Grease icon living 'reclusive' life in London after suffering 'devastating' loss

Connor McCrory Mon, August 10, 2026 at 12:09 AM UTC

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Stockard Channing is living a ‘reclusive' life (Image: Getty)

Stockard Channing says she has embraced a private life in Britain after the death of her longtime partner prompted a major change in how she wanted to live.

The 82-year-old actress, best known for playing Betty Rizzo in the 1978 musical Grease and first lady Abbey Bartlet in The West Wing, moved from Maine to London in 2019.

Channing said the death of producer and cinematographer Dan Gillham in 2014 had a deeper impact on her than she initially understood, eventually leading her to leave the United States. The news comes as another Grease star looks completely unrecognisable 45 years after the iconic Olivia Newton-John scene.

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"I'm happy being a recluse," Channing told The Sunday Times Magazine.

The New York-born performer, who has been married four times and has no children, has lived alone since Gillham's death.

Stockard now lives in London (Image: Getty)

"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," she said.

Channing and Gillham began their relationship in 1990 and remained together until his death more than two decades later.

She said grief altered the course of her life gradually rather than immediately.

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Channing shared, "It was more devastating than I realised; it had a lag effect. The pattern of my life shifted, so I shifted my life from Maine."

Channing also said the political climate in the United States contributed to her decision to relocate.

"It vaguely coincided with Trump getting elected and the way politics has changed in the US."

The star's move came after the devastating loss of her husband (Image: Getty)

Her experience starring in The West Wing, the acclaimed political drama that ran from 1999 to 2006, has also taken on new resonance amid changing attitudes toward American politics, she said.

"People look at The West Wing and go, 'Wow, wasn't it great when politicians had an ounce of integrity?'"

Channing married sculptor Walter Channing Jr. in 1963, with the marriage ending in 1967. She later married academic Paul Schmidt in 1970 and divorced him in 1976.

Her third marriage, to writer and producer David Debin, lasted from 1976 until 1980.

She married businessman David Rawle in 1980, and the couple divorced eight years later.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”