Charlotte Gainsbourg

Charlotte Lucy Gainsbourg (born 21 July 1971) is an Anglo-French actress and singer-songwriter. She is most known in American cinema for her roles in The Science of Sleep, I'm Not There, and 21 Grams.





Personal life

Gainsbourg was born in London,and was raised in Paris. She attended École Active Bilingue Jeannine Manuel in Paris. She is the daughter of British actress and singer Jane Birkin and French singer-songwriter, actor and director Serge Gainsbourg. Her maternal grandmother was actress Judy Campbell and her uncle is the screenwriter Andrew Birkin, who directed her in The Cement Garden. Gainsbourg's longtime partner is the French actor/director Yvan Attal,with whom she has two children, Ben (born on 12 June 1997) and Alice (born on 8 November 2002).
On 5 September 2007, Gainsbourg was rushed to a Paris hospital where she underwent surgery for a cerebral hemorrhage. She had been experiencing headaches since a minor water skiing accident in the United States several weeks prior.



Career

Acting
Gainsbourg made her motion picture debut playing Catherine Deneuve's daughter in the film Paroles et musique (1984). In 1986, Gainsbourg won a César Award for "Most Promising Actress" for L'effrontée, and, in 2000, she won "Best Supporting Actress" for the film La Bûche.
In 1993, Gainsbourg made her English speaking debut in The Cement Garden, written and directed by her uncle, Andrew Birkin.
In 1994, Gainsbourg made her stage debut in David Mamet's Oleanna at the Théâtre de la Gaîté-Montparnasse. Gainsbourg has sung the title song in three of her films.
In 1996, Gainsbourg starred as the title character in Jane Eyre, the acclaimed film adaption of Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel.
In 2005 she gained critical praise for her role alongside Charlotte Rampling in the surreal thriller Lemming.
In 2007, Gainsbourg appeared alongside Gael Garcia Bernal in Michel Gondry's La Science des rêves and as Claire in the Todd Haynes directed Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There, also contributing a cover of the Dylan song "Just Like a Woman" to the film's soundtrack.
In 2008, she appeared alongside Anthony Hopkins and Laura Linney in the film The City of Your Final Destination. She later began filming for the Patrice Chereau film project Persecution.
In 2009, she won the award for Best Actress at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival for the film Antichrist.
Patrice Chereau's Persecution premiered in September 2009 at the 66th Venice International Film Festival in competition for the Golden Lion. The film is an intense study of a relationship, also starring Romain Duris and Jean-Hugues Anglade. Gainsbourg's mother Jane Birkin also had a film screening in competition, Jacques Rivette's 36 Views from the Pic Saint-Loup.
She has finished filming an Australian production, The Tree scheduled for a 2010 release. Her next project will be the Lars von Trier Sci-fi-disaster film, Melancholia.




Music


Charlotte Gainsbourg during the Air concert in Melkweg, Amsterdam on 27 March 2007.
Gainsbourg made her musical debut with her father on the song "Lemon Incest" in 1984. Two years later, she released her debut album Charlotte for Ever, which was produced by her father.
In 2000, Gainsbourg was featured on the Madonna album, Music on the track "What It Feels Like For A Girl". There is a lengthy spoken intro by Gainsbourg, taken from the film The Cement Garden, which inspired the title of the song. The track was further remixed for the single version of this song in 2001, with Gainsbourg's The Cement Garden speech repeated during the song.
In 2004, she sang a duet with French pop star Étienne Daho on his single "If".
In 2006, Gainsbourg released her second album 5:55 to critical acclaim and commercial success, reaching the top spot on the French charts and achieving platinum status in the country. In the UK, the album was moderately successful, reaching #78 (The single "The Songs That We Sing" only made #129).
In late 2009, Gainsbourg released her third studio album, IRM, which was produced by Beck. One of the influential factors in the album's creative process was her time spent filming Antichrist. Gainsbourg's head injury in 2007 influenced the title of the album "IRM," which is the French translation of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). While receiving a brain scan, she began to think about music. "When I was inside that machine,” she said, “it was an escape to think about music. It’s rhythm. It was very chaotic.”
Her song “Heaven Can Wait” was chosen as the Starbucks iTunes Pick of the Week on March 2, 2010.




