan Boll said in a statement. "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."
The platinum-blonde actress with a beaming smile lured crowds to Broadway for over five decades since she first dazzled critics in 1949 as gold-digger Lorelei Lee in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes."
She finally broke free of that career-dominating role in 1964, when she starred as the matchmaker in "Hello, Dolly.