Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep | |
|---|---|
 Meryl Streep at the 56th International Film Festival in San Sebastian, 2008 | |
| Born | Mary Louise Streep |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1971–present |
| Spouse | Don Gummer (1978–present) |
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television, and film. She is widely regarded as one of the most talented and respected movie actors of the modern era.[1][2][3]
Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, and her screen debut came in the made-for-television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with Julia. Both critical and commercial success came soon with roles in The Deer Hunter (1978) and Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), the former giving Streep her first Oscar nomination and the latter her first win. She later won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Sophie's Choice (1982).
Streep is a two time Oscar winner for her performances in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), and Sophie's Choice (1982). With fifteen Academy Award nominations, she is the most nominated actor in the history of the Academy Awards. She has also won six Golden Globe awards and has again received more nominations than any other actor in the history of the award: twenty five. Her work has also earned her two Emmy Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Cannes Film Festival award, three New York Film Critics Circle Awards, five Grammy Award nominations, a BAFTA award, and a Tony Award nomination.
Early life
Streep was born Mary Louise Streep in Summit, New Jersey, the daughter of Mary W. Streep, a commercial artist, and Harry William Streep, Jr., a pharmaceutical executive.[4][5] Streep's mother was of Swiss, Irish, and English ancestry, and her father's family was of Dutch descent. Streep was raised Presbyterian.[6][7][8] She has two younger brothers, Dana and Harry.[9] Streep was raised in Bernardsville, New Jersey, where she attended and graduated from Bernards High School.[10] She received her B.A. in Drama at Vassar College in 1971 (where she briefly received instruction from Jean Arthur), but also enrolled as an exchange student at Dartmouth College for a semester before that school had become coeducational. She subsequently earned an M.F.A. from Yale School of Drama.
Early career
Streep performed in several theater productions in New York after graduating from Yale School of Drama, including the New York Shakespeare Festival productions of Henry V, The Taming of the Shrew with Raúl Juliá, and Measure for Measure opposite Sam Waterston and John Cazale, who became her fiancé. She starred on Broadway in the Brecht/Weill musical Happy End, and won an Obie for her performance in the all-sung off-Broadway production of Alice at the Palace.
Streep began auditioning for film roles, and later recalled an unsuccessful audition for Dino De Laurentiis for the leading role in King Kong. De Laurentiis commented to his son in Italian, "She's ugly. Why did you bring me this thing?" and was shocked when Streep replied in fluent Italian.[11] Streep's first feature film was Julia (1976), in which she played a small but pivotal role during a flashback scene. Streep was living in New York City with her fiancé, the actor John Cazale, who had been diagnosed with bone cancer. He was cast in The Deer Hunter (1978), and Streep was delighted to secure a small role because it allowed her to remain with Cazale for the duration of filming. She was not specifically interested in the part, commenting, "They needed a girl between the two guys and I was it."[12]
She played a leading role in the television miniseries Holocaust (1978) as an Aryan woman married to a Jewish artist in Nazi era Germany. She later explained that she had considered the material to be "unrelentingly noble",[12] and had taken the role only because she had needed money.[13] Streep travelled to Germany and Austria for filming while Cazale remained in New York. Upon her return, Streep found that Cazale's illness had progressed, and she nursed him until his death on March 12, 1978. She spoke of her grief and her hope that work would provide a diversion; she accepted a role in The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979) with Alan Alda, later commenting that she played it on "automatic pilot",[12] and performed the role of Kate in The Taming of the Shrew for Shakespeare in the Park.[14] With an estimated audience of 109 million, Holocaust brought a degree of public recognition to Streep, who was described in August 1978 as "on the verge of national visibility".[13] She won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie for her performance.
The Deer Hunter (1978) was released a month later, and Streep was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance. In September 1978, she married sculptor Don Gummer.
