Sandy Olsson
Sandy is an Australian transfer student in her Senior year at Rydell High. She has spent the summer at the beach falling in love with Danny Zuko, whom she fears she will never see again. When she does see Danny, she is filled with joy, but is shortly humiliated by his cool, T-Bird act that seems to her, at least, to be a deliberate attempt to brush her off. Sandy is a naive teen girl without much life experience and seems to have lived a sheltered existence; she has never had friends like the girls in the Pink Ladies before, and it certainly shows. She tries her first cigarette and her first alcoholic drink at a slumber party at Frenchy's house, both of which make her sick, and she gets her ears pierced in Frenchy's bathroom, passing out after she hears the little "pop" sound.
Sandy goes through a fight with herself when it comes to her feelings about Danny. She knows that as a preppy, inexperienced girl she is not really his speed and she is not a girl he feels comfortable bringing his friends around; she decides to change into the kind of girl she believes he would prefer to be with. Ironically, he has also gone through the same metamorphosis for her.
Danny Zuko
Mr Popular, Danny is certified cool, and is a member of the greaser gang the T-Birds. Although Kenickie is the assumed leader, Danny is well-respected and certainly someone the other T-Birds look up to. He and Kenickie are very close friends. Danny loves Sandy and because of this it never occurs to him that they will never see each other again; he trusts that somehow they will find a way back together. Danny also wants to remain cool in the eyes of the T-Birds and so pretends to be nonchalant and uncaring, rebuffing Sandy and putting a real damper on her excitement that they are together again; in short, he acts like a jerk.
Danny has never been an academic star at Rydell, nor has he been an athlete, but when he sees that Sandy is dating track and field letterman Tom he manages to convince Coach Calhoun to let him work out with the track team; his running career gets off to a shaky start because Danny is a smoker and consequently struggles to make it half way around the track. He perseveres and ultimately earns enough athletic credit to become a letter man too.
Danny is a loyal friend to Kenickie and drives for him when Kenickie gets a concussion. He is a great driver with nerves of steel and wins the race, bringing glory to the T-Birds and to Rydell as a whole. He also wins the dance-off at the graduation dance, but what he really wants is another opportunity to convince Sandy that he loves her. He decides to change his image from greaser to prepster, and presents a far more clean cut appearance to her, hoping that this will make her view him as the kind of boy she wants to date.
Rizzo
Tough and abrasive, Rizzo is the leader of the Pink Ladies. She is seemingly emotionless and cold and can be unkind when she wants to be, which seems to be often. She deliberately engineers a surprise reunion for Sandy and Danny knowing that it is likely to be a complete disaster. Rizzo is the kind of person who fears rejection and so rejects others before they have the chance to reject her first.
Rizzo is dating Kenickie and the two are involved in a sexual relationship which leads to a fear that she might be pregnant. Despite her efforts to keep this quiet the news spreads like wildfire and she is socially shunned and whispered about at school. She is humiliated by her new role of "bad girl" at Rydell, and she becomes even more lonely than she was before. Fortunately the pregnancy is a false alarm; she and Kenickie get back together at the school carnival.
Kenickie
So cool that a British girl band named themselves after him, Kenickie is the leader of the T-Birds greaser gang. He tries to remain cool and tough at all times but there is genuine depth and emotion in his friendship with Danny. He is no academic success, and he is not an athlete, but he excels in car maintenance class and spearheads the refurbishment of a classic car he names Greased Lightnin. He also plans to race the car and wants to use it to finally get the better of the Scorpions gang by beating them in a race at the tar pits.
Kenickie is an unlucky kind of guy; bending down to pick up the "lucky penny" that Jan gives him before the race, he ends up being hit very hard in the head by the car door opening and gets a concussion. He is unable to drive and has to relinquish the driver's seat to Danny.
Kenickie is in love with Rizzo and is hurt when the two break up. He tries to make her jealous by bringing Cha Cha to the graduation dance, but ultimately he and Rizzo are reunited after she lets him know that she is not pregnant after all.
Frenchy
Frenchy doesn't like high school so she drops out and enrolls in beauty school instead. She finds that she does not have as much aptitude for this as she had hoped and has a mishap in hair color class, accidentally coloring her own hair bubblegum pink. This leads to an epiphany when her guardian angel appears to her and tells her to go back to high school, which she does, and she ultimately graduates with everyone else.
