Channing's Celebration

Image borrowed from Bing

Stockard Channing (born February 13, 1944) is an American stage, film and television actress. She is known for her portrayal of First Lady Abbey Bartlet in the NBC television series The West Wing; for playing Betty Rizzo in the film Grease; and for her role in both the stage and screen versions of Six Degrees of Separation.

After a few small parts in feature films, Channing co-starred with Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson in Mike Nichols' The Fortune (1975). In 1978, at the age of 33, she took on the role of high school teenager Betty Rizzo in the hit musical Grease. Her performance earned her the People's Choice Awards for Favorite Motion Picture Supporting Actress. That year, she also played Peter Falk's secretary in the Neil Simon film The Cheap Detective.

Channing starred in two short-lived sitcoms on CBS in 1979 and 1980: Stockard Channing in Just Friends and The Stockard Channing Show. In both shows, she co-starred with actress Sydney Goldsmith, who played her best friend in both. Her Hollywood career faltered after these failures, so Channing returned to her theatre roots. After a run as the female lead in the Broadway show, They're Playing Our Song (1980–81), she landed the part of the mother in the 1982 New Haven production of Peter Nichols' A Day in the Death of Joe Egg. She reprised the role on Broadway, and won the 1985 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.

Channing continued her successful return to the stage by teaming up again with playwright John Guare. She received Tony Award nominations for her performances in his plays, The House of Blue Leaves (1986) and Six Degrees of Separation (1990) (for which she also won an Obie). Woman in Mind received its American premiere in New York on 17 February 1988 at the Manhattan Theatre Club. The production was directed by Lynne Meadow and the cast included Channing in the role of Susan, for which she won a Drama Desk Award for best actress. Channing also garnered recognition for her work in television during this time. She was nominated for an Emmy for the CBS miniseries Echoes in the Darkness (1987) and won a CableACE Award for the Harvey Fierstein-scripted Tidy Endings (HBO, 1988). Channing also appeared in 1989's Staying Together.

Channing's film career was re-energized in 1993 when she reprised her lead role as an Upper East Side matron in the film version of Six Degrees of Separation. She was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award for her performance. She then made several films in quick succession: To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar and Smoke (both 1995); a cameo appearance in The First Wives Club, Up Close and Personal, and Moll Flanders (all 1996). For Smoke she was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress and for Moll Flanders she was nominated for Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress - Drama.

Channing kept busy with film, television and stage roles throughout the late 1990s.[3] She starred in the USA Network film An Unexpected Family in 1996 and in its sequel, An Unexpected Life, in 1998. She was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award as Best Supporting Female for her performance as one-half of an infertile couple in The Baby Dance (also 1998). On stage, she performed at Lincoln Center in Tom Stoppard's Hapgood (1995) and in the 1997 revival of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes. During this period, Channing voiced Barbara Gordon in the animated series, Batman Beyond, and in one episode of King of the Hill.

Channing was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress three times in the 1990s: in 1991, for Six Degrees of Separation; in 1992, for Four Baboons Adoring the Sun; and in 1999, for The Lion in Winter. n 1999, Channing took on the role of First Lady Abbey Bartlet in the NBC television series The West Wing. She was a recurring guest star for the show's first two seasons; she became a regular cast member in 2001. In the seventh and final season of The West Wing (2005–2006), Channing appeared in only six episodes (including the series finale) because she was co-starring (with Henry Winkler) in the CBS sitcom Out of Practice at the same time. Out of Practice was cancelled by CBS after one season.

I couldn't do it at all. I was never really good at it, but I can't imagine what it can be like as a fortunate person not having to deal with it. I mean, people of all ages, not just my age, 25, 35, all the way down the line.
Stockard Channing

I think that's the phenomenon of our time is that a lot of women keep themselves in good shape but that there's not a lot of accommodation or people out there to connect with and the technology.
Stockard Channing

I think the end of last year when we were aware of that transition was for everyone in their own way kind of bittersweet, but it's also what the show's about, one administration ends and another begins.
Stockard Channing

It would be interesting if this sitcom works, so I could be doing one thing all the time instead of going back and forth between all this different media which I sort of thrive on, I'm a bit of a moving target in that way.
Stockard Channing

It's funny, I had dinner with my dear friend John Spencer last night and I'm not in the first episode, but he's at the beginning of it and he was telling me about it and I thought this sounds very hot because I think this is definitely the last year of West Wing.
Stockard Channing

These things have a life of there own and never existed when I was growing up certainly worrying when one would get made. It's kind of amazing how that one movie kept living through all these years.
Stockard Channing

Well, I mean she's of a certain biological age but she didn't have to go around with fat patches and stuff.
Stockard Channing

You're talking to someone who has been married to various people for the last 40 years of her life. Dating is not really something familiar. I've never really been a dater.
Stockard Channing