BY KEN O’TOOLE of the Tillamook Headlight Herald

MANZANITA — The conversation is awash with names from politics and show business that are as glittering as the breakers far below this sprawling rental house perched at the edge of Neahkahnie Mountain.  Liz Carpenter, Texas legend, former journalist, author, public speaker and former press secretary for Lady Bird Johnson, is vacationing here. At 80, she is moving slowly, leaning heavily on a cane and not straying far from her motorized cart. But it hasn’t kept her from presiding over a revolving salon of houseguests who gather round to sing at the recently borrowed and newly tuned piano, and to eat and laugh and talk. 

Carol Channing is even here, still resting in her room.   She’ll be out later. Yes, the  Hello, Dolly! and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Carol Channing.  But getting back to the talk.   With Carpenter, it comes dressed in her just-folks Texas drawl and strung together with as many drolleries as there are pearls in her grande dame necklace.
 
 

From left to right, Carol Channing, Liz Carpenter and Jay DuBose, a friend from college days.

She’s well practiced in speechmaking, something that, for many, can inspire
icicle stabs of fear. Her latest book, Start with a Laugh, could have been written for these people. On so many occasions, the formula, she says, is simply, to “start with a laugh, put the meat in the middle, and wave the flag at the end.”

It’s important to make sure your audience relates to your message.  In her book, she tells of President Lyndon Johnson, who “was so determined to make his words understood by the people, that once when he came upon a speech draft quoting Aristotle, he turned to the startled writer and said, ‘Aristotle? Those folks don’t know who the hell Aristotle is.’ And he took his pen, crossed out Aristotle and wrote in “as my dear old daddy used to
say.”

A good speaker shouldn’t go on ad nauseam, either. Johnson’s vice president, Hubert Humphrey, was famous for that. Carpenter tells of the reaction of one man in the audience to one of Humphrey’s interminable speeches. “Senator,” he said, “If your watch has stopped, there’s a calendar behind you.”

At her age, Carpenter observes, she finds herself “more and more doing eulogies.” As she put itin her book, “Odd as it may seem, I enjoyed each one of them. Preparing them gave me an opportunity to re-appreciate my own memories and to share my special experiences with others who loved them.”

In fact, it was the somber — and brief — remarks she wrote for Lyndon Johnson just after the assassination of President Kennedy that will be among her most remembered words. Carpenter calls that speech “ the 58 most important words I’ve ever written.”

On Nov. 22, 1963, she was riding in a police car across Dallas to Air Force 1, when “it occurred to me that I was the only writer aboard.” She knew that Johnson would need to make a public statement within the next few hours. “And the words just came.”

She scribbled out on one of Lady Bird Johnson’s autograph cards, “This is a sad time for all people. We have suffered a loss that cannot be weighed. For me, it is a deep, personal tragedy. I know that the world shares the sorrow that Mrs. Kennedy and her family bear. I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help — and God’s.”

It was as though the words had come to her “by a Guiding Hand,” she says.
After the plane touched down at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., newly sworn-in President Johnson delivered those words to the awaiting microphones and cameras and, as she wrote later, “I knew that they were right.”

As we ponder the moment, Carol Channing has made her entrance.

“No, no, please, don’t get up.” she says in that foggy voice resonating from somewhere way down deep that is her trademark just as surely as if she had patented it.  But that’s it for trademarks. There is no platinum wig, no diamond choker, no red gown, no feather boa. Not even a dramatic descent down a staircase. Just a Guess sweatshirt, with pants and sneakers. And no makeup, no false eyelashes, no ruby-red lips. She’s on vacation, after all.

At 78, she’s moved on from the days of endless Broadway theater runs and cross-country tours.  But the blank, wide-eyed look of amazement shines through startlingly out-sized, black-framed glasses. The dancer’s quick step is evident, and her sense of comic timing is undiminished. She may be offstage, but she is still very much “on.”  Well, yes, she has heard all those Carol Channing impersonators (pausing one beat), “but they’re all men with five o’clock SHADOWS.”

Chuckling, Carpenter reminds Channing, “You’re easy because of your distinctive voice.”

“I don’t hear it,” replies a wide-eyed and bemused Channing. “They all sound alike when they do me.”