Streep played a supporting role in Manhattan (1979) for Woody Allen, later stating that she had not seen a complete script and was given only the six pages of her own scenes,[15] and that she had not been permitted to improvise a word of her dialogue.[16] Asked to comment on the script for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), in a meeting with the producer Stan Jaffee, director Robert Benton and star Dustin Hoffman, Streep insisted that the female character was not representative of many real women who faced marriage breakdown and child custody battles, and was written as "too evil".[12] Jaffee, Benton and Hoffman agreed with Streep, and the script was revised.[12] In preparing for the part, Streep spoke to her own mother about her life as a mother and housewife with a career,[17] and frequented the Upper East Side neighborhood in which the film was set.[12] Benton allowed Streep to write her dialogue in two of her key scenes, despite some objection from Hoffman.[18] Jaffee and Hoffman later spoke of Streep's tirelessness, with Hoffman commenting, "She's extraordinarily hardworking, to the extent that she's obsessive. I think that she thinks about nothing else but what she's doing."[19]
Streep drew critical acclaim for her performance in each of her three films released in 1979: the romantic comedy Manhattan, the political drama, The Seduction of Joe Tynan and the courtroom drama, Kramer vs. Kramer. She was awarded the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress, National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress and National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress for her collective work in the three films. Among the awards won for Kramer vs. Kramer were the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress.
1980s
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After prominent supporting roles in two of the 1970s most successful films, the consecutive winners of the Academy Award for Best Picture, The Deer Hunter and Kramer vs. Kramer, and praise for her versatility in several supporting roles, Streep progressed to leading roles. Her first was The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981). A story within a story drama, the film paired Streep with Jeremy Irons as contemporary actors, telling their modern story as well as the Victorian era drama they were performing. A New York Magazine article commented that while many female stars of the past had cultivated a singular identity in their films, Streep was a "chameleon", willing to play any type of role.[20] Streep was awarded her first BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her work.
Her next film, the psychological thriller, Still of the Night (1982) reunited her with Robert Benton, the director of Kramer vs. Kramer, and co-starred Roy Scheider and Jessica Tandy. Vincent Canby, writing for the New York Times noted that the film was an homage to the works of Alfred Hitchcock, but that one of its main weaknesses was a lack of chemistry between Streep and Scheider, concluding that Streep "is stunning, but she's not on screen anywhere near long enough".[21]
As the Polish holocaust survivor in Sophie's Choice (1982), Streep's emotional dramatic performance and her apparent mastery of a Polish accent drew praise. William Styron wrote the novel with Ursula Andress in mind for the part of Sophie, but Streep was very determined to get the role. After she obtained a pirated copy of the script, she went to Alan J. Pakula and threw herself on the ground begging him to give her the part. Streep filmed the "choice" scene in one take and refused to do it again, as she found shooting the scene extremely painful and emotionally draining.[22] Among several notable acting awards, Streep won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance. She followed this success with a biographical film, Silkwood (1983), in which she played her first real-life character, the union activist Karen Silkwood. She discussed her preparation for the role in an interview with Roger Ebert and said that she had met with people close to Silkwood to learn more about her, and in doing so realized that each person saw a different aspect of Silkwood.[23] Streep concentrated on the events of Silkwood's life and concluded, "I didn't try to turn myself into Karen. I just tried to look at what she did. I put together every piece of information I could find about her... What I finally did was look at the events in her life, and try to understand her from the inside."[23]
Her next films were a romantic comedy, Falling in Love (1984) opposite Robert De Niro, and a British drama, Plenty (1985). Roger Ebert said of Streep's performance in Plenty that she conveyed "great subtlety; it is hard to play an unbalanced, neurotic, self-destructive woman, and do it with such gentleness and charm... Streep creates a whole character around a woman who could have simply been a catalogue of symptoms."[24]
Out of Africa (1985) starred Streep as the Danish writer Karen Blixen and co-starred Robert Redford. A significant critical success, the film received a 63% "fresh" rating from Rotten Tomatoes.[25] Streep co-starred with Jack Nicholson in her next two films, the dramas Heartburn (1986) and Ironweed (1987), in which she sang onscreen for the first time. In A Cry in the Dark (1988), she played the biographical role of Lindy Chamberlain, an Australian woman who had been convicted of the murder of her infant daughter in which Chamberlain claimed her baby had been taken by a dingo. Filmed in Australia, Streep won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, a Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress, and was nominated for several other awards.
