First things first, I think it only fair if I warn you that this AorA will be biased, in Chez HAL we call her Stockard “The Goddess”. So, with that admission out in the open, I ask you; what not to love about Stockard? She’s in her 60’s, looks amazing, managing to look more desirable than actresses half her age, and she can out-act anyone in the business.

Channing comes from money, lots of it. When her father died, he left the then six year-old with a large estate, ensuring she had the best possible education. She was an excellent student and graduated from Radcliffe College with a degree in history and literature.

She made her debut at the age of 22 with an experimental Theatre Company of Boston’s production of The Investigation. For the next ten years she worked in theatre, on television, had small parts in films, winning a few awards along the way. She was waiting for her big moment. It arrived in 1978 when, at the age of 33, Stockard landed the role of 17 year-old Rizzo in Grease.

It’s Rizzo who brought Stockard to many people’s lives and cemented her as the premier actress to play smart, cynical women with a heart of gold.

After Grease, Channing went straight back to the theatre and won a Tony for her role in Peter Nichols’ A Day in the Death of Joe Egg in 1985. The next year she was nominated gain for The House of Blue Leaves and was nominated for an Emmy for the CBS miniseries Echoes in the Darkness the year after that. In 1989 the winning continued with a CableACE Award for the Harvey Fierstein-scripted Tidy Endings.

When it was decided, in 1993, that there would be a film adaptation of Six Degrees of Seperation, the producers went straight to the woman who had won an Obie in the play; Ms Channing.

She was nominated for both an Oscar and a Golden Globe.
Since then, she’s breezed onto the stage and won more awards than will fit in this piece, then breezed on to television and won awards there too.

Along the way, she played two of the best mammies in TV films. In 2000, she was Janice whose daughter, Jane, is coming to the realisation that she’s a lesbian in The Truth about Jane. (The trailer below is worth watching just for the voice-over man – hilarious! The film’s much better than he makes it out to be.)

Then in 2003, she played heroic Judy Shepard, mother of Matthew Shepard who, in 1998, was so tragically and cruelly murdered for being gay.

In 1999, Channing took the role of Abbey Bartlet, the first Lady in the ridiculously popular and wonderfully written, The West Wing. She was a recurring star for the show’s first two seasons but proved so popular that she became a regular cast member in 2001.

More awards came her way, with an Emmy for The West Wing the same year as an Emmy for The Matthew Shepard Story.

She added another gay-friendly mammy to her list in 2005 with Jack, in which her on-screen son is trying to figure out how his dad could have left the family for a man. She won another Emmy.

She must have an extra shed for all of the awards. Seriously, where does she put them?

In 2001, she was excellent (of course) in the slightly lezbalicious The Business of Strangers in which Julia Stiles is a nutter who tries to seduce her at one stage; our Stockard gives her a lesson in sexiness and acting. The same year, she was the psychiatrist to lesbians Elle MacPherson and Kate Capshaw in A Girl Thing.

Since then, she’s continued to work when she wants, with whom she wants, doing whatever tickles her artistic fancy. Channing is one of those actors who has made a career, and many viewers very happy, by playing support roles; when you see her appear on screen you perk up and think “Oh! I didn’t realise she was in this. It should be good”.

Most recently, Stockard has decided to grace Dublin with her presence and will be uttering some of Oscar Wilde’s bons mots in The Importance of Being Earnest at The Gaeity Theatre where she will be until June 19th. This is your chance to see a goddess in the flesh.

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