Still, it’s kind of flattering.

“Robin Williams and Billy Crystal recently did me,” she said in amazement. “I didn’t think people still knew who I was.”

It’s the people who have long known who she is who inspire special fondness.  Carpenter, it turns out, is one of her oldest friends. It goes back to the days when Carpenter’s husband, Les, who died in 1974, was a theater critic for the show business bible, Variety. His “beautiful” review was the beginning of a beautiful friendship that has endured for decades.  The conversation bounces back to timing. It’s just as important in performing as it is in public speaking. Channing and Carpenter weigh the timing techniques of late-night comics Jay Leno and David Letterman, both masters of the dramatic pause, but with different delivery styles, they decide.

Channing recalls the tips on timing she got when she was performing with comedian George Burns, who went “on animal instinct, which is far more accurate than anything you can learn.”

She tells about one comedy routine they did where Burns had coached her on which word to emphasize in order to get the biggest laugh. So, on stage, she pointed out to Burns the three upper and two lower sets of eyelashes she was wearing, and said, “And that’s how I get that natural LOOK.”

Sure enough, Channing says, “The balcony caved in.”

Channing recalls the bit where he would tell her about the large number of martinis he drank and cigars he smoked daily. At that, she would ask, “What does your doctor say.”  In split-second timing, without pausing, Burns would inject, “He’s dead.”

Channing could go on and on about George Burns, and does.

“He was so magnetic. .. so masculine. He came up to my shoulder, but I felt so girlie-girlie next to him.”

At the age of 7, Channing knew “when I heard that first laugh” that she would be a performer, when she was elected secretary of her student body on the strength of her singing and mimicking abilities.  It isn’t just the laughs. Carpenter recalls how she was moved nearly to tears at the point in “Hello, Dolly!” where Channing “is coming down the stairs in that red dress. 

Everybody gets choked up.” There’s just something “about the way you do it.”

Actually, Channing says, it may not have been that at all. “I could be Hitler — it’s the way you stage it.” Carpenter doesn’t believe that for a minute.

The conversation strays far from speechmaking, but it reveals another link between Carpenter and Channing. They both treasure their memories of Lyndon Johnson.  Carpenter, who has known 11 presidents since she first came to Washington, D.C., as a reporter in 1942, when she covered Eleanor Roosevelt’s press conferences, wearing the requisite hat and white gloves.  In her words, “I went to Washington with my journalism degree and my virtue intact, and I still have my journalism degree.”

It is the Democratic presidents she remembers best, though, especially her fellow-Texan, Johnson. As she enjoys telling audiences, “I’ve been a psalm-singing, foot-washing, total-immersion Democrat all my life.”
Johnson, it seems, was quite smitten with Channing. She sang “Hello, Lyndon!” to the tune of “Hello, Dolly!” at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. And as she recalls, “We did the full “Hello, Dolly!” in the East Room at the White House.”

In fact, Johnson just loved to hear Channing’s music while he worked., playing it over and over, Carpenter recalls. She tells Channing that even though she was — and is — a dear friend, “You understand, I got a little tired of your voice.”

Channing, in turn, was charmed by the president. Carpenter says she loved him, of course, but he certainly was no angel. In her recollection, “He could pick you up by the ears (he was infamous for picking up his beagles by the ears) and chew you out. He wanted everything done yesterday.” Then just a while later, he would be asking, “Where’s mah girl?”

The tension of the Vietnam War made for some difficult years in the Johnson White House. No matter what the accomplishment or occasion, “the press always made the (anti-war) demonstrations the lead story,” Carpenter recalls. But she is heartened that with passage of time and release of White House tapes from those years, Johnson’s legacy is being re-evaluated.

As Carpenter and Channing gather at the piano with another of Carpenter’s longtime friends, Texan Jay DuBose, at the keyboard, their voices belt out the version of the legendary “Dolly!” song that Channing performed for Johnson. “Hello, Lyndon. Well, hello, Lyndon...You’re still glowin’, you’re still crowin’...”

As for Liz and Carol, well, they’re still goin’ strong.

(C) 2001  Tillamook Headlight Herald   Reprinted by permission