'Grease' actress Annette Charles dies

Actress Annette Charles, best known for playing "Cha Cha" DiGregorio in the 1978 movie musical "Grease," died at her Los Angeles home Wednesday at age 63.

She is the film's second star to die recently; Jeff Conaway, who played Kenickie, died in May.

Her mother, Mary Cardona, told "Access Hollywood" that Charles, who was battling cancer, had been hospitalized for about a month after going in for pneumonia. Charles' representative said the cause of death was complications from cancer.

"Annette had recently started having difficulty breathing," a family member told TMZ.com, "and when she went to the doctor she learned that she had a cancerous tumor in one of her lungs."

Like Uma Thurman in "Pulp Fiction" and Karen Lynn Gorney in "Saturday Night Fever," Charles unforgettably danced with John Travolta onscreen, in the energetic "Hand Jive" number. As Cha Cha, "the best dancer at St. Bernadette's," she also hit the dance floor with Conaway.

Born Annette Cardona in Los Angeles on March 5, 1948, Charles performed under that name in episodes of 1970s TV shows such as "The Mod Squad," "Bonanza" and "The Bionic Woman."

She was billed as Annette Charles in "Grease," the TV movie "Can You Hear the Laughter? The Story of Freddie Prinze" (1979) and the feature documentary "In Search of Historic Jesus" (1979), in which she played Mary Magdalene.

For a 1987 episode of "Magnum, P.I.," her last screen appearance, she again was billed as Annette Cardona.

Following her acting career, she became a speech professor at California State University Northridge.

A comment posted June 4 at RateMyProfessors.com said, "Professor Cardona is strict and tough but really cares about her students . . . and makes sure that they become better public speakers."