Some sources state that the original production opened out of town under the title Dolly: A Damned Exasperating Woman, but this is incorrect. On Oct. 7, 1963, an article in the New York Times informed readers that "Carol Channing's new musical will be called 'Hello, Dolly!' rather than 'Dolly, A Damned Exasperating Woman.'" This was more than five weeks before the first pre-Broadway performance in Detroit. Detroit programs list the title as Hello, Dolly!
Some sources credit sole authorship of both "Motherhood" and “Elegance” to Bob Merrill. Both Merrill and Jerry Herman, however, are credited with authorship in the United States Copyright Office.
A Broadway revival produced by the Nederlanders has been in development for several years. In December, 2010, Patti LuPone was being courted to star. A Facebook group was even created for those interested in seeing LuPone star in the musical.
In March 2011, however, the production was halted when Jerry Herman was unhappy with director Jack O'Brien's ideas for the production.
John Anthony Gilvey's biography of Gower Champion (Before the Parade Passes By) states that "Come and Be My Butterfly" was cut after the original Dolly, Carol Channing, left the original Broadway production. (Channing's final performance was on August 7, 1965.) This seems to be incorrect. A playbill from July 1965 (when Channing was still in the production) does not list "Come and Be My Butterfly" but does list "The Polka Contest," while a playbill from June 1965 still lists "Come and Be My Butterfly." So the change seems to have been made sometime in June or early July. This aligns with something else that has occasionally been stated — that the change was first tried in the first national company, which opened in April 1965, and then was put into the Broadway production. Some state that the change was first made in the Australian production, which opened in March 1965, and then it was used in the first national company. This may be correct but we have not been able to definitively confirm it.
The playbills we have seen suggest that the change was made in the Broadway production when Charles Nelson Reilly and Eileen Brennan left the show and were replaced by Lawrence Holofcener and Patte Finley, which seems to have been in late June or early July 1965. Carol Channing was still in the show at the time. Playbills from July 1965, with Channing as Dolly (along with Holofcener and Finley), list "The Polka Contest" and do not list "Come and Be My Butterfly."
Hello, Dolly! was originally written with Ethel Merman in mind for the leading role. Jerry Herman wrote songs for the character specifically for Merman's voice and style. But she was not interested in creating another role on Broadway. (The last role she had created in a musical was Rose in Gypsy.) Late in the run of the original Broadway production, Merman went into the show as a replacement, the first time in her career that she had replaced another actress in any production. Two of the songs that Herman had written for her but that had then been cut when Carol Channing was cast ("World Take Me Back" and "Love Look in My Window") were put back into the show for her.
In 1948, Mack David wrote a song "Sunflower," which was popular enough to be recorded by Frank Sinatra, Russ Morgan and others. This brought about a lawsuit as Mr. David claimed the main four-bar theme of 'Hello, Dolly!' was the same as his song. The case was settled out of court, and Mr. David was awarded $250,000. The most recent recorded version of 'Sunflower' that could be traced is by Robert Q. Lewis [Atco 33-212 (M)/SD-33-212 (S)], recorded in 1967. Unlike the original recorded versions and as if to make a tongue-in-cheek comment on the lawsuit, Mr. Lewis ends the last line with "Hello, Sunflower!" The Robert Q. Lewis album is titled I'm Just Wild About Vaudeville.
