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| Birth Name(s) : Mary Louise Streep |
Date of Birth: June 22, 1949 |
| Status:
Married
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Partner:
Don Gummer |
| Profession:
Actor |
Official Site
Go to the Meryl Streep Official Homepage |
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Full Meryl Streep Biography
Considered by many movie reviewers to be the greatest living film actress, Meryl Streep has been nominated for the Academy Award an astonishing 13 times, and has won it twice. Born Mary Louise Streep in 1949 in Summit, New Jersey, Meryl's early performing ambitions leaned toward the opera. She became interested in acting while a student at Vassar and upon graduation she enrolled in the Yale School of Drama. She gave an outstanding performance in her first film role, Julia (1977), and the next year she was nominated for her first Oscar for her role in Deer Hunter, The (1978). She went on to win the Academy Award for her performances in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), and Sophie's Choice (1982) in which she gave a heart wrenching portrayal of an inmate mother in a Nazi death camp.
A perfectionist in her craft and meticulous and painstaking in her preparation for her roles, Meryl turned out a string of highly acclaimed peformances over the next 10 years in great films like Silkwood (1983); Out of Africa (1985); Ironweed (1987); and Cry in the Dark, A (1988). Her career declined slightly in the early 1990s as a result of her inability to find suitable parts, but she shot back to the top in 1995 with her performance as Clint Eastwood's married lover in Bridges of Madison County, The (1995) and as the prodigal daughter in Marvin's Room (1996). In 1998 she made her first venture into the area of producing, and was the executive producer for the moving ...First Do No Harm (1997) (TV). A realist when she talks about her future years in film, she remarked that "...no matter what happens, my work will stand..." |
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Additional Meryl Streep Biography
Mary Louise Streep (born June 22, 1949), known as Meryl Streep, is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television, and film. Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville and her screen debut came in 1977's made-for-television movie The Deadliest Season. Streep made her film debut in 1977's Julia opposite Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave.
Streep was born Mary Louise Streep in Summit, New Jersey, the daughter of Harry William Streep, Jr., a pharmaceutical executive, and Mary W., a commercial artist. Streep's mother had Swiss, Irish and English ancestry and Streep's father's family was of Dutch descent, with distant Sephardic Jewish ancestors from Spain. She has two younger brothers, Dana and Harry. Streep was raised in Bernardsville, New Jersey, where she attended and graduated from Bernards High School. She received her B.A. in Drama at Vassar College and earned a M.F.A. from Yale University.
In 1978, she won her first Emmy Award, for "Outstanding Supporting Actress" in a Miniseries or TV Movie, for the miniseries Holocaust. A year later she appeared in her only Woody Allen film, Manhattan. Streep was engaged to The Deer Hunter co-star John Cazale ("Fredo" in The Godfather) until his death from bone cancer on March 12th, 1978. In September 1978, she married sculptor Don Gummer. They have four children: Henry W. (Hank) (born in 1979), Mary Willa (Mamie) (born in 1983), Grace Jane (born in 1986), and Louisa Jacobson (born in 1991). Mamie Gummer has chosen acting as a career, and made her off-Broadway debut as Lucy in a 2005 production of Mr. Marmalade at the Laura Pels Theatre.
She was a voice actor for the animated series The Simpsons playing Reverend Timothy Lovejoy's daughter, and King of the Hill. She also voiced the Blue Fairy character in the Steven Spielberg film, A.I..Streep (left) and David Frankel discussing her performance during The Devil Wears Prada
In 2002, she co-starred with Nicolas Cage in Spike Jonze's quirky Adaptation, as real-life author Susan Orlean; and with Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore in The Hours. She also appeared with Al Pacino and Emma Thompson in the HBO adaptation of Tony Kushner's six-hour play Angels in America, in which she had four roles. She received her second Emmy Award for Angels in America, which reunited her with director Mike Nichols, who directed her in Silkwood, Heartburn and Postcards from the Edge.
In addition, she appeared in Jonathan Demme's remake of The Manchurian Candidate co-starring Denzel Washington, in which she played a role made famous by Angela Lansbury. She also starred with Jim Carrey in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. Since 2002, Meryl Streep has hosted the annual event Poetry & the Creative Mind, a benefit in support of National Poetry Month, a program of the Academy of American Poets. Streep has also co-hosted the annual Nobel Peace Prize Concert with Liam Neeson in Oslo, Norway in 2001.
She has been confirmed for the role of Donna in the film version of the ABBA musical Mamma Mia!, she has also been confirmed for a role in the up-coming thriller Wanted along Jennifer Aniston and Martin Hernandez.
In New York City, she appeared in the 1976 Broadway double-bill of Tennessee Williams' 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Arthur Miller's A Memory of Two Mondays, for which she received a Tony Award nomination for "Best Featured Actress in a Play". Her other early Broadway credits include Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard and the Bertolt Brecht-Kurt Weill musical Happy End. She received Drama Desk Award nominations for both productions. Once Streep's film career flourished, she took a long break from stage acting.
In July 2001, Streep returned to the stage for the first time in more than twenty years, playing Arkadina in the Public Theater's revival of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull. The staging, directed by Mike Nichols, also featured Kevin Kline, Natalie Portman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken, Marcia Gay Harden and John Goodman.
In August and September 2006, she starred onstage at the Public Theater's production of Mother Courage and Her Children at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park. The show performed to crowds that lined up for hours, sometimes in the pouring rain, to get highly coveted seats. It was originally written by Bertolt Brecht in 1939 and first performed in 1941. The Public Theater production was a new translation by famed playwright Tony Kushner (Angels in America) with songs in the Weill/Brecht style written by composer Jeanine Tesori (Caroline, or Change). Veteran director George C. Wolfe was at the helm. Streep starred alongside Kevin Kline and Austin Pendleton in this three and a half hour play, in which she sang several songs and was in nearly every scene.
Streep holds the record for the most Academy Award nominations of any actor, having been nominated fourteen times since her first nomination in 1979 for The Deer Hunter (11 for Best Actress and 3 for Best Supporting Actress).
Meryl Streep also holds the record for actress with the most Golden Globe Awards for films with 6 wins. She is also the second-most nominated performer for a Golden Globe Award (she has twenty-one nominations to Jack Lemmon's twenty-two). Streep is also tied with Jack Nicholson for most Golden Globes overall by an actor or actress (6 wins). Streep has received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. |
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| You can't get spoiled if you do your own ironing. |
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