Stockard Channing

About Stockard Channing

One of Broadway and Hollywood's perennial and cleverer talents who tends to shine a smart, cynical light on her surroundings, Stockard Channing was born Susan Williams Antonia Stockard on February 13, 1944 in New York City to a Protestant father and a Catholic mother of Irish descent. Her parents were Mary Alice (née English) and well-to-do shipping executive Lester Napier Stockard; the latter died when his daughter was 16 and left her a sizable estate.Channing attended the eminent Chapin School in NYC, then later attended the Madeira School, a girls' boarding school in Virginia. She majored in both literature and history at Radcliffe College, from which she graduated summa cum laude in 1965. In 1964 she married Walter Channing Jr., a businessman whose surname she kept for part of her own stage moniker after their divorce four years later.Interested in acting, she made her stage debut in a production of "The Investigation" at the experimental Theatre Company of Boston in 1966. She went on to play a number of offbeat roles with the company. She eventually migrated to New York where she took her first Broadway bow as a chorus member and understudy in the musical version of 'Two Gentlemen of Verona' in 1971. Two years later she would take over the prime role of Julia in the L.A. national company. Other theater roles during this time included 'Adaptation/Next' (1970) 'Arsenic and Old Lace' (1970), 'Play Strindberg' (1971), and 'No Hard Feelings' (1973).Somewhat plaintive yet magnetic and unique-looking, the dark-haired actress began first appearing in pictures with small parts in the dark comedy The Hospital (1971) and the edgy Barbra Streisand fantasy-drama Up the Sandbox (1972). Taking on the top female lead as an heiress and potential victim of shysters Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty in Mike Nichols' comedy The Fortune (1975), the film, despite its male star power and her Golden Globe nomination, would not become the star-making hit for Channing as initially predicted.While her next two films, (The Big Bus (1976) and Sweet Revenge (1976)), didn't get her to first base with the public either, Channing hit a major home run with the TV-movie The Girl Most Likely to... (1973), a clever black comedy written by Joan Rivers wherein she played a former ugly duckling-turned-beauty (à la plastic surgery) who decides to attract and knock off the men who cruelly cast her aside earlier. Channing found her niche with this smart, sardonic character and it would take her quite far in Hollywood.At age 33(!), Stockard was handed the feisty role of high-school "tough girl" Betty Rizzo in the box-office film version of the hit musical Grease (1978), starring Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta. While long in the tooth for such a role (as were most of the others in the lead cast), she compelled the audience to suspend disbelief in her sly performance, which earned her a People's Choice Award (Favorite Motion Picture Supporting Actress). This blockbuster clinched her place as a top-ranking star contender.Handed two sitcom vehicles of her own within a year on CBS, Stockard Channing in Just Friends (1979) had her playing a newly-separated wife starting life anew in another city (L.A.) while The Stockard Channing Show (1980) starred her as a divorced lady again trying to find herself in L.A. Neither caught on and lasted but a few months. Stalled at a critical juncture in her career, she decided to return to her first love -- the theater. With 'Vanities', 'A...

Movies Appeared in

Video

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The West Wing - Behind Every Good Man is the First Lady

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The Good Wife Season 4 - The Guest Stars (HD)

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