YOU WON’T BELIEVE HOW ‘GREASE’ STAR STOCKARD CHANNING LOOKS AT 80

After all these years, I don’t think there’s ever been a Rizzo as charming or relatable as Stockard Channing.

Channing was a talented actress, and her singing in *Grease* was amazing. But now, at 80 years old, she looks almost unrecognizable.

The first movie I ever saw Stockard Channing in was called *The Big Bus*, and I thought it was really funny. Back then, I never could have guessed that she would go on to have such an amazing career.

Today, Stockard Channing is best known for playing Betty Rizzo in *Grease*. *Grease* is a 1978 musical romantic comedy film based on a musical from 1971 with the same name. Many people, including me, think Channing was the best Rizzo out of everyone who has ever played the role.

A lot of people also know Channing from the TV show *The West Wing*, where she played First Lady Abbey Bartlet. Her acting was praised, especially her natural chemistry with Martin Sheen, who played President Josiah Bartlet.

“It just worked,” she said in an interview with *Entertainment Weekly* in 2020.

“We had this chemistry from the beginning. I don’t know what it was, but we had it and it didn’t go away. It was a happy accident.”

Starring as Betty Rizzo
Let’s take a closer look at the highlight of Stockard Channing’s career. To be honest, she hasn’t been in any major movies since Grease, even though she has kept acting in films and on Broadway.

Channing, who has been nominated for 13 Emmy Awards and seven Tony Awards, seems completely okay with being best known for playing the “bad girl” Betty Rizzo, one of the Pink Ladies in Grease.

But is that really all there is to her story?

Back in 1973, Channing had a small breakthrough when she starred in the TV movie The Girl Most Likely to…. It was a dark comedy about revenge.

“A lot of people talk about the G-word [Grease] and all of that, but back in the day, I had just as many people stop me on the street because of that one movie,” she said. “Because it’s about revenge, and people would sit in their living rooms and think, ‘Oh, I’m the only person watching this’ or ‘this person understands me.’ I’m not kidding. It was a million years ago, and then it was the highest-rated movie of the week. Revenge always works.”

Channing says she has only watched Grease twice.

“I used to be grumpy about Grease because I thought it was a kids’ movie or something. But now it’s kind of amazing. I’m very proud of it,” she told The Times in 2019.

The actress, who was born in Manhattan, was 33 years old when she played Rizzo, and playing a high school teenager wasn’t easy for her.

Wikipedia Commons

“I was much older than Rizzo in real life, but I couldn’t think about that. I had to imagine what I felt like when I was her age, or even younger. I thought about the complexity of being a teenager, with all the hormones, feelings, and issues around sexuality. Being older helped me show Rizzo’s sense of isolation,” Channing told Broadway World.

Channing, who got interested in acting at a young age, was very excited when she was offered the role of Rizzo. Her performance made her a big star in the late 1970s. She even won a People’s Choice Award for Favorite Motion Picture Supporting Actress. However, the actress from New York found it hard to get the same kind of success after Grease.

Channing was given two of her own sitcoms, Stockard Channing in Just Friends (1979) and The Stockard Channing Show (1980), but neither of them did well, and her career slowed down.

But Channing, with her Elizabeth Taylor-like looks and calm confidence, didn’t give up. She kept acting in many highly-praised movies and stage plays. Her most recent big-screen appearance was in the movie Angry Neighbors, which premiered in 2022.

Stockard Channing in 2011 / Wikipedia Commons / Sean Koo

Moving to London
In recent years, Stockard Channing has been involved in theater productions in London, where she now lives. She used to live in Maine with her partner of 25 years, but she moved to England in 2019.

“Living on my own here during the pandemic, I was sort of going through the same experience as everyone else in the country,” she told The Times.

Keeping a Low Profile
On a personal level, Stockard Channing has kept a low profile. The Grease star, who has always been known for being “reckless” and restless, has no children.

She has been married and divorced four times. Nowadays, she finds comfort in her dog, who has been her constant companion for many years.

Stockard Channing and Plastic Surgery
In recent years, Channing has also gotten attention for her changing appearance. It all started in 2017 when she was interviewed on Lorraine, a British breakfast TV show.

Shutterstock

Here’s the article rewritten in simple language:

### Reactions to Channing’s Appearance

Channing was on the show to talk about her career and the roles she’s played, but many viewers were more focused on how different the *Grease* star looked. Many people were surprised by how much she had changed, leading to lots of talk on Twitter and articles in the tabloids.

“Oh my god, what has Rizzo done to herself?” one viewer wrote, while another said, “Shocked at how Stockard Channing looked on *Lorraine*. Why do they mess with plastic surgeons?”

In an article from the *Daily Mail*, a surgeon suggested that Channing might have used botox. However, others defended Channing. After all, we all get older, and it’s normal for an 80-year-old woman’s appearance to change over time.

To me, Channing still has that “Rizzo” personality – cool and confident! In an interview with *Out* magazine in 2011, she said she does “everything I f—ing can” to stay in shape.

“You get to a certain age, and you start playing a lot of mothers. Maybe if I had children, I’d feel differently, but I really hate being compared to these guys’ memories of their mothers, which, trust me, aren’t so great,” she laughed and added:

“Or maybe they watched a lot of *The Golden Girls*, you know? And while I’m thankful for *The Golden Girls*, they don’t spend time with women my age now, and I’d like to think the world has changed since then.”

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck Have ‘PTSD’ From Their First Romance, but Her ‘This Is Me… Now’ Movie Will Still Spotlight Their Relationship

Jennifer Lopez admits not everyone in her camp initially supported the idea to document her romance with husband Ben Affleck in her upcoming “This Is Me… Now” album and companion film.
“As artists, we have to follow our heart and this is me following my heart and doing something that maybe everybody didn’t think was the best idea, but I had to do it,” Lopez tells me.

Lopez is set to drop “This Is Me… Now,” a new album that marks the 20th anniversary of “This Is Me…Then,” on Feb. 16. The Dave Meyers-directed companion short film will be released at the same time by Amazon MGM Studios.

Sure, Lopez has some worries about putting her and Affleck’s life in the spotlight because “we both have PTSD” caused by the media scrutiny they endured back when they first dated, she said, “but we’re older now. We’re wiser. We also know what’s important, what’s really important in life, and it’s not so much what other people think. It’s about being true to who you are.”

Asked if the film is a scripted feature or doc, Lopez explained, “You have to see it and you’ll have to experience it to understand it. That’s why I call it a ‘musical experience.’ Because there’s music, you can see it, you can hear it and then you’ll get to live it.”

A recent teaser for the film included a clip of Lopez saying, “When I was a little girl, when someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, my answer was always… in love.”

It was almost a year ago when Lopez told me, at the premiere of her rom-com “Shotgun Wedding,” that she would love to act with Affleck again. They infamously co-starred in 2003’s “Gigli,” which bombed both with critics and at the box office. “We talk,” Lopez said at the time. “We love being together and working together so, yeah, you never know.”

Lopez and Affleck initially dated in the early 2000s. Bennifer, as they were often called, came to an end not long after they called off their wedding in 2003. The relationship was rekindled in 2021 before marrying in Las Vegas in 2022.

Lopez and Affleck’s most recent red carpet appearance took place on Dec. 5 in Hollywood when she was honored at Elle’s Women in Hollywood celebration.

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