Filmography

Film
Year Film Role Notes
1984 Paroles et musique Charlotte Marker
1985 La tentation d'Isabelle L'enfant
L'Effrontée Charlotte Castang César Award for Most Promising Actress
1986 Charlotte For Ever Charlotte Serge Gainsbourg film
1988 La Petit Amour Lucy aka Kung-fu master!
Jane B. par Agnès V. La fille de J. Agnès Varda film
The Little Thief Janine Castang aka La petite voleuse
1990 Il sole anche di notte Matilda Paolo and Vittorio Taviani film
1991 Merci la vie Camille Pelleveau
Aux yeux du monde Juliette Mangin Éric Rochant film
1992 Amoureuse Marie aka The Lover
1993 The Cement Garden Julie Andrew Birkin film
1994 Grosse Fatigue Herself aka Dead Tired
1996 Jane Eyre Jane Eyre Franco Zeffirelli film
Anna Oz Anna Oz Éric Rochant film
Love etc. Marie Marion Vernoux film
1999 The Intruder Catherine Girard
La Bûche Milla Robin aka Season's Beatings
2000 Passionnément Alice Almeida aka Passionately
2001 Félix et Lola Lola Patrice Leconte film
My Wife Is an Actress Charlotte aka Ma Femme est une actrice
2002 La merveilleuse odyssée de l'idiot Toboggan Voice
2003 21 Grams Mary Rivers
2004 Une star internationale Herself Short film
Ils Se Marièrent et Eurent Beaucoup d'Enfants Gabrielle aka ...And They Lived Happily Ever After
2005 L'un reste, l'autre part Judith aka One Stays, the Other Leaves
Lemming Bénédicte Getty Dominik Moll film
2006 Nuovomondo Lucy Reed aka The Golden Door
Prête-moi ta main Emma aka I Do/Rent a Wife
La Science des rêves Stéphanie aka The Science of Sleep
2007 I'm Not There Claire Todd Haynes film
2008 The City of Your Final Destination Arden Langdon Awaiting release
2009 Antichrist She Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award
Bodil Award for Best Actress
Persécution Sonia Patrice Chéreau film
2010 The Tree Dawn Julie Bertuccelli film Post-Production
2010 Melancholia TBA Lars von Trier film. Pre-production


Television
Year Title Role Notes
2000 Nuremberg Marie Claude Vaillant-Couturier Miniseries
Les Misérables Fantine Miniseries
Source:wikipedia
See;Clock2.info

Val Kilmer

Val Edward Kilmer, (born December 31, 1959) is an American actor. Originally a stage actor, Kilmer became popular in the mid-1980s after a string of appearances in comedy films, starting with Top Secret! (1984), then the cult classic Real Genius (1985), as well as blockbuster action films, including a role in Top Gun and a lead role in Willow.
During the 1990s, Kilmer gained critical respect after a series of films that were also commercially successful, including his roles as Jim Morrison in The Doors, Doc Holliday in 1993's Tombstone, Batman in 1995's Batman Forever, Chris Shiherlis in 1995's Heat and Simon Templar in 1997's The Saint. During the early 2000s, Kilmer appeared in several well-received roles, including The Salton Sea, Spartan, and supporting performances in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Alexander, and as the voice of KITT in Knight Rider.

Early life

Kilmer, the second of three sons, was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Gladys (née Ekstadt) and Eugene Kilmer, an aerospace equipment distributor and real estate developer. Kilmer's grandfather was a gold miner in New Mexico; the poet Joyce Kilmer is a second cousin of Kilmer's. Kilmer grew up in the San Fernando Valley with his two siblings, older brother Mark and younger brother Wesley,but says that even as a child growing up in California he did not like it there. Kilmer, who was raised a Christian Scientist, attended Chatsworth High School—where his classmates included Kevin Spacey and Mare Winningham—as well as Hollywood's Professional's School. He also attended Berkeley Hall School, a Christian Science school in Beverly Hills, CA, from nursery school until graduation from the 9th grade. At the age of 17, he was at the time the youngest person to be accepted into Juilliard's drama program. His brother Wesley died as a teenager due to an epileptic seizure in a swimming pool. Kilmer did not think Christian Science treatment was responsible for his brother's death as Wesley was alternated between medical treatments and Christian Science.





