After all these years, I don’t think there’s ever been a more charismatic or relatable Rizzo than Stockard Channing.
Channing was a great artist and her singing was just fantastic in Grease – but nowadays, the 80-year-old looks almost unrecognizable.
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The first movie I ever saw Stockard Channing in was called The Big Bus and I thought it was hilarious. But back then, I could never imagine that she would go on and have such a remarkable career.
Today, Stockard Channing is best known for her iconic portrayal of Betty Rizzo in Grease, the 1978 American musical romantic comedy film based on the 1971 musical of the same name. Like many before me have pointed out, Channing was by far the best Rizzo out of all that have played the part.
Many probably also recognize Channing from the series The West Wing, where she starred as First Lady Abbey Bartlet. The experienced actress was praised for her instant chemistry with Martin Sheen, who played President Josiah Barlet.
“It just worked,” she told 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 Beth Rizzo
But let’s take a deeper look at the highlight of Channing’s career. Because in the name of honesty, she hasn’t appeared in any major motion picture since Grease, even though she has continued to act in films and on Broadway.
The 13-time Emmy Award nominee and seven-time Tony Award nominee appears to be totally fine with being most remembered for her portrayal of bad girl Beth Rizzo, one of the Pink Ladies in Grease.
But is that really the whole truth?
Back in 1973, Channing had little breakthrough starring in the TV-movie The Girl Most Likely to…, a black comedy about revenge.
“A lot of people talk about the G-word [Grease] and all of that, but back in the day, I had as many people stop me in the street about that one movie. Because it’s about revenge, and people would sit in their living rooms and go, ‘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,” she says.
According to Channing, she has only watched Grease only two times.
“I used to be grumpy about Grease because I thought it was a kids’ movie or something. But now it’s sort of amazing. I’m very proud of it,” she told The Times in 2019.
The Manhattan-born actress was 33 years old when she played Rizzo and playing a high school teenager wasn’t so easy for her.
”I was so much older than she was in life, but I could not think about that so I sort of threw myself back to what I felt when I was her age over, even younger. The complexity of adolescents and hormones and sexuality and all of that other stuff. Seeing that I really was older I think that added to the isolation of Rizzo,” Channing told Broadway World.
Channing, who became interested in acting at an early age, was thrilled when she was offered the role of Rizzo, and her performance made her a top-ranking star in the late 1970s. She earned a People’s Choice Award for Favorite Motion Picture Supporting Actress, but the New York native had difficulty achieving similar success after Grease.
The beloved actress was handed two sitcoms of her own, Stockard Channing in Just Friends (1979) and The Stockard Channing Show (1980), but neither was successful and her career halted.
But with her look of Elizabeth Taylor and air of calm confidence, Channing didn’t give up and she continued to work as an actress, appearing in many highly-praised movies and stage plays. Her latest appearance on the big screen came was in Angry Neighbors, which premiered in 2022.
Otherworldly Revelation – Mexican Authorities Unveil Two Mysterious Beings at Public Hearing
The existence of aliens, which is frequently the subject of conjecture and science fiction, is nevertheless a fascinating subject of discussion. But can the enigmatic findings made public during a recent court in Mexico provide a definitive response to the long-standing query? There’s no denying that the fascinating creatures have captivated the interest and stoked the imagination of people worldwide.
Two unidentified beings were discovered in Peru in 2017.
In reality, the enigmatic bones that were shown before a formal tribunal in Mexico were found many years ago. 2017 saw the discovery of exceptionally well-preserved mummies buried far beneath the sandy Nazca coastal desert in Peru. The area is well-known for its enigmatic enormous earth figures, which are typically credited to native American tribes. However, some believe they could be the creation of extraterrestrials.
A few years later, Mexico hosted its first hearing over the alleged “alien bodies.”
During a congressional session on aliens, Mexican legislators were recently provided with astounding evidence, six years after the unusual finding in Peru. The testimony pointed to the possibility of extraterrestrial life, and Mexican writer and UFO enthusiast Jaime Maussan showed them two objects he claimed to be the bones of non-human animals. On September 12, a momentous occasion occurred that marked Mexico’s first formal discussion on the subject of aliens.
Maussan claimed that these specimens showed no ties to the planet. Two tiny “bodies” with elongated heads and three fingers on each hand were enclosed for exhibition. He claimed that they were around a millennium old, based on a carbon dating analysis that the National Autonomous University of Mexico had carried out.
Despite the interesting appearance of the results, several scientists remain skeptical about their alien origins.
Julieta Fierro, a researcher from the National Autonomous University of Mexico’s Institute of Astronomy, explained that their university had not endorsed the alleged discovery, in contrary to Jaime Maussan’s claims. She stressed that in order to determine whether the calcified bodies in issue could indeed be classified as “non-human,” scientists would need to use more sophisticated technology than X-rays.
Similarly, Jordan Brimm, a professor from Chicago, questions whether the findings are real. It turns out that the self-described ufologist Maussan has made unfounded assertions in the past regarding the existence of aliens.
It remains to be seen whether the mummies are in fact aliens, but one thing is certain: there are still many unanswered questions about our planet. A few months earlier, many people were similarly perplexed by another unexpected occurrence in the sky.
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