Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep (born Mary Louise Streep on June 22, 1949) is a two-time Academy Award-winning American actress who has received numerous accolades for her work in movies and television and who, from the 1980s to the present day, has been regarded as one of the best in her field. She is the most Oscar-nominated actor in history, with thirteen nominations.

Early life and career

Streep was born Mary Louise Streep in Summit, New Jersey, USA. Her father, Harry Streep Jr., was a pharmaceutical executive of Dutch descent; her mother, Mary, was a commercial artist of Irish, Swiss, and English descent. The family's original surname, Messerschnitz, was changed to Streep in the Netherlands by her Sephardic Jewish ancestors, although her Jewish ancestry is distant. ^*^*

Streep was raised in Bernardsville, New Jersey. She received her A.B. in Drama at Vassar College and earned a M.F.A. from the Yale School of Drama at Yale University. She appeared in her first films, Julia and The Deer Hunter, in 1977 and 1978, the latter of which would earn her her first Academy Award nomination, for Best Supporting Actress; she subsequently won Academy Awards for her roles in Kramer vs. Kramer (Best Supporting Actress, 1979), and Sophie's Choice (Best Actress, 1982).

At the time of his death (March 12th, 1978) Streep was engaged to The Deer Hunter co-star John Cazale, who died of bone cancer. In September 1978, she married sculptor Don Gummer; they have four children: Henry (born in 1979), Mamie (born in 1983), Grace (born in 1986), and Louisa (born in 1991).

Streep's integrity in keeping her personal life personal is well known within the industry; she refers to herself as "an actress who goes home to her family when I'm finished working".

Later career and recent work

Streep's career continued to climb throughtout the 1980s, appearing in Woody Allen's Manhattan, The French Lieutenant's Woman, Silkwood, Out of Africa, Ironweed, Postcards from the Edge, and playing Lindy Chamberlain in A Cry in the Dark, the movie telling of one of the greatest Australian mysteries ever—the disappearance of Chamberlain's baby daughter Azaria at Uluru (aka, Ayers Rock), and her claims (later substantiated in court) that a dingo had taken the child.

From 1984 to 1990, Streep won six People's Choice Awards for Favorite Motion Picture Actress and, in 1990, was named "World Favorite". Having been named on so many "greatest movie actress" lists, Streep also defied expectations by her happy personal life, and by her truthful approach toward the industry and her own presence within it. As she would say when collecting her Emmy Award for Angels in America, "There are some days when even I think I'm overrated . . . but not today!"

In the 1990s Streep took to playing roles with greater variety, including farce in Death Becomes Her alongside Goldie Hawn, the movie version of Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits, 1995's The Bridges of Madison County (largely regarded as her great comeback role), The River Wild — her first and only action film to date — and her noted comic turn in She-Devil. That is not to say that Streep did not continue with her tradition of choosing "serious" roles — appearing in Marvin's Room, and completing another successful decade with Music of the Heart, for which she learned to play the violin.

Among her other recent work are guest voices in episodes of The Simpsons and King of the Hill. She also voiced the Blue Mecha in the Steven Spielberg-Stanley Kubrick film, A.I.; appeared alongside Nicolas Cage in Adaptation; played four different roles in the HBO adaptation of Tony Kushner's six-hour play Angels in America; starred alongside Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore in The Hours; and in 2004 took on two additional roles, playing the character originated by Angela Lansbury in the remake of The Manchurian Candidate, and taking a role alongside Jim Carrey, Emily Browning and Jude Law in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.

That same year, Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields proclaimed May 27 "Meryl Streep Day".

In July 2001, Streep returned to the stage for the first time in more than twenty years, playing Arkadina in the Public Theatre'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. (The all-star cast ensured long lines of people willing to wait as long as seventeen hours to acquire the free tickets).

Streep's most recent film releases were Prime in 2005, in which she had a comic role alongside Uma Thurman and Bryan Greenberg, and Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion in June 2006. She is also starring in the film The Devil Wears Prada (a comedy co-starring another one time Vassar College student, Anne Hathaway). Her performance in this film has garnered some of the best reviews of her career. In August of 2006, she will return to the New York stage, starring in the Delacorte Theater's production of Mother Courage and Her Children. This production of the famous Brecht play features a new translation by Tony Kushner.

