Stockard Channing

Stockard Channing, born Susan Antonia Williams Stockard on February 13, 1944, in Manhattan, New York, is an American actress whose career spans stage, film, and television. She grew up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the daughter of Mary Alice, who came from a Brooklyn Irish American Roman Catholic family, and Lester Napier Stockard, a shipping businessman who died in 1960. Her elder sister, Lesly Stockard Smith, served as mayor of Palm Beach, Florida. Channing attended the Chapin School in New York City before enrolling at the Madeira School, a boarding school for girls in McLean, Virginia. She went on to study history and literature at Radcliffe College of Harvard University, graduating summa cum laude in 1965, and subsequently trained as an actress at HB Studio in New York City.

Channing began her professional acting career with the experimental Theatre Company of Boston, appearing in the group's Off-Broadway 1969 production of Elaine May's Adaptation/Next. She 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. Her Broadway debut came in 1971 with Two Gentlemen of Verona — The Musical, a production that brought her into collaboration with playwright John Guare. Two years later, she appeared on Broadway in a supporting role in No Hard Feelings at the Martin Beck Theatre.

Her television debut came on Sesame Street, and her first leading television role was in the 1973 TV movie The Girl Most Likely To..., a black comedy written by Joan Rivers. During the mid-1970s, she moved into feature films, co-starring with Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson in Mike Nichols' The Fortune (1975). Additional film credits from that period include the disaster film spoof The Big Bus (1976), Jerry Schatzberg's Sweet Revenge (1976), and the Neil Simon film The Cheap Detective (1978). In 1977, at age 33, Channing was cast as high school teenager Betty Rizzo in Grease, released in 1978, a performance that earned her the People's Choice Award for Favorite Motion Picture Supporting Actress. She also portrayed real-life deaf stuntwoman Kitty O'Neil in the 1979 TV movie Silent Victory: The Kitty O'Neil Story.

After starring in two short-lived CBS sitcoms, Just Friends and The Stockard Channing Show, in 1979 and 1980, Channing returned more fully to the stage. She played the female lead in the Broadway production of They're Playing Our Song from 1980 to 1981. In 1981, she took on the role of Sheila in Peter Nichols' A Day in the Death of Joe Egg at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven. She reprised the role in the Roundabout Theater Company production, which moved from Off-Broadway in January 1985 to Broadway in March 1985, earning her the 1985 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. She continued her stage work with further collaborations with John Guare, receiving Tony Award nominations for The House of Blue Leaves (1986) and Six Degrees of Separation (1990). For Six Degrees of Separation, she also won an Obie Award. Her Off-Broadway performance in Alan Ayckbourn's Woman in Mind, which received its American premiere at the Manhattan Theatre Club in February 1988 under the direction of Lynne Meadow, earned her a Drama Desk Award for Best Actress.

Film appearances during the 1980s included Mike Nichols' Heartburn (1986), alongside Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, as well as Without a Trace (1983), The Men's Club (1986), A Time of Destiny (1988), and Staying Together (1989). On television, she received an Emmy nomination for the CBS miniseries Echoes in the Darkness (1987) and won a CableACE Award for the HBO production Tidy Endings (1988), scripted by Harvey Fierstein.

Channing originated the role of Ouisa Kittredge in Six Degrees of Separation both on stage and in the 1993 film adaptation, the latter earning her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Her other film credits include To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995), Up Close & Personal (1996), Practical Magic (1998), and Woody Allen's Anything Else (2003). She made her London theatre debut in 1992 at the Royal Court Theatre in Six Degrees of Separation, which subsequently transferred to the Comedy Theatre in the West End.

On television, Channing joined the cast of the NBC drama The West Wing in 1999, playing First Lady Abbey Bartlet through 2006, a role for which she won an Emmy Award in 2002. That same year she won a second Emmy for The Matthew Shepard Story, and in 2005 she received a Daytime Emmy Award for her work in Jack. She later played the recurring role of Veronica Loy on the CBS drama The Good Wife from 2012 to 2016. Her Broadway career, which extended from 1971 to 2014, also included productions of The Golden Age, The Little Foxes, and other works. Across her career, Channing's accolades include a Tony Award, three Emmy Awards, and an Academy Award nomination.