She’s best known for playing Rizzo in Grease, but now Stockard Channing lives alone in London, recently declaring, ‘I’m happy being a recluse.’ Married and divorced four times over her decades-long career, the actress’s life has been anything but boring or ordinary. Born into a well-to-do family in affluent New York, the star joked she was supposed to be ‘a well?educated, Harvard Business School?type; you know, Mrs. Venture Capitalist’ but instead she found acting. Choosing to follow her passions, her love of showbusiness led to the end of her first marriage and the world she had grown up in. ‘The need to act blew my life apart. It was like I ran off and joined the circus,’ she told US Weekly in 2001. After leaving the world she had been raised in, she said: ‘all my options were open.’She said in an interview in 1979: ‘Once I broke that mould, literally leaving my first marriage, life became extraordinarily different and I went into show business.’I was shot out of a cannon in my early 20s and I said, “Okay, here I am. No ties.” Stockard Channing’s eventful life: How Grease star ‘blew up her life’ and left her first husband and affluent New York background to pursue acting as she reveals is ‘happy being a recluse’ ‘The need to act blew my life apart. It was like I ran off and joined the circus,’ she told US Weekly in 2001 (pictured as Rizzo in Grease in 1978) Born in Manhattan, Stockard’s father Lester, who had a successful shipping business, and mother Mary. Raised in the well-to-do family, the star teased that her family believed that: ‘Your name should appear in the papers only twice in your life – when you’re born and when you die.’ Discussing her upbringing in an interview in 1979, Stockard admitted that her childhood was full of ‘rules and restrictions’ as she reflected on being lonely as a child. She explained: ‘I was raised with a lot of rules. How you dressed, how you sat, how you ate your food. Children are seen but not heard. It was a extremely strict upbringing. ‘It was also one that was like if you don’t behave this way, you’re not going to be liked. You’re not going to be accepted. There was that kind of pressure which I think happens to a lot of kids. ‘I took it very hard. I was that kind of kid, you know. I’m not blaming anybody. It’s just the way I took it. ‘I was raised with an awful lot of rules, which I later learned could be broken, and which was a great relief, you know, that there’s more than one way to do it.’Packed off to boarding school at just 12-years-old, the actress explained that after she made the choice to enter the world of acting, ties with her family and that affluent world were cut. ‘I left home when I was about 12 and after the age of about 17 I sort of left that rather affluent nest. So there’s been a you know a good 10, 15 years which were spent on my own and out there without the umbilical cord of money or whatever.’While her parents travelled for work, Stockard was raised by governesses and this influenced her decision not to have children herself, as she felt she couldn’t give them the attention they deserved. ‘I was raised a lot of governnesses or nurses. My parents would travel and whatever and had a very sort of busy business social life. And it’s not that it was a hardship, but it is sort of a hardship if they [the governesses] leave, you know.’When you’re five or six and there’s a turnover in that human being in your life, we don’t think about that, you know…. I’m aware of the realities of that. ‘I think it’s no point having a kid unless you can find out what life is like through their eyes and experience it with them. Born into a well-to-do family in affluent New York, the star joked she was supposed to be ‘a well?educated, Harvard Business School?type; you know, Mrs. Venture Capitalist’ but instead she found acting (pictured with her mum and partner Daniel in 1993) Following her divorce from Paul in 1976, Stockard married her third husband David Debin that same year (pictured together in 1978) Stockard then wed businessman David Rawle in 1980. The longest of the star’s marriages they were together for eight years before splitting in 1988 (pictured in 1985)’And my time is such now that the quality of my time would probably be very poor for a child. And maybe that’s something I won’t be able to experience in my life.’After leaving home, Stockard married her first husband, a wood sculptor named Walter Channing Jr, in 1963, when she was just 19 years old. The two met in college while Walter was at Harvard and Stockard was at Radcliffe. The pair divorced just four years later, when Stockard made the decision to pursue acting. Walter later died in 2015, aged 74.Stockard explained: ‘There’s no way I could have stayed married as the person I was when I was 19 and 20.’ She added: ‘It wasn’t a horrible disastrous thing. We weren’t sort of doing horrible mean things to each other but there was always a pull for me to go out and do something else. ‘And when I found acting I remember I said something has happened to me. I responded to this process more than I’ve ever responded to anything any experience in my life because it fascinates me.’After her first divorce, Stockard spent a few years enjoying her freedom, she explained: ‘We met in college and I got married out of college and and spent my early 20s sort of the traditional married woman. ‘And when we divorced and I went into the world really very young, I remember the feeling of feeling so out of step and feeling awkward. ‘I didn’t really know how to go out on dates and stuff… I remember feeling old, too. I felt gosh, I’m so old. Everyone in the world is 18. That’s all I could think of.’She added: ‘I had a pretty good time for myself back there in the 60s, middle to late 60s like a lot of people did. ‘I sewed my wild oats, you know, but like a lot of people then I wasn’t thinking about, “oh, I’m not being a nice girl.” I said, “I don’t want to be a nice girl anymore.” I’ve had a