Sunday, February 13, 2011

Happy Birthday Stockard Channing

In addition to being one of my favourite actresses, Stockard Channing has the dubious honour of being Pop Culture Institute's first Happy Birthday post, which I first made four long years ago today; I'm happy to see its return today because a) it means I've been doing this quite steadily now for four years (yay!), b) it's Stockard Channing's birthday again (double yay!), and c) because I only have to rewrite it, not start from scratch (triple, possibly quadruple, even quintuple yay!).

Photobucket - Video and Image HostingTo me, I guess, she'll always be Betty Rizzo, the tough-but-tender girl thug in Grease, who manages to thrill us with Look At Me, I'm Sandra Dee and break our hearts with There Are Worse Things I Could Do in the space of one hundred and ten camp-filled Fifties-fied minutes.

During her tenure as First Lady Abigail Bartlet in the alternate universe of Aaron Sorkin's The West Wing she helped to sustain Democrats during the recent Bush Fiasc- er, Administration, making her performance not only powerful thespianism but an act of mercy as well.

Shortly after I first made this post, Mr. Gagne left a comment citing her performance in the 1995 film To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar as being his favourite; and of course, she was also a stand-out in the 1993 film Six Degrees of Separation, which was the gist of my reply to him as you can see for yourself in the Comments section below.
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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'll never forget her in Too Wong Foo, Thanks for everything - Julie Newmar as the battered housewife who finds the strenght to fight back through her friendship with an outrageous drag queen portrayed admirable by Patrick Swayze. That was an uplifting moment.

michael sean morris said...

I always forget about her in that one. I guess because they uglied her up. Yeah, she was good in that. "Six Degrees of Separation" too. Hell, she's good in everything, which is why I put her up here.

TheQuestionMan said...

Also one of my favourite actresses. Not my favourite picture of her though.

Well done.

QM

michael sean morris said...

Weirdly, there aren't too many pictures of her out there.

Maestrogirl said...

Damn fine actress - would love to see more of her!