Happy Birthday: Stockard Channing

Oh, let me count the ways that I love Stockard Channing, who turns 65 today (how the hell is that possible?). Let's start with 1973's "The Girl Most Likely To," a wickedly dark comedy written by Joan Rivers that starred Channing and Ed Asner. She played a fat, unpopular girl who has a horrid auto accident, then after plastic surgery and sustenance through a straw, turns into a beautiful swan: on a mission to take vengeance on all who were cruel to her. I saw this ABC Movie of the Week as a child—of course not knowing who Stockard Channing was—but when it was shown on cable a decade later, I taped it on VHS. A cult classic.

Then of course there's "Grease," the first movie I was ever mega-obsessed with (damn, she was 33 when cast in 1978). My girlfriend Sarah Sprinkle and I knew every word to that soundtrack.

Jumping ahead to 1993's "Six Degrees of Separation": one of the finest movies I've ever seen (and also own on DVD), thanks to Channing's intense, elegant Oscar-nominated performance. While she also won an Emmy for "The West Wing," I never watched it. Great cast, just never much cared.

I've never met Stockard Channing, though my two one-degrees-of-separation are Olivia-Newton John and Didi Conn. That counts for something, right? Rosalind Russell is the great actress that ever lived. Stockard Channing is the greatest living actress.