Post by Admin on Aug 7, 2003 15:12:28 GMT
Currently watching Season Four on E4? Don't know what happens later on? Don't wanna know? Then don't read this. This article contains SPOILERS
After a long takeoff, Stockard's soaring
By NANCY MILLS
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS
HOLLYWOOD - She became a star as the gum-cracking bad girl Rizzo in "Grease."
We know her as the First Lady in "The West Wing."
Now Stockard Channing plays a more conventional character - a mother flying to
Paris for the first time to rescue her daughter (Naomi Watts) from a bad
marriage - in "Le Divorce," opening tomorrow.
In real life, Channing, 59, a onetime debutante, has been divorced four times,
has no children, lives with TV cameraman Daniel Gillham and travels.
"The West Wing" and her character Abby Bartlet return Sept.24 to chaos both
personal and national. Her daughter has been kidnapped and the President has
temporarily handed power to his arch enemy, the Speaker of the House, played by
John Goodman. Washington is locked down and a fleet is heading to the Persian
Gulf.
New man in charge
And if that's not enough, series creator Aaron Sorkin has turned the show over
to executive producer John Wells.
"John has a tremendous sense of obligation to keep the caliber up," Channing
says. "With other writing voices, the show will be slightly different. It's
like the first year of a new show."
Channing turned to acting after graduating from Radcliffe College in Cambridge,
Mass., in 1965. After 10 years of small parts, she got what she assumed would
be her big break: starring opposite Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty in "The
Fortune."
The film flopped. As she described it, she was hot at 30 and "washed up at 32."
She got another break two years later, with the movie version of "Grease." But
despite box-office success, "[It] didn't do a thing for me," she says.
The stage calls
Two short-lived series on CBS followed - remember "The Stockard Channing Show"?
- and in 1985, she left for Broadway to co-star in "A Day in the Death of Joe
Egg," winning a Tony Award for best actress.
Seven years later, after another slow time in Hollywood, she left again to join
a John Guare Off-Broadway show called "Six Degrees of Separation." It moved to
Broadway, and that ultimately led to a starring role in the film version and a
Best Actress Oscar nomination.
"Although [leaving Hollywood] didn't seem logical, it was one of the best
decisions I ever made," she says.
Next up, Channing has a part in Woody Allen's movie "Anything Else," opening in
September.
"[My] character is a Park Avenue socialite and failed nightclub singer who
moves in with her daughter and her boyfriend [Christina Ricci and Jason Biggs]
and talks about reviving her singing career."
Channing said she found Allen's film "baffling."
"I wasn't allowed to read the script," she says. "I had no idea what Woody
really wanted. With one exception: He could only tell me I was doing something
wrong. He would say, 'NO! THAT'S NOT IT!'
"I thought he was going to fire me, and you know what? That would have been
fine."
Originally published on August 7, 2003
www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/story/107065p-96826c.html
After a long takeoff, Stockard's soaring
By NANCY MILLS
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS
HOLLYWOOD - She became a star as the gum-cracking bad girl Rizzo in "Grease."
We know her as the First Lady in "The West Wing."
Now Stockard Channing plays a more conventional character - a mother flying to
Paris for the first time to rescue her daughter (Naomi Watts) from a bad
marriage - in "Le Divorce," opening tomorrow.
In real life, Channing, 59, a onetime debutante, has been divorced four times,
has no children, lives with TV cameraman Daniel Gillham and travels.
"The West Wing" and her character Abby Bartlet return Sept.24 to chaos both
personal and national. Her daughter has been kidnapped and the President has
temporarily handed power to his arch enemy, the Speaker of the House, played by
John Goodman. Washington is locked down and a fleet is heading to the Persian
Gulf.
New man in charge
And if that's not enough, series creator Aaron Sorkin has turned the show over
to executive producer John Wells.
"John has a tremendous sense of obligation to keep the caliber up," Channing
says. "With other writing voices, the show will be slightly different. It's
like the first year of a new show."
Channing turned to acting after graduating from Radcliffe College in Cambridge,
Mass., in 1965. After 10 years of small parts, she got what she assumed would
be her big break: starring opposite Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty in "The
Fortune."
The film flopped. As she described it, she was hot at 30 and "washed up at 32."
She got another break two years later, with the movie version of "Grease." But
despite box-office success, "[It] didn't do a thing for me," she says.
The stage calls
Two short-lived series on CBS followed - remember "The Stockard Channing Show"?
- and in 1985, she left for Broadway to co-star in "A Day in the Death of Joe
Egg," winning a Tony Award for best actress.
Seven years later, after another slow time in Hollywood, she left again to join
a John Guare Off-Broadway show called "Six Degrees of Separation." It moved to
Broadway, and that ultimately led to a starring role in the film version and a
Best Actress Oscar nomination.
"Although [leaving Hollywood] didn't seem logical, it was one of the best
decisions I ever made," she says.
Next up, Channing has a part in Woody Allen's movie "Anything Else," opening in
September.
"[My] character is a Park Avenue socialite and failed nightclub singer who
moves in with her daughter and her boyfriend [Christina Ricci and Jason Biggs]
and talks about reviving her singing career."
Channing said she found Allen's film "baffling."
"I wasn't allowed to read the script," she says. "I had no idea what Woody
really wanted. With one exception: He could only tell me I was doing something
wrong. He would say, 'NO! THAT'S NOT IT!'
"I thought he was going to fire me, and you know what? That would have been
fine."
Originally published on August 7, 2003
www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/story/107065p-96826c.html