Her Desert Stage

Carol Channing doesn’t live in New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles.

The Broadway legend, who starred in “Hello, Dolly!” and “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” hangs her gowns, instead, in a Rancho Mirage condominium, though she is quick to explain: “This is not a home. It’s a place to write my book.”

Due out in September, the book is her first. Channing, who just turned 81, thought about calling it “The First 80 Years Are the Hardest,” but its title is “Just Lucky, I Guess.”

“The loneliest job in the world is writing a book,” she said of her collection of memoirs about famous people. “I just stay here and write about Yul Brynner, Ethel Merman, the queen of England.”

Drawn from New York to the Southern California desert by a cousin who lives nearby, Channing plans to continue to live in the 700-unit golf course community even after her book is published, she said. So far, however, her condo hasn’t many trappings of a personal residence. The few mementos she has kept over the years are still mostly in storage.

“I bought this place a little less than two years ago for $126,000, furnished, so all I had to do was sit down and write,” she said.

Although the white sofa and walls suited her when she bought the 1,320-square-foot condo, she threw away most of the artificial flowers and rugs but kept some bright-yellow paper sunflowers in the second bedroom, which doubles as an office. “I wanted this place because of the sunflowers,” she said.

The office is used by her secretary. Channing uses the dining room table as a desk. “I write longhand and in pencil, so I can erase,” she said.

In the middle of many papers on the table is a small framed photo of her father. “I keep him with me. He helps me all the time.”

Her father, George Channing, died when she was 34, just before she was to appear in Las Vegas in an act staged by comedian George Burns.

Knowing that her father would want her to go on, she did. And she has been going on with the show ever since.

To keep her 6-foot, slender figure in shape, Channing, a singer and dancer as well as an actress, has a personal trainer who comes to the condo and works with her three mornings a week.

“You should see this place when the sun’s coming up,” she said of the way the early light brightens the greens.

But Channing, an only child who was born in Seattle and raised in San Francisco, doesn’t consider herself a morning person. She often works late.

“I appreciate the security guards here,” she said. “They keep a good eye on me and stop by to see if all is well when I’m working at night.”

The gated, 30-year-old community has swimming pools and tennis courts as well as an 18-hole golf course, which she can see from her bedroom, kitchen, dining area and living room.

Because she is busy, Channing doesn’t golf but is amused by the view.

“The osteoporosis club comes by every morning,” she said. “They’re all men, and they sit in their golf carts and never get out of the sitting position even when they get out of their carts. Then only their feet move.”

One day, when the sliding-glass door of her living room was open, a golf ball shot in with a bang. The room is one of the few places that even hints that Channing lives there. On the walls are some original black-and-white caricatures by the artist Al Hirschfeld. Channing is depicted in most, alongside actress Angela Lansbury and other friends.

Channing’s only child, Channing George Lowe, “grew up under Al Hirschfeld’s tutelage,” she said. Her son is a syndicated political cartoonist in Florida.

The actress was not a first-time buyer when she bought the condo, but she has lived most of her adult life in hotels. “I’ve been touring all my life,” she said. “I never stopped working.”

Besides her Broadway stints, the Tony Award winner toured with Mary Martin in the play “Legends,” starred in TV specials, performed in nightclub acts throughout the U.S., conducted symphony orchestras nationwide as part of her stage act, recorded more than 20 children’s albums and did voice work in such animated films as “Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘Thumbelina’” (1994) and “The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars” (1999).

She also won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Oscar for her role in “Thoroughly Modern Millie” (1967).

Though still working on her book, Channing has a calendar full of appearances. Among them: In April, she’ll be honored as the first star on Manhattan’s Walk of Fame; in June, she’ll receive the Julie Harris Award for Lifetime Achievement, presented by the Actors Fund, and after her book is published, she will open in a stage show now in the works.

But Channing, single since her estranged husband-manager died in 1998 after more than 40 years of marriage, isn’t all work.

Dressed from her neck to the toe of her knee-high, high-heeled boots in red--a color she adores even after wearing it in nearly 5,000 performances of “Hello, Dolly!”--Channing sports a 7-carat diamond.

The ring was a gift in December from Roger Denny, 62, a house contractor and designer whom Channing met after moving to Rancho Mirage.

“He’s a dear friend,” she said. “Yes,” she acknowledged seconds later, “it is a romance.”

Is a wedding in their future? Channing fluttered her trademark eyelashes. Her grin broadened into the wide smile that has distinguished her all of her life.

“A wedding?” she repeated. “Isn’t that for children?”