In She-Devil (1989), Streep played her first comedic role, opposite Roseanne Barr. Richard Corliss, writing for Time, commented that Streep was the "one reason" to see the film and observed that it marked a departure from the type of role for which she had been known, saying, "Surprise! Inside the Greer Garson roles Streep usually plays, a vixenish Carole Lombard is screaming to be cut loose."[26]
1990s and 2000s
From 1984 to 1990, Streep won six People's Choice Awards for Favorite Motion Picture Actress and, in 1990, was named World Favorite.
In the 1990s, Streep took a greater variety of roles, including a strung-out movie actress in a screen adaptation of Carrie Fisher's novel Postcards from the Edge, with Dennis Quaid and Shirley MacLaine. Streep and Goldie Hawn had established a friendship and were interested in making a film together. After considering various projects, they decided upon Thelma and Louise, until Streep's pregnancy coincided with the filming schedule, and the producers decided to proceed with Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis.[11] They subsequently filmed the farcical black comedy, Death Becomes Her, with Bruce Willis as their co-star. Time's Richard Corliss wrote approvingly of Streep's "wicked-witch routine" but dismissed the film as "She-Devil with a make-over".[27]
Biographer Karen Hollinger describes this period as a downturn in the popularity of Streep's films, which reached its nadir with the failure of Death Becomes Her, attributing this partly to a critical perception that her comedies had been an attempt to convey a lighter image following several serious but commercially unsuccessful dramas, and more significantly to the lack of options available to an actress in her forties.[28] Streep commented that she had limited her options by her preference to work in Los Angeles, close to her family,[28] a situation that she had anticipated in a 1981 interview when she commented, "By the time an actress hits her mid-forties, no one's interested in her anymore. And if you want to fit a couple of babies into that schedule as well, you've got to pick your parts with great care."[20]
Streep appeared with Glenn Close in the movie version of Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits, the screen adaptation of The Bridges of Madison County with Clint Eastwood, The River Wild, Marvin's Room (with Diane Keaton and Leonardo DiCaprio), One True Thing, and Music of the Heart, in a role that required her to learn to play the violin.
Streep is adept with foreign accents and some of her best known roles have called for them. In The Bridges of Madison County, she played a woman from Bari, Italy, while in Sophie's Choice she adopted a Polish accent. She was a voice actor for the animated series The Simpsons, King of the Hill and voiced the Blue Fairy character in the Steven Spielberg film A.I. Artificial Intelligence.
In 2002, she costarred with Nicolas Cage in Spike Jonze's 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). She also played Aunt Josephine in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events with Jim Carrey.
In addition, she appeared in Jonathan Demme's remake of The Manchurian Candidate, costarring Denzel Washington, in which she played a role first performed by Angela Lansbury. Since 2002, Streep has hosted the annual event Poetry & the Creative Mind, a benefit in support of National Poetry Month and a program of the Academy of American Poets. Streep co-hosted the annual Nobel Peace Prize Concert with Liam Neeson in Oslo, Norway, in 2001.
In 2004, Streep was awarded the AFI Life Achievement Award by the Board of Directors of the American Film Institute, which honors an individual for a lifetime contribution to enriching American culture through motion pictures and television.
Streep's more recent film releases are Prime (2005); the Robert Altman film A Prairie Home Companion, with Lindsay Lohan and Lily Tomlin; and the box office success The Devil Wears Prada, with Anne Hathaway, which earned Streep the 2007 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy and an Academy Award nomination.
In 2008 she appeared as Donna in the film version of the ABBA musical Mamma Mia!, For this role she won the award of Best Female Performance at the National Movie Awards (UK), and received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical. She played Sister Aloysius in the 2008 film adaptation of John Patrick Shanley's Doubt. She received both an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Drama for that film. She also shared the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress with Anne Hathaway for the role, and won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role.[29]
In Julie & Julia, she plays the late Julia Child. She next stars in Nancy Meyers' romantic comedy, It's Complicated, with Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin. The film began production in February 2009.[30]
Theatre
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 the former, 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 in which she originally appeared off-Broadway at the Chelsea Theater Center. 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.[31] The Public Theater production was a new translation by 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.
