According to Playbill, the stage production of "Grease" launched in 1972, just a few years before the T-Birds and the Pink Ladies would speed their way onto the big screen. While Danny and Sandy sing many of the songs in "Grease," it's Rizzo's emotional number, "There Are Worse Things I Could Do," that adds an extra layer to the leader of the Pink Ladies.
A digital copy of the production's Playbill shows that the song was a part of the Broadway run, but Stockard Channing says the song didn't originally fit with the vision set forth by Allan Carr, a writer and producer on the film. "When the movie was being cut together Allan really wanted to cut it because he thought it was a downer, maybe everyone else thought it was a downer too," she told Broadway World.
Channing added that the moment got an extra layer of meaning thanks to Jeff Conaway (Rizzo's boyfriend Kenickie), who insisted on being in the background during her performance. "He's working on his car with the hood up and she's relating to him. It was so dear of him to do it," she said. And in the end, her big musical number made the cut. "It got in there by the skin of its teeth," Channing revealed. "[Choreographer] Pat Birch fought for it and the director as well. It's in there and I'm so grateful that it is."
