45 Facts About Stockard Channing

1.

Stockard Channing was born on Susan Antonia Williams Stockard; February 13,1944 and is an American actress.

2.

Stockard Channing played Betty Rizzo in the film Grease and First Lady Abbey Bartlet in the NBC television series The West Wing.

3.

Stockard Channing originated the role of Ouisa Kittredge in the stage and film versions of Six Degrees of Separation; the 1993 film version earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

4.

Stockard Channing was one of two comic foils of The Number Painter on Sesame Street.

5.

Stockard Channing won a Daytime Emmy Award in 2004 for her role in Jack.

6.

Stockard Channing played the recurring role of Veronica Loy on the CBS drama The Good Wife.

7.

Stockard Channing was born in Manhattan, and she grew up on the Upper East Side.

8.

Stockard Channing was the daughter of Mary Alice, who came from a large Brooklyn Irish Catholic family, and Lester Napier Stockard, who was in the shipping business.

9.

Stockard Channing is an alumna of the Madeira School in McLean, Virginia, a boarding school for girls, which she attended after starting at the Chapin School in New York City.

10.

Stockard Channing received her acting training at HB Studio in New York City.

11.

Stockard Channing performed in a revival of Arsenic and Old Lace directed by Theodore Mann as part of the Circle in the Square at Ford's Theatre program in 1970.

12.

Stockard Channing appeared on Broadway in 1973 in a supporting role in No Hard Feelings at the Martin Beck Theatre.

13.

Stockard Channing made her television debut on Sesame Street in the role of The Number Painter's female victim.

14.

Stockard Channing landed her first leading role in the 1973 television movie The Girl Most Likely To.

15.

Stockard Channing had her cheeks puffed out with cotton and her nose was wadded, too, to make it thick and off-center.

16.

In 1977, at the age of 33, Stockard Channing was cast for the role of high school teenager Betty Rizzo in the hit musical Grease.

17.

When her Hollywood career faltered after these failures, Stockard Channing returned to her theatre roots.

18.

Stockard Channing played the female lead in the Broadway show, They're Playing Our Song.

19.

Stockard Channing then took the part of the mother in the 1981 Long Wharf Theater production of Peter Nichols' A Day in the Death of Joe Egg.

20.

Stockard Channing reprised the role in the Roundabout Theater Company production, first Off-Broadway in January 1985 and then on Broadway in March 1985, and won the 1985 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.

21.

Stockard Channing continued her return to the stage by teaming up again with playwright John Guare.

22.

Stockard Channing received Tony Award nominations for her performances in his plays, The House of Blue Leaves and Six Degrees of Separation, for which she won an Obie Award.

23.

Stockard Channing made her London theatre debut in 1992 at the Royal Court Theatre in John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation, which then transferred for a season at the Comedy Theatre in the West End.

24.

Stockard Channing garnered recognition for her work in television during this time.

25.

Stockard Channing was nominated for an Emmy Award for the CBS miniseries Echoes in the Darkness and won a CableACE Award for the Harvey Fierstein-scripted Tidy Endings.

26.

Stockard Channing reprised her lead role as an Upper East Side matron in the film version of Six Degrees of Separation.

27.

Stockard Channing was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for her performance.

28.

Stockard Channing kept busy with film, television, and stage roles throughout the late 1990s.

29.

Stockard Channing starred in the USA Network film An Unexpected Family in 1996 and its sequel, An Unexpected Life, in 1998.

30.

Stockard Channing 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.

31.

Stockard 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.

32.

In 1999, Stockard Channing took on the role of First Lady Abbey Bartlet in the NBC television series The West Wing.

33.

Stockard Channing was a recurring guest star for the show's first two seasons; she became a regular cast member in 2001.

34.

Stockard Channing won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her work on The West Wing.

35.

Stockard Channing received the 2002 London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress of the Year for her role in the film The Business of Strangers.

36.

Stockard Channing was selected for the second narrator of the Animal Planet hit series Meerkat Manor in 2008, replacing Sean Astin, who did the first three seasons.

37.

In 2005, Stockard Channing starred in Out of Practice with Henry Winkler, receiving an Emmy nomination for her role.

38.

Stockard Channing played the role of Lydia Barnes, ex-wife of Stewart Barnes, and had two sons and a lesbian daughter.

39.

From 2012, Stockard Channing played a recurring role in The Good Wife.

40.

Stockard Channing played the role of the title character's mother, Veronica Loy until the final season in 2016.

41.

Stockard Channing returned to the stage in June 2010, to Dublin's Gaiety Theatre to play Lady Bracknell in Rough Magic Theatre Company's production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.

42.

Stockard Channing appeared in the play Other Desert Cities Off-Broadway at Lincoln Center and then on Broadway, as of October 2011.

43.

Stockard Channing was nominated for the Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Actress in a Play, and the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play for Other Desert Cities.

44.

Stockard Channing has been married and divorced four times; she has no children.

45.

Stockard Channing was in a long term relationship with cinematographer Daniel Gillham from 1990 until his death in 2014.