Stockard Channing, Courtney B. Vance in 2023.Photo:Getty
Getty
Stockard Channingis remembering how she learned about the most difficult moment inCourtney B. Vance’s life.
“I just remember the shock,” Channing, 79, tells PEOPLE of that phone call. “I’ll never forget it.”
“You know in life when something happens, you remember where you are, where you’re standing, what room you’re in, all that? That happens to all of this, I think.”
She adds, “I do remember that extremely clearly. It was such a terrible shock.”
As Vance told PEOPLE, theGreasestar was the first person he thought to call because the actors had made a pact, along withSix Degreescostar John Cunningham, to never miss a performance of their Broadway show.
Her response upon hearing the tragic news, recalls Vance: “‘Courtney. Go home.'”
InThe Invisible Ache, a guidebook to healing aimed at Black men co-written with Dr. Robin L. Smith, Vance calls Channing both a “wonderful actress” and friend: “Given the intensity of our experiences doing that show, she was more than a costar. She’d become my comrade in arms.”
Courtney B. Vance.Gregg DeGuire/Getty
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What was performing the first show without Vance like? “It was very hard on every f—ing level,” recalls Channing with characteristic candor.
Upon returning from sorting out his late father’s affairs and rejoiningSix Degrees, Vance leaned on his New York theater community and the show’s regularity, he toldPEOPLE. “I came back from taking care of my mom, getting her affairs in order… and the whole company embraced me.”
Channing remembers how she, Linney and the rest of the production’s cast and crew rallied around the mourning Vance. “It was a very close company, very easy-going, loose. We were really an ensemble.”
Vance, she continues, “must’ve been through so much on every level” that it may have been a relief “to come back to a neutral place where you just did your work, people hugged you and you went—the cliché—‘Let’s put on the show.'”
Channing, who now lives in London, says that she, Vance and his wifeAngela Bassetthave remained close throughout the years. “He did ring me,” she says, when their fellow Emmy winnerMary Alicedied in July 2022. “He just sent me a lovely message saying he was thinking about me, which is really sweet.”
source: people.com