Frenchy is the ultimate romantic and wants Danny and Sandy to end up together and live happily ever after. She is also the nicest of the girls to Sandy, her friendship is genuine and her attempts to include her in the Pink Ladies heartfelt and intentional.
Marty Maraschino
Attractive and exuding sexuality, Marty receives a great deal of attention from men, particularly older men, such as Vince Fontaine, the suave and slightly cheesy DJ host of the school dance. She has a traditional pin-up girl figure and at the same time uses, and has trouble understanding, her sexuality to get what she wants. She is friendly enough to Sandy but is often reluctant to really extend the hand of friendship to her because she wants to impress Rizzo.
Jan
Jan loves to eat and is the best-known of the girls at the diner where she chows down frequently on freshly-baked pie. She eats a lot and is often on a diet that lasts a few minutes at the most. She also likes to eat toothpaste. She is a Pink Lady, but seems on the periphery of a lot of their activities.
Doody
Doody is Frenchy's casual high school boyfriend. He is a clumsy dancer and so the pair are disqualified from the dance contest pretty quickly. He is easy going and a goofball, who tries hard to be as cool as Kenickie and Danny but never quite manages it.
Sonny Lantieri
Another T-Bird, Sonny feels that he is utterly irresistible to women; unfortunately women just don't feel this way. He is particularly attracted to Marty and spends the entire school year trying to get her to notice him, but she finds him annoying, like a constantly-buzzing fly that she can't seem to get rid of. He is a troublemaker and the instigator of the mooning incident on camera at the school dance. If there is a remedial class for something, he will be registered in it.
Putzie
Probably the most natural and ultimately long lasting boy/girl relationship in the film is between Putzie and Jan; they are friends, then after spending time together become better friends, and end up dating after a steady getting to know each other period. He is often the butt of the jokes within the T-Birds but he is good natured and actually seems glad that he has a role within the gang, albeit that of fall guy. He is able to laugh at himself just as much as the others laugh at him.
Principal McGee
A traditional, proper and straight-laced kind of head teacher, Principal McGee seems offended by the modern age and has unfulfilled dreams of a return to gentility for her female students that they don't seem to have for themselves. She wants students to exhibit good manners and to restrain themselves from bad behavior, but is sorely disappointed by their antics at the school dance. She is a no-nonsense woman who finds her secretary somewhat annoying in her displays of emotion and affection for the students, but in her own way she is just as attached to them as Blanche is and misses each graduating year when they have left.
Blanche Hodel
Keeper of the xylophone, Blanche is the school secretary who begins each day by striking the notes on the instrument to introduce the principal's address. She is deeply attached to all of the students at Rydell and gets very teary-eyed on graduation day. She differs from the principal in that she is secretly amused by many of the antics that the students get up to although she never voices this fully.
Coach Vince Calhoun
Coach Calhoun is a tough gym teacher with the manner of an army drill sergeant. He does not suffer fools or malingerers gladly and also has little patience for the un-athletic or for time-wasters. He gives Danny a chance on the track team and is surprised at his ability, and by the fact that for once he has actually stuck to something. He frequently fails students in P.E. class.
Eugene Felsnick
Class nerd Felsnick wears Coke-bottle glasses and argyll sweater. He also has an impressive throwing arm that reveals itself when he successfully hits Coach Calhoun in the face with a pie at the school carnival.
Leo Balmudo
Craterface is the leader of the rival Scorpions gang who are far tougher than the T-Birds. When he challenges the T-Birds to a race, he employs a number of methods to cheat and to try to run the Greased Lightnin' off the road completely. He is also happy to try to humiliate Kenickie by going to the dance with Rizzo when she is trying to hurt her former boyfriend.
Cha Cha Di Grigorio
Leo's girlfriend is trouble; she still seems to hanker after Danny, whom she once casually dated, and blatantly steals him away from Sandy at the school dance so that they can win the dance contest together and be seen on national television. She is very flirtatious and knows exactly how to use her sexuality to manipulate the opposite sex. She acts as the starter on race day.
Pattie Simcox
Rydell High's resident "good girl", Pattie is on every committee that there is, including the decoration committee for the dance. Having devoted herself wholeheartedly to this task, she takes it very badly when her decorations meet a sticky end and collapse.
