'HELLO DOLLY!', A GREAT MUSICAL OPENS IN BROADWAY

Hello Dolly!

Today, The Grandma has been resting at home. Winter has arrived and the weather is cold and windy.

She has decided to stay at the sofa and watch TV. She has chosen Hello, Dolly! the wonderful film with Barbra Streisand, Walter Matthaus, Michael Crawford and Louis Armstrong. This film is based on the musical that opened on Broadway on a day like today in 1964.

Hello, Dolly! is a 1964 musical with lyrics and music by Jerry Herman and a book by Michael Stewart, based on Thornton Wilder's 1938 farce The Merchant of Yonkers, which Wilder revised and retitled The Matchmaker in 1955. The musical follows the story of Dolly Gallagher Levi, a strong-willed matchmaker, as she travels to Yonkers, New York to find a match for the miserly well-known unmarried half-a-millionaire Horace Vandergelder.

Hello, Dolly! first debuted at the Fisher Theater in Detroit on November 18, 1963, directed and choreographed by Gower Champion and produced by David Merrick, and moved to Broadway in 1964, winning 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical. This set a record which the play held for 37 years.

The show album Hello, Dolly! An Original Cast Recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002. The album reached number one on the Billboard album chart on June 6, 1964, and was replaced the next week by Louis Armstrong's album Hello, Dolly! Louis Armstrong also was featured in the film version of the show, performing a small part of the song Hello, Dolly!.

More information: The Vintage News

The show has become one of the most enduring musical theater hits, with four Broadway revivals and international success. It was also made into the 1969 film Hello Dolly! which won three Academy Awards, and was nominated in four other categories.

The plot of Hello, Dolly! originated in the 1835 English play A Day Well Spent by John Oxenford, which Johann Nestroy adapted into the farce Einen Jux will er sich machen, He Will Go on a Spree or He'll Have Himself a Good Time.

Carol Channing in Hello Dolly!

Thornton Wilder adapted Nestroy's play into his 1938 farcical play The Merchant of Yonkers. That play was a flop, so he revised it and retitled it as The Matchmaker in 1955, expanding the role of Dolly, played by Ruth Gordon.

The Matchmaker became a hit and was much revived and made into a 1958 film starring Shirley Booth. However, the 1891 musical A Trip to Chinatown also features a meddlesome widow who strives to bring romance to several couples and to herself in a big city restaurant.

The role of Dolly Gallagher Levi was originally written for Ethel Merman but she turned it down, as did Mary Martin -although both eventually played it. Merrick then auditioned Nancy Walker, but he hired Carol Channing who created her signature role in Dolly. Director Gower Champion was not the producer's first choice, but Hal Prince and others turned it down, among them Jerome Robbins and Joe Layton.

More information: NPR

Hello, Dolly! had rocky tryouts in Detroit, Michigan and Washington, D.C. After receiving the reviews, the creators made major changes to the script and score, including the addition of the song Before the Parade Passes By.

The show was originally entitled Dolly, A Damned Exasperating Woman, then Call on Dolly, but Merrick changed it upon hearing Louis Armstrong's version of Hello, Dolly!. The show became one of the most iconic Broadway shows of the latter half of the 1960s, running for 2,844 performances, and was the longest-running musical in Broadway history for a time.

The musical, directed and choreographed by Gower Champion and produced by David Merrick, opened on January 16, 1964, at the St. James Theatre and closed on December 27, 1970, after 2,844 performances.

Carol Channing starred as Dolly, with a supporting cast that included David Burns as Horace, Charles Nelson Reilly as Cornelius, Eileen Brennan as Irene, Jerry Dodge as Barnaby, Sondra Lee as Minnie Fay, Alice Playten as Ermengarde, and Igors Gavon as Ambrose.

Although facing competition from Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand, Hello, Dolly! swept the Tony Awards that year, winning awards in ten categories -out of eleven nominations- that tied the musical with the previous record keeper South Pacific record that remained unbroken for 37 years until The Producers won twelve Tonys in 2001.

Carol Channing in Hello Dolly!

After Channing left the show, Merrick employed prominent actresses to play Dolly, including Ginger Rogers, who started on August 9, 1965; Martha Raye, starting on February 27, 1967; Betty Grable, from June 12, 1967 to November 5, 1967; Pearl Bailey in an all-black version starting on November 12, 1967; Phyllis Diller, as of December 26, 1969; and Ethel Merman after having turned down the lead at the show's inception from March 28, 1970 to December 27, 1970. Two songs cut prior to the opening -typical belt style songs World, Take Me Back and Love, Look in My Window- were restored for Merman's run. Thelma Carpenter played Dolly at all matinees during the Pearl Bailey production and subbed more than a hundred times, at one point playing all performances for seven straight weeks.

Bibi Osterwald was the standby for Dolly in the original Broadway production, subbing for all the stars, including Bailey, despite the fact that Osterwald was a blue-eyed blonde. Bailey received a Special Tony Award in 1968.

More information: Playbill I & II

The show received rave reviews, with praise for Carol Channing and particularly Gower Champion. The original production became the longest-running musical and third longest-running show in Broadway history up to that time, surpassing My Fair Lady and then being surpassed in turn by Fiddler on the Roof. The Broadway production of Hello Dolly! grossed $27 million. Hello, Dolly! and Fiddler remained the longest-running Broadway record holders for nearly ten years until Grease surpassed them.

The RCA Victor cast recording of the original Broadway production was released in 1964. It was the number-one album on the Billboard pop albums chart for seven weeks and the top album of the year on the Year-End chart. In 1965, a recording of the original London production was released. In 1967, RCA Victor released a recording of the all-black Broadway replacement cast, featuring Pearl Bailey, who also starred in the unrecorded 1975 revival. The movie soundtrack was released in 1969. On November 15, 1994, the 1994 revival cast recording was released.

The 2017 Broadway Revival cast recording was released on May 12, 2017, featuring the songs now sung by Bette Midler, David Hyde Pierce, Kate Baldwin, and Gavin Creel.

More information: Hello Dolly! On Broadway

It makes me feel good to have so many friends.

Dolly Levi