Stockard Channing

February 13, 1944

New York

She has worked regularly in the theatre: that’s where she first did Six Degrees. Her movie debut was a small role in The Hospital (71, Arthur Hiller) and then Up the Sandbox (72, Irvin Kershner). She really attracted attention in a TV movie, The Girl Most Likely To (73, Lee Philips). Its script, by Joan Rivers, described a plain young woman, transformed by cosmetic surgery, but turned into an avenging angel seeking out the men who wronged her. Any Channing fan should hound the airwaves for this one, for it is rare black comedy—maybe it alarmed too many people. Still, it won her the hotly contested role between Beatty and Nicholson in The Fortune (75, Mike Nichols), a Hop that seems to have fallen only on her heath Thereafter, her roles were not nearly as encouraging: The Big Bus (76, James Frawley); Dandy, the All-American Girl (77, Jerry Schatzberg); The Cheap Detective (78, Robert Moore); very funny in Grease (78, Randal Kleiser); as a deaf stuntwoman in Silent Victory: The Kitty O'Neal Story (79, Lou Antonio) for TV. Within the next year, two TV sitcoms were built around her—Stockard Channing in Just Friends and The Stockard Channing Show—that lasted about eight months. Increasingly, she concentrated on theatre, with these trips to film and TV: The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh (79, Gilbert Moses); Safari 3000 (82, Henry Hurwitz); With¬out a Trace (83, Stanley R. Jaffe); Not My Kid (85, Michael Tuchman); Heartburn (86, Nichols); The Men's Chd) (86, Peter Medak); The Boom Upstairs (87, Stuart Margolin); Echoes in the Darkness (87, Glenn Jordan); A Time of Destiny (88, Gregory Nava); Staying Together (89, Lee Grant); Perfect Witness (89, Robert Mandel); Meet the Applegates (91, Michael Lehman); Married to It (93, Hiller); and Bitter Moon (93, Roman Polanski). She continues to work very hard, often on TV where she is the First Lady on The West Wing. She is sometimes cast in emotional family dramas, but her great urge is to be funny and wicked— long may it all last: David's Mother (94, Robert Allan Ackerman); Smoke (95, Wayne Wang); To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (95, Beeban Kidron); The First Wives Club (96, Hugh Wilson); Up Close 6- Personal (96, Jon Avnet); Moll Flanders (96, Pen Densham); An Unexpected Family (96, Larry Elikann); Lily Dale (96, Peter Masterson); Edie 6- Pen (97, Matthew Irmas); warming Paul Newman up in Twilight (97, Robert Benton); The Baby Dance (98, Jane Anderson); Practical Magic (98, Griffin Dunne); Isn't She Great (00, Andrew Bergman); Where the Heart Is (00, Matt Williams); The Business of Strangers (01, Patrick Stettner).

Stockard Channing Edit Profile

actress

Background

Stockard Channing was born on 13 February 1944 in New York, New York, United States.

Education

She was educated at Radcliffe.

Career

She has worked regularly in the theatre: that’s where she first did Six Degrees. Her movie debut was a small role in The Hospital (71, Arthur Hiller) and then Up the Sandbox (72, Irvin Kershner). She really attracted attention in a TV movie, The Girl Most Likely To (73, Lee Philips). Its script, by Joan Rivers, described a plain young woman, transformed by cosmetic surgery, but turned into an avenging angel seeking out the men who wronged her. Any Channing fan should hound the airwaves for this one, for it is rare black comedy—maybe it alarmed too many people.

Still, it won her the hotly contested role between Beatty and Nicholson in The Fortune (75, Mike Nichols), a Hop that seems to have fallen only on her heath Thereafter, her roles were not nearly as encouraging: The Big Bus (76, James Frawley); Dandy, the All-American Girl (77, Jerry Schatzberg); The Cheap Detective (78, Robert Moore); very funny in Grease (78, Randal Kleiser); as a deaf stuntwoman in Silent Victory: The Kitty O'Neal Story (79, Lou Antonio) for TV.

Within the next year, two TV sitcoms were built around her—Stockard Channing in Just Friends and The Stockard Channing Show—that lasted about eight months. Increasingly, she concentrated on theatre, with these trips to film and TV: The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh (79, Gilbert Moses); Safari 3000 (82, Henry Hurwitz); With¬out a Trace (83, Stanley R. Jaffe); Not My Kid (85, Michael Tuchman); Heartburn (86, Nichols); The Men's Chd) (86, Peter Medak); The Boom Upstairs (87, Stuart Margolin); Echoes in the Darkness (87, Glenn Jordan); A Time of Destiny (88, Gregory Nava); Staying Together (89, Lee Grant); Perfect Witness (89, Robert Mandel); Meet the Applegates (91, Michael Lehman); Married to It (93, Hiller); and Bitter Moon (93, Roman Polanski).

She continues to work very hard, often on TV where she is the First Lady on The West Wing. She is sometimes cast in emotional family dramas, but her great urge is to be funny and wicked— long may it all last: David's Mother (94, Robert Allan Ackerman); Smoke (95, Wayne Wang); To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (95, Beeban Kidron); The First Wives Club (96, Hugh Wilson); Up Close 6- Personal (96, Jon Avnet); Moll Flanders (96, Pen Densham); An Unexpected Family (96, Larry Elikann); Lily Dale (96, Peter Masterson); Edie 6- Pen (97, Matthew Irmas); warming Paul Newman up in Twilight (97, Robert Benton); The Baby Dance (98, Jane Anderson); Practical Magic (98, Griffin Dunne); Isn't She Great (00, Andrew Bergman); Where the Heart Is (00, Matt Williams); The Business of Strangers (01, Patrick Stettner).