Stockard Channing
Born: February 13 1944
Where: New York, New York
Channing didn't go the usual theatrical route of waiting tables...she inherited a pile of money when her father died in 1950.
Raised on Manhattan's posh Upper East Side, she attended the prestigious Chapin School in New York went on to graduate from Radcliffe.
The rebellious actress married at 19 (acquiring her last name) but the union didn't last and she would go on to marry and divorce a further three times.
Joining the experimental Theatre Company of Boston in the mid-60's, she encountered such potent thespians as Tommy Lee Jones, John Lithgow and James Wood.
She got a break working opposite Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson in The Fortune in 1975 but its tepid reception, coupled with disappointments like The Big Bus and Sweet Revenge, made it difficult for her to get auditions.
Stockard's success as the tough-talking Rizzo in the 1978 movie version of Grease (her highest-grossing movie) revived things briefly, but two failed TV series left her down and out.
Advised by her agent to leave Hollywood and focus on theatre, she finally came into her own with a number of highly acclaimed, award-winning stage performances.
Stockard's film career received a major boost in 1993 when she reprised an earlier stage role in the film version of Six Degrees of Separation, snagging a Best Actress Oscar nomination in the process.
Subsequent support roles have included The First Wives Club, Up, Close and Personal, Practical Magic and Other Voices.
The Business of Strangers opposite Julie Niles offered her a richer role although subsequent roles such as Life Or Something Like It hardly tested her talent.
Work in numerous TV dramas such as The West Wing, has garnered the actress some much deserved praise of late and sparked a modest revival.
Recent appearances include the tepid Merchant-Ivory romantic comedy Le Divorce as Kate Hudson and Naomi Watts' mother.
Channing also played a lush in Woody Allen's Anything Else and had a small part Stephen Fry's Bright Young Things.
Recent work includes the romantic comedy Must Love Dogs alongside John Cusack and Diane Lane.