Music
After appearing in Mamma Mia!, Streep's rendition of the song "Mamma Mia" rose to popularity in the Portuguese music charts, where it has so far peaked at #8,[32] adding to Streep's many achievements in the entertainment industry.
At the 35th People's Choice Awards, her version of "Mamma Mia" won an award for "Favorite Song From A Soundtrack".[33] In 2008, Streep was nominated for a Grammy Award (her fifth nomination) for her work on the Mamma Mia! soundtrack.
Awards
Streep holds the record for the most Academy Award nominations of any actor, having been nominated 15 times since her first nomination in 1979 for The Deer Hunter (12 for Best Actress and 3 for Best Supporting Actress).
Meryl Streep is the most nominated performer for a Golden Globe Award (she has 25 nominations as of 2009) and is also tied with Jack Nicholson and Angela Lansbury for most Golden Globes overall by an actor or actress (six wins). Streep has received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 2003, she was awarded an honorary César Award by the French Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma. In 2004 at the Moscow International Film Festival, Meryl Streep was honored with the Stanislavsky Award for the outstanding achievement in the career of acting and devotion to the principles of Stanislavsky's school.
In 2004, Streep received the AFI Life Achievement Award.
In 2009, she was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts by Princeton University.[34]
Work
Filmography
Television
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1978 | Holocaust | Inga Helms Weiss | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress - Miniseries or a Movie |
| 1994 | The Simpsons | Jessica Lovejoy | Episode: "Bart's Girlfriend" |
| 1999 | King of the Hill | Aunt Esme Dauterive | Episode: "A Beer Can Named Desire" |
| 1997 | …First Do No Harm | Lori Reimuller | Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Television Movie Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Film Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actress in a Television Film |
| 2003 | Angels in America | Ethel Rosenberg The Rabbi Hannah Pitt Angel Australia |
Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Miniseries Gracie Allen Award for Outstanding Female Lead in a Drama Special Satellite Award for Best Actress in a Miniseries Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Female Actor in a Miniseries |
Stage
| Year | Production | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1975 | Trelawny of the Wells | Miss Imogen Parrott | |
| 1976 | 27 Wagons Full of Cotton | Flora Meighan | Theatre World Award - Debut performance, Broadway/Off-Broadway Nominated — Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play Nominated — Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play |
| A Memory of Two Mondays | Patricia | ||
| Secret Service | Edith Varney | ||
| Henry V | Katherine | ||
| Measure for Measure | Isabella | ||
| 1977 | Happy End | Lieutenant Lillian Holiday | |
| The Cherry Orchard | Dunyasha | ||
| 1978 | Alice at the Palace | Alice | |
| The Taming of the Shrew | Kate | ||
| 1979 | Taken in Marriage | Andrea | |
| 1980-81 | Alice at the Palace | Alice | |
| 2001 | The Seagull | Irina Nikolayevna | Nominated — Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play |
| 2006 | Mother Courage and Her Children | Mother Courage | Drama League Award — Distinguished Performance Award Nominated — Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play |
References
- ^ Santas, Constantine (2002). Responding to Film. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 187. ISBN 0830415807.
- ^ Hollinger, Karen (2006). The Actress: Hollywood Acting and the Female Star. CRS Press. pp. 94–95. ISBN 0415977924.
- ^ The Middle East. Library Information and Research Service. 2005. p. 204.
- ^ Robert Battle. "Meryl Streep". Ancestry.com. Retrieved 2009-01-16.
- ^ "Meryl Streep Biography (1949-)". Film Reference.com. Retrieved 2009-01-16.
- ^ "Meryl Streep". Inside the Actors Studio. Season 5. Episode 1. 1998-11-22. Bravo.
{{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter|serieslink=ignored (|series-link=suggested) (help) - ^ Horowitz, Joy (1991-03-17). "That Madcap Meryl. Really!". New York Times. Retrieved 2009-01-13.
- ^ "Press Archive". Simply Streep.com.