good time and I was fairly rebellious, I suppose.’She later tied the knot with a professor and American playwright named Paul Schmidt in 1970 but they divorced after six years together.Paul passed away aged 65 from complications of HIV-Aids. Following her divorce from Paul, Stockard married her third husband David Debin that same year. He was a Hollywood writer and producer and the couple formed a production company, working together on The Stockard Channing Show. The couple divorced in 1980 and David died in 2025. Stockard’s last relationship was with cinematographer Daniel Gillham. The pair started dating in 1990 and were together until he passed away in 2014 (pictured in 1990) Stockard explained: ‘There’s no way I could have stayed married as the person I was when I was 19 and 20’ (pictured in The West Wing with martin Sheen in 2012)Join the discussionDoes sacrificing a comfortable life for your passion make you happier in the long run?What’s your view?Stockard then wed businessman David Rawle in 1980. The longest of the star’s marriages they were together for eight years before splitting in 1988. Addressing her multiple marriages, she told The New York Times in 1988: ‘These weren’t things that were entered into casually. It’s not like I woke up in a motel in Oklahoma with a ring on my finger and said, “Who the hell are you?” ‘I would learn from each one and not make the same mistakes again.’After her divorce from David, Stockard didn’t marry again. She told The Guardian in 2006: ‘What have I learned from my divorces? I know that nobody gets married to get divorced. I don’t think I’ll get married another time.’Stockard’s last relationship was with cinematographer Daniel Gillham. The pair started dating in 1990 and were together until he passed away in 2014. She told The Times last weekend: ‘I’ve lived alone since I lost Daniel and I’m happy being a recluse. I was married four times before Daniel and they all represent epochs of me. ‘I grew up in the Sixties, reacting to that repressed notion of marriage and sexuality from the Fifties — kinda like Rizzo.’Reflecting on her decision to not have children she added: ‘Children were thought about and, yeah, I think about them now because it’d be great to have someone taking care of me. But hey, children can be just as selfish as everybody else out there.’Meanwhile Stockard’s career hasn’t been without its ups and downs. After starting her career off as a theatre actress, before turning TV, it was her role as Betty Rizzo in Grease which proved to be her breakout role… or so you would have thought.Playing a 17-year-old, Stockard was in fact 33 at the time. She told The Times Of London last year: ‘I gave [Grease] my all, and I’m proud of the performance and proud of the character. But at the time, it was not taken at all seriously.’The money that it was making was resented. I was resented. It’s a kid’s movie — it was really p****d on.’While the film went on to become one of the highest-grossing musicals ever, it didn’t help Stockard’s success in the industry. ‘Grease did nothing for my career whatsoever,’ she told US Weekly in 2001, ‘I mean, the people at the TV networks responded to Grease. But the people in motion pictures did not.’She recently told You Magazine that after Grease she ‘couldn’t even get an audition.’Following her role as Rizzo, Channing went on to star in her own CBS sitcom called The Stockard Channing Show then Without a Trace in 1983, The Men’s Club, A Time of Destiny, and Echoes in the Darkness throughout the Eighties.She then returned to her roots – appearing in Broadway plays They’re Playing Our Song, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, The House of Blue Leaves, and Six Degrees of Separation – in which she starred alongside Will Smith. The actor famously revealed he ‘fell in love’ with Stockard on the film together. He told Esquire: ‘With Six Degrees Of Separation, I got a taste early of the dangers of going too far for a character.’My character was in love with Stockard Channing’s character. And I actually fell in love with Stockard Channing. So the movie was over and I went home, and I was dying to see Stockard. I was like, “Oh no! What have I done?”.’Reflecting on his crush, Stockard said: ‘He was sweet. This was his first movie, so he was nervous and I had his back. We hung out off set – he trusted me.’In 1993, the actress starred in the movie adaptation of Six Degrees of Separation, which garnered her an Oscar for Best Actress and a Golden Globes nomination.Her other acting credits include the romantic drama Up Close & Personal, Practical Magic, Smoke, USA’s An Unexpected Family, The West Wing, CBS sitcom Out of Practice, the docudrama The Matthew Shepard Story, The Business of Strangers and The Good Wife.Stockard is happy with her quiet life in London, explaining how she relocated from Maine in 2019 following the devastating 2014 death of her partner Dan. ‘Grease did nothing for my career whatsoever,’ she told US Weekly in 2001, ‘I mean, the people at the TV networks responded to Grease. But the people in motion pictures did not’ She starred in Six Degrees of Separation in 1993 – in which she filmed alongside Will Smith. The actor famously revealed he ‘fell in love’ with Stockard on the film togetherStockard added that President Trump’s election was another reason for her move, explaining how Dan’s death ‘was more devastating than I realised; it had a lag effect. The pattern of my life shifted, so I shifted my life from Maine.”It vaguely coincided with Trump getting elected and the way politics has changed in the US.”People look at The West Wing and go, “ Wow, wasn’t it great when politicians had an ounce of integrity?”’ Stockard is currently making her directorial debut with a production of Krapp’s Last Tape at an Edinburgh Festival run. The Samuel Beckett classic will see David Westhead take on the role of Krapp, a 69-year-old man reflecting on his life through old tape recordings.