Awards

Streep has received countless awards, including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, all of which can be seen at numerous sites, including her page at the Internet Movie Database (link below). Summarized below are her awards from some of the best recognized institutions:

Academy Awards

She currently holds the record for the most Academy Award nominations of any actress, having been nominated for thirteen Academy Awards since her first nomination in 1979 for The Deer Hunter.

Golden Globes

Meryl Streep is also currently the second most nominated performer for a Golden Globe Award (she has twenty nominations to Jack Lemmon's twenty-two).

List of wins and nominations

Year	Group	Award	Won?	Film/Play
1976	Tony	Featured Actress in a Play	No	27 Wagons Full of Cotton
1978	Emmy	Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series	Yes	Holocaust
1979	National Society of Film Critics Award	Best Supporting Actress	Yes	The Deer Hunter
	Golden Globe	Best Supporting Actress	No
	Academy Award	Best Supporting Actress	No
	Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award	Best Supporting Actress	Yes	Kramer vs. Kramer
	New York Film Critics Circle Award	Best Supporting Actress	Yes
1980	Golden Globe	Best Motion Picture Actress in a Supporting Role	Yes
	National Society of Film Critics Award	Best Supporting Actress	Yes
	Academy Award	Best Supporting Actress	Yes
	BAFTA	Best Actress	No	The Deer Hunter
	BAFTA	Best Supporting Actress	No	Manhattan
	Hasty Pudding Theatricals	Hasty Pudding Theatricals for Woman of the Year	Yes
1981	BAFTA	Best Actress	No	Kramer vs. Kramer
1981	Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award	Best Actress	Yes	The French Lieutenant's Woman
1982	BAFTA	Best Actress	Yes
	Academy Award	Best Actress	No
	Golden Globe	Best Actress, Drama	Yes
	Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award	Best Actress	Yes	Sophie's Choice
	New York Film Critics Circle Award	Best Actress	Yes
1983	Golden Globe	Best Actress, Drama	Yes
	National Society of Film Critics Award	Best Actress	Yes
	Academy Award	Best Actress	Yes
1984	BAFTA	Best Actress	No
	People's Choice Awards	Favourite Motion Picture Actress	Yes
	Golden Globe	Best Actress, Drama	No	Silkwood
	Academy Award	Best Actress	No
1985	BAFTA	Best Actress	No
	People's Choice Awards	Favourite Motion Picture Actress	Yes
	David di Donatello Award	Best Foreign Actress	Yes	Falling In Love
	Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award	Best Actress	Yes	Out of Africa
1986	People's Choice Awards	Favourite Motion Picture Actress	Yes
	David di Donatello Award	Best Foreign Actress	Yes	Out of Africa
	Academy Award	Best Actress	No	Out of Africa
1987	BAFTA	Best Actress	No	Out of Africa
1987	People's Choice Awards	Favourite Motion Picture Actress	Yes
1988	Academy Award	Best Actress	No	Ironweed
1988	New York Film Critics Circle Award	Best Actress	Yes	A Cry in the Dark
1989	Cannes Film Festival	Best Actress	Yes
	Australian Film Institute	Best Actress	Yes
	Golden Globe	Best Actress, Drama	No
	Academy Award	Best Actress	No
	People's Choice Awards	Favourite Motion Picture Actress	Yes
1990	Golden Globe	Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical	No	She-Devil
	People's Choice Awards	Favourite Motion Picture Actress	Yes
	People's Choice Awards	World - Favourite Motion Picture Actress	Yes
1991	Golden Globe	Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical	No	Postcards from the Edge
	Academy Award	Best Actress	No
	American Comedy Awards	Funniest Actress	Yes
1993	Golden Globe	Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical	No	Death Becomes Her
1995	Golden Globe	Best Actress, Drama	No	The River Wild
1995	Screen Actors Guild	Best Actress	No	The River Wild
1996	Golden Globe	Best Actress, Drama	No	The Bridges of Madison County
	Academy Award	Best Actress	No
	Screen Actors Guild	Best Actress	No
1997	Screen Actors Guild	Best Cast	No	Marvin's Room
1997	Golden Globe	Best Actress, Drama	No	Marvin's Room
1998	Emmy	Best Actress in a Mini-series	No	...First Do No Harm
1998	Golden Globe	Best Actress in a Mini-series	No	...First Do No Harm
1999	Gotham Awards	Lifetime Achievement Award	Yes
	Golden Globe	Best Actress, Drama	No	One True Thing
	Screen Actors Guild	Best Actress	No
	Academy Award	Best Actress	No
2000	Golden Globe	Best Actress, Drama	No	Music of the Heart
	Screen Actors Guild	Best Actress	No
	Academy Award	Best Actress	No
2003	Berlin International Film Festival's Silver Berlin Bear	Best Actress (shared with Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore)	Yes	The Hours
	Prestige Award	Best Actress	No
	Golden Globe	Best Actress, Drama	No
	Screen Actors Guild	Best Cast	No
	BAFTA	Best Actress	No
	Golden Globe	Best Supporting Actress	Yes	Adaptation.
	Prestige Award	Best Supporting Actress	Yes
	Screen Actors Guild	Best Cast	No
	BAFTA	Best Supporting Actress	No
	Academy Award	Best Supporting Actress	No
2004	Golden Globe	Best Performance by an Actress In A Mini-series or Motion Picture Made for Television	Yes	Angels in America
	Screen Actors Guild	Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries	Yes
	Emmy	Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie	Yes
	American Film Institute	American Film Institute life achievement award	Yes
2005	Golden Globe	Best Supporting Actress	No	The Manchurian Candidate
	BAFTA	Best Supporting Actress	No
	Prestige Award	Best Supporting Actress	No