- ^ "Meryl Streep Biography". Yahoo! Movies.
- ^ "N.J. Teachers Honor 6 Graduates". The Philadelphia Inquirer. 1983-11-12. Retrieved 2007-07-20.
Streep is a graduate of Bernards High School in Bernardsville...
- ^ a b "Information, Considered & Delayed Projects". SimplyStreep.com. Retrieved 2009-06-07.
- ^ a b c d e f "Magazines Archive". SimplyStreep.com. Retrieved 2009-08-14. citing "Meryl Streep to the Rescue". Ms. Magazine. February 1979.
- ^ a b "Magazines Archive". SimplyStreep.com. Retrieved 2009-06-07. citing "Star Treks". Horizon Magazine. August 1978.
- ^ "Magazines Archive". SimplyStreep.com. Retrieved 2009-06-07. citing "From Homecoming Queen to Holocaust". TV Guide. June 1978.
- ^ "Magazines Archive". SimplyStreep.com. Retrieved 2009-06-07. citing "Streep Year". Look Magazine. March 1979.
- ^ Hollinger, Karen (2006). The Actress: Hollywood Acting and the Female Star. Routledge. p. 76. ISBN 0415977924.
- ^ Hollinger, p. 75
- ^ Hollinger, p. 77
- ^ "Magazines Archive". SimplyStreep.com. Retrieved 2009-06-07. citing "The Freshest Face in Hollywood". Playgirl Magazine. November 1979.
- ^ a b Denby, David (1981-09-21). "Meryl Streep is Madonna and siren in The French Lieutenant's Woman". New York Magazine. p. 27. Retrieved 2009-06-15.
- ^ Canby, Vincent (1985-09-20). "'Still of the Night,' in Hitchcock Manner". New York Times. Retrieved 2009-06-06.
- ^ "What Makes Meryl Magic". Time. 1981-09-07. Retrieved 2009-06-15.
- ^ a b Ebert, Roger (2006). Awake in the dark: the best of Roger Ebert: forty years of reviews, essays, and interviews. University of Chicago Press. p. 64. ISBN 0226182002.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthor=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ Ebert, Roger (1982-11-19). "'Plenty' review". Chicago Sun Times. Retrieved 2009-06-06.
- ^ "Out of Africa (1985)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2009-06-06.
- ^ Corliss, Richard (1989-12-11). "Warty Worm, "She-Devil" review". Time magazine. Retrieved 2009-06-07.
- ^ Corliss, Richard (1992-08-03). "Beverly Hills Corpse, "Death Becomes Her" review". Time magazine. Retrieved 2009-06-07.
- ^ a b , p. 78
- ^ Hetrick, Adam (2009-01-09). "Winners of the 2009 Critics' Choice Awards, announced". Playbill. Retrieved 2009-01-14.
- ^ "Alec Baldwin and Meryl Streep Eying Romantic Comedy". Pop Critics. 2008-08-18. Retrieved 2008-09-29.
- ^ "Mother Courage and Her Children". New York Times. 2006-08-22. Retrieved 2009-01-15.
- ^ "Portuguese Music Charts".}
- ^ "People Choice Awards Results".
- ^ Eric Quiñones (2009-06-02). "Princeton awards five honorary degrees". Princeton. Retrieved 2009-06-03.
- ^ "Meryl Streep voicing a role in Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr. Fox'". Entertainment Weekly. 2009-05-06. Retrieved 2009-05-06.
Bibliography
- Napoleon, Davi. Chelsea on the Edge: The Adventures of an American Theater. Includes discussion of Streep's performance in Robert Kalfin's production of Happy End at the Chelsea Theater and on Broadway. Iowa State University Press. ISBN-0-8138-1713-7, 1991.
- Finding Herself: The Prime of Meryl Streep by Molly Haskell, Film Comment, May/June 2008.
- Hollinger, Karen (2006). The Actress: Hollywood Acting and the Female Star. Routledge. ISBN 0415977924.
External links
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- Meryl Streep at the TCM Movie Database
- merylstreeponline.net- official website
- Meryl Streep at BAFTA 40 minute webcast, January 2009
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