Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Carol Channing's husband passes away at 91

Broadway legend Carol Channing lost her husband, Harry Kullijian, Monday, just before his 92nd birthday.

Kullijian suffered an aneurism at the couple’s home in California. He died after being admitted to Eisenhower Medical Center.

The couple attended San Francisco’s Aptos Middle School together. They married in 2003, seventy years later.  Their's was a true love story that transcended time.

Kullijian, a former councilman from Modesto, had been recently widowed as was Channing. At the suggestion of a mutual friend, he called her for a date. Three months later, they became husband and wife.

“I was so in love with Harry I couldn’t stop hugging him,” Channing wrote in her memoir Just Lucky, I Guess, published in 2002.

Channing, 90, is known for her Broadway role in 'Hello, Dolly!"  Her films include Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), for which she earned an Academy Award nomination.

Kullijian was also a veteran of World War II and the Korean War. He and Channing formed the Channing-Kullijian Foundation, which supports arts education in schools.

As readers of The Randy Report know, I am fortunate to have worked with Carol for over two and a half years during the last revival of "Hello, Dolly!" on Broadway.  I love and adore Carol, and my deepest condolences go out to her and her family at this time.

1 comment:

  1. Oh no! I saw them last year on Regis...they were so lovely

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