„It was like an opening night on Broadway, except we didn’t have much time to prepare for that first appearance,“ the late „Hello, Dolly!“ star Carol Channing said of Super Bowl
As Hollywood and Broadway mourn “Hello, Dolly!” star Carol Channing, who died on Tuesday at age 97, some are remembering a very different performance to the ones she is famous for.
Many NFL fans are probably not aware that Channing was the first celebrity performer for a Super Bowl halftime show in 1970 when the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Minnesota Vikings 23-7 in Tulane Stadium in New Orleans.
Despite her many accolades, including a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, Channing wasn’t the main focus of the Super Bowl IV halftime show, with it mostly being centered around the Southern University marching band performing a tribute to Mardi Gras and a reenactment of the 1815 Battle of New Orleans. Channing then took to the field to perform “When the Saints Go Marching In.”
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“It was like an opening night on Broadway, except we didn’t have much time to prepare for that first appearance,” Channing recalled in an interview with the Guardian in 2016.
