Annette Charles died yesterday. She was sixty-three. The name may not tell you much, but you will recognize this quote: “The best dancer in St. Bernadette… with the worst reputation”. Cha Cha Di Gregorio is gone, children. She will wave her skirt no more.
I’m not about to go off on one, here, but every time one of the old cast of Grease (the Randal Kleiser one, accept no substitute or Debbie Gibson musical) dies, I feel a soft sadness gather at the bottom of my stomach. Last time it was Jeff Conway. Now it’s Annette Charles. Kenickie and Cha Cha are gone. They did not go together with the rest of the gang. They grew up, grew old and died, both a little too soon. The illusion of perpetual youth and happiness that lingered after the last shot, when Sandy and Danny flew into the sky on the Grease Lightning, is dying with them.
I loved every single character on Grease but my favourites, even as a child, were the lovable, bubbly Frenchie and the sassy Rizzo. Rizzo I was especially sympathetic with: not only was she the only rounded, complex character in the story, she was also played with amazing credibility by Stockard Channing. In her mouth, each line is filled with everything Rizzo is: sassy, yes, but also fragile and full of unexpressed longing. Whenever Rizzo confronts one of her opponents, be it Danny or Sandy or Kenickie at his worst, she does so with a challenging half-smile and quick up-and-down glance that gives away her insecurity. She is full of life and fully alive: Cha Cha I was taught to see as a villain, but she is really a louder, sexier, less developed version of Rizzo: Kleiser and Bronte Woodard sure loved their bad girls more than they did insipid fraidy-cat Sandy. In each of Grease’s young strumpets lie the seeds of a revolution, one that saw women step out of the sidelines and take over the ballroom. The world belonged to the Cha Chas and Rizzos and Martys and Frenchies: the only way Sandy had to survive was to turn into one of them, at least a little bit.