Notes:

1997 SAG Nomination for Marvin's Room shared with Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert DeNiro, Dan Hedaya, Diane Keaton, Hal Scardino, Gwen Verdon and Hume Cronyn.
2003 SAG Nomination for Adaptation. shared with Nicholas Cage, Chris Cooper, Brian Cox, Cara Seymour and Tilda Swinton.
2003 SAG Nomination for The Hours shared with Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, Miranda Richardson, Jeff Daniels, Ed Harris, Toni Collette, Claire Danes, Stephen Dillane, John C. Reilly and Allison Janney.

Filmography

Everybody Rides the Carousel (1975) (voice)
Julia (1977)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
Holocaust (1978)
Uncommon Women and Others (1979)
Manhattan (1979)
The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979)
Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981)
Still of the Night (1982)
Sophie's Choice (1982)
Silkwood (1983)
In Our Hands (1984) (documentary)
Falling in Love (1984)
Out of Africa (1985)
Plenty (1985)
Heartburn (1986)
Ironweed (1987)
A Cry in the Dark (1988)
She-Devil (1989)
Postcards from the Edge (1990)
Defending Your Life (1991)
Death Becomes Her (1992)
The House of Spirits (1993)
A Century of Cinema (1994) (documentary)
The River Wild (1994)
The Living Sea (1995) (short subject) (narrator)
The Bridges of Madison County (1995)
Before and After (1996)
Marvin's Room (1996)
...First Do No Harm (1997)
Rescue (1997) (short subject) (narrator)
Voices from the Great Terror (1998) (documentary) (narrator)
Dancing at Lughnasa (1998)
One True Thing (1998)
Chrysanthemum (1999) (short subject) (narrator)
Music of the Heart (1999)
Ginevra's Story (2000) (documentary) (narrator)
Master of Light (2001) (documentary) (narrator)
The Papp Project (2001) (documentary)
AI: Artificial Intelligence (2001) (voice only)
Adaptation. (2002)
The Hours (2002)
A Gastronomic View from the Gardens of Giverny (2003) (documentary) (narrator)
Stuck On You (2003) (Cameo)
Angels in America (2003) (miniseries)
The Manchurian Candidate (2004)
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)
Prime (2005)
A Prairie Home Companion (2006)
The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

Upcoming:

The Ant Bully (2006) (voice)
Dark Matter (2007)
Dirty Tricks (2006)
Chaos (2007)

Other work

Streep co-hosted the annual Nobel Peace Prize Concert with Liam Neeson in Oslo, Norway in 2001. The winner of the prize was United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan.
She is a supporter of the US Democratic Party

External links

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