Didi Conn

Edith "Didi" Conn, born Edith Bernstein on July 13, 1951, in New York, New York, is an American actress whose career spans film, television, and stage. She grew up with a Conservative Jewish upbringing and began her acting career in the 1960s before achieving wider recognition in the following decade.

Conn rose to prominence in the 1970s through a series of notable screen roles. In 1977 she played Laurie Robinson in You Light Up My Life, with Kasey Cisyk providing the character's singing voice, and that same year supplied the voice of Raggedy Ann in Richard Williams's animated feature Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure. She is perhaps most widely recognized for portraying Frenchy in the 1978 film Grease and its 1982 sequel Grease 2. In January 2016, she made a cameo appearance as Vi in the Fox television special Grease: Live, making her the only actress to appear in all three screen adaptations of the franchise.

Her television work has been equally extensive. She played Helen on The Practice from 1976 to 1977, then took on the recurring role of Denise Stevens Downey on Benson from 1981 to 1984. From 1989 to 1995 she portrayed Stacy Jones on Shining Time Station, a role she revisited in the 2000 feature film Thomas and the Magic Railroad. Conn also appeared as a celebrity guest on numerous game shows, including Match Game, multiple editions of The Pyramid, Whew!, Chain Reaction, and Go.

On Broadway, Conn appeared in three productions spanning more than a decade. She was part of the cast of Lost in Yonkers in 1991, returned to Broadway in 2000 for The Green Bird, and appeared in Say Goodnight, Gracie in 2002. Beyond Broadway, she performed in The Underpants in Hartford, Connecticut in 2014, and starred in Dan Clancy's play Middletown from 2019 to 2021.

In 2019, Conn competed on the eleventh series of the British television program Dancing on Ice. At 67 years old, she was the oldest contestant in the show's history. Partnered with professional skater Łukasz Różycki, she was eliminated in Week 4 after the judges chose to save Saara Aalto and Hamish Gaman in the skate-off.

Conn has been an active advocate for autism awareness. Her adopted son Daniel is autistic, and on November 13, 2008, she was named national celebrity spokesperson for Autism Speaks. Prior to that appointment she had served as a spokesperson for the National Alliance for Autism Research, which subsequently became part of Autism Speaks. She has also performed at benefit events for the Foundation for Educating Children with Autism. On September 27, 2008, she performed alongside composer David Shire and Lynne Wintersteller at a benefit for Barack Obama held in Nyack, New York.

In her personal life, Conn was first married to Frank Conn in 1975; that marriage ended in divorce in 1978. Since 1984 she has been married to composer David Shire.