Stockard Channing is good at the sharp remark and better at showing what it costs to keep making one. We rate her most when a part allows the effort behind that confidence to show.
Fi1m perspective
Rizzo sounds as though she has to work at being tough when Stockard Channing sings in Grease (1978). Channing lets the strain into her voice without turning the performance into a demand for sympathy. We were moved by that effort to keep sounding confident, because it makes Rizzo’s sharpness feel like something she has to maintain. The film remains a flawed pleasure, with a thin romance and some overemphatic comic playing around her. She gives it someone worth paying attention to between the songs.
After Grease, short-lived television sitcoms were followed by a return to the stage, including A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1985). Six Degrees of Separation (1993) gave her a film lead as Ouisa Kittredge, whom she had already played on stage. In The West Wing (1999–2006), her First Lady Abbey Bartlet went from a recurring role to a regular one. The settings changed, but the intelligent, sharp-tongued women kept coming. Those parts suit her, though films have not always given her enough to do with them.
Her Aunt Frances in Practical Magic (1998) belongs to another familiar category for Channing: the eccentric aunt. Susanne Bier’s Practical Magic 2 (2026) brings her back alongside Dianne Wiest’s Aunt Jet, but their limited time leaves little room for either actor. The sequel is a disappointment, and Channing’s return cannot make its muddled story worth recommending. We wanted more of the aunts, though a larger part for them would still leave a long film in need of a better story.
Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman still make convincing sisters in the sequel; there is effort worth respecting even when the story fails them. For an evening chosen around Channing, though, there is too little of her here. Grease gives her toughness enough room to become affecting, despite the broader comedy around her. Start there, with some patience for the romance and an ear for what her singing reveals.
Biography
Stockard Channing (born Susan Antonia Williams Stockard) is an American actress. She was born on 13 February 1944 in Manhattan, New York City.
Channing originated the role of Ouisa Kittredge in the stage and film versions of Six Degrees of Separation (1993), for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. She played Betty Rizzo in Grease (1978) and First Lady Abbey Bartlet in the television series The West Wing (1999–2006). She won the 1985 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for the Broadway revival of A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, and has received three Emmy Awards.
Her other notable film roles include Practical Magic (1998) as Aunt Frances, The First Wives Club (1996) and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995). She has also appeared in The Good Wife (2012–16) as Veronica Loy.
