At the age of 86, Carol Channing has had the good fortune to grow into a larger-than-life self.

She's always been known for her quips, her good-natured refusal to edit her words, her occasional verbal journeys into the world of confabulation. And that voice. An indescribable combination of slurry, theatrically exaggerated, convivial, high-octane tones. The only voice, really, fit to sing "Hello, Dolly." A voice that doesn't always win in a competition of who "does" Carol Channing best (more on that later). Now, though, it's also the voice of an octogenarian who has been there. Where? Everywhere.

On Wednesday, Channing makes a stop at Concord's Capitol Center for the Arts. An Evening With Carol Channing, which benefits the non-profit AIDS Service Organization ACORN, promises an act as full of surprises as Channing herself.

We chatted with Channing by phone from her home in California earlier this week.

Monitor: You've talked a lot over the course of your life about those unexpected moments when - boom! - you get a flash of what you're meant to do. Was delivering newspapers with your mother that first boom! for you?

Channing: Well, my mother asked me to go around with her and restock the stage areas of the theatres with the Christian Science Monitor. And the Curran Theatre I remember - it was in five stages, and I don't know anymore just how little a girl I was, but I remember walking across what I now know was stage three. It was just a dark stage, no show was going on, no rehearsal, but I was aware thinking, "This is hallowed ground here." And what else? The Curran had a huge, metal, heavy door, and when I was that small I tried and I tried and I couldn't open it by myself. But I've been back since and I tell ya, I can open that door now!

Maybe that door was something of a metaphor then?

No. But it was a heavy door, dear. (Laughs.)

Having that special hallowed place - the place you find throughout the arts - it's what pushes you to get through a show when you're too sick to get through a show - and do you know I did 5,000 performances of Hello Dolly! over 30 years and I never missed a show? I suppose I had broken ankles and such along the way. It's passion and it's that work ethic. If you're sick, you reach out to the heavens, and the heavens sing back. You get on that stage. To finish a painting. Even to get a newspaper article written! We all go through hell sometimes.

As a teenager, you were a member of your high school's highly ranked forensic [now better known as debate] team. Later, you attended Bennington College, both avenues not necessarily open to women in the '30s. Was your family especially progressive?

I was focused on the arts so completely and my father, he was an old newspaperman. For me it was always going to be either Reed College in Oregon or Bennington. And I studied with the best. You know what I dislike? Elitist art stuff. People who teach but don't do what they teach. I had working teachers! I had dance teachers who danced, actors who acted. We were in Vermont, so just two hours from Broadway. All the faculty kept their hands in.

You broke out on stage quickly, understudying for Eve Arden and then earning your first acclaim for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and then for the title role as the meddling Dolly in Hello, Dolly! For 65 years, in fact, you've been on stage. Do you still learn something when you go out there each night?

Oh yes! Every time! You have never learned your craft, you know? The point after all, is not that you understand your character. It's that the audience does. That's the happy challenge of it all.

You have been working very hard - fund-raising, talking with legislators - to better fund arts teaching in schools.

I talk to everybody about this! We are all given certain abilities and gifts and there is nothing like arts, expression, to bring out who you are. The discipline of the craft. Oh! I got a great love letter from Governor Schwarzenegger! Oh, well, I should add, it was from his wife too, saying "Bravo, bravo, Carol! Next time you go to the Legislature let me go along!"

At some point in your career, you became a gay icon. Were you aware of that right away? Was it a struggle to adjust?

Well everybody loves the arts, and that love seems to run in that bloodstream. People used to come up to me - very openly - tell me they were gay. At one time, there were seven boys doing me in Vegas! I went to see them with George Burns and he was going "That's you, and that's you, and that's you . . ."

And you once lost a Carol Channing contest?

Yes I did! We did a competition in San Francisco and I came in third! That's not right at all! But some of those boys - they are more feminine than I'll ever be.

Richard Nixon had you on a list of enemy entertainers and critics. Any idea how you got on that list?

Well, I don't think Mr. Nixon cared for my voice very much. But you know, back in 1964 I made an appearance for Mr. Johnson - and I sang [breaks into song] "Hello, Lyndon, yes hello, Lyndon," and it went on, you know, "You have Ladybird by your side." I don't think Mr. Nixon really forgave me for that.

After you mentioned him fondly in a book, your old high school sweetheart Harry Kulligian, got in contact with you. He was widowed and you were divorced. Now you've been married - this is your fourth - since 2003. Is this a twist of fate? Heaven singing to you?

He was my first love. And he wasn't sure if I'd remember him. Men don't understand us ladies. We judge the rest of the world by how they match up to that first love, don't we? He drove to see me and we talked and laughed and caught up on the 70 years we'd missed. We all have a creator, I think, and we are each given a few special people. Love makes us dizzy. If not for love, how would we live?

As fans come and see you in this, your sixth decade on the stage - what do you still carry with you from your first time on stage?

I ran for student body secretary in the fourth grade. I was 7. And I had to speak and didn't know what to say, so you know what I did? I turned into the principal of the school. I did her voice. I made everyone laugh! I made the principal laugh, because she knew I meant absolutely no malice. Then I did the chemistry teacher. He said, "You have given me immortality."

(Carol Channing performs Wednesday, June 27, at 7:30 p.m. at Concord's Capitol Center for the Arts. Tickets are $28-$53. For tickets and information, call 225-1111 or visit ccanh.com.)