Career

1980s
In 1981, Kilmer co-authored and starred in the play How It All Began, which was performed at the Public Theatre at the New York Shakespeare Festival. Kilmer turned down a role in Francis Ford Coppola's 1983 film, The Outsiders, as he had prior theatre commitments.That same year, his first off-stage acting role (excluding television commercials) came in the form of a television short titled One Too Many, which was an educational drama on drinking and driving; it also starred a young Michelle Pfeiffer. His big break came when he received top billing in the spoof comedy Top Secret!, where he played an American rock and roll star. Kilmer sang all the songs in the film and actually released an album under the film character's name, "Nick Rivers".
During a brief hiatus, he backpacked throughout Europe, before going on to play the lead character in the 1985 comedy Real Genius. He turned down roles in Dune and Blue Velvet, before being cast as naval aviator "Iceman" in the big budget action film Top Gun, alongside Tom Cruise. Top Gun grossed a total of $344,700,000 worldwide. Following roles in the television films The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains, Kilmer played "Madmartigan" in the fantasy Willow; he met his future wife, co-star Joanne Whalley, on the film's set. Kilmer published a book of his poems, My Edens After Burns, in 1987, and starred in the Colorado Shakespeare Festival production of Hamlet in 1988. In 1989, Kilmer played the lead in both Kill Me Again, again opposite Whalley, and in TNT's Billy the Kid.




1990s
After several delays, director Oliver Stone finally started production on the film, The Doors, based on the band of the same name. Kilmer memorized the lyrics to all of lead singer Jim Morrison's songs prior to his audition, and sent a video of himself performing some Doors songs to director Stone. Stone was not impressed with the tape, but Paul Rothchild (the original producer of The Doors) said "I was shaken by it" and suggested they record Kilmer in the studio. After Kilmer was cast as Morrison, he prepared for the role by attending Doors tribute concerts and reading Morrison's poetry.He spent close to a year before production dressing in Morrison-like clothes, and spent time at Morrison's old hangouts along the Sunset Strip. His portrayal of Morrison was praised and members of The Doors noted that Kilmer did such a convincing job that they had trouble distinguishing his voice from Morrison's. Paul Rothchild played Val's version of 'The End' for Robby Krieger, and he told him "I'm really glad they got 'The End'. We never got a recording of that live with Jim and now we've got it." However, Doors keyboardist, Ray Manzarek, was less than enthusiastic with how Morrison was portrayed by director Oliver Stone's interpretation.[citation needed] In the early 1990s, Kilmer starred in the mystery thriller Thunderheart, action comedy The Real McCoy and again teamed with Top Gun director Tony Scott to play Elvis in True Romance, which was written by Quentin Tarantino.
In 1993, Kilmer played Doc Holliday in the western Tombstone alongside Kurt Russell, in what some say is one of Kilmer's finest performances.[who?] 1995 saw Kilmer star in Wings of Courage, a 3D IMAX film, and that same year, he starred opposite Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in Heat, which is now considered one of the best crime/drama films of the 1990s. In 1996, he appeared in a largely unknown film, Dead Girl, and starred alongside Marlon Brando in the poorly receivedThe Island of Dr Moreau. That year, Kilmer starred alongside Michael Douglas in the thriller The Ghost and the Darkness. The next year he played Simon Templar in the popular action film, The Saint. In 1998, he lent his voice to the animated film The Prince of Egypt, before starring in the independent film Joe the King (1999) and playing a blind man in the drama/romance At First Sight, which he described as of then, the hardest role he had ever had.



Batman
In December 1993, Batman Forever director Joel Schumacher had seen Tombstone, and was most impressed with Kilmer's performance as Doc Holliday. Schumacher felt for him to be perfect for the role of the Caped Crusader, though at the time, the role was still Michael Keaton's. Batman co-creator Bob Kane said he felt Kilmer was the best actor to portray Batman.
In July 1994, Michael Keaton decided not to return for a third Batman film after 1992's Batman Returns,due to "creative differences." William Baldwin (who previously worked with Schumacher on Flatliners) was reported to be a top contender, though just days after Keaton dropped out, Kilmer was cast. Kilmer took the role without even knowing who the new director was and without reading the script.Kilmer first learned that he was offered the role of Batman while he was literally in a bat cave in Africa, doing research for The Ghost and the Darkness (1996). Released in June 1995, Batman Forever was a success at the box office,despite receiving mixed reviews from critics.
In February 1996, Kilmer decided not to return for a sequel (1997's Batman & Robin, in which George Clooney replaced Kilmer), feeling that Batman was being marginalized in favor of the villains. Kilmer went on to do The Saint with a salary of $6 million.When asked why he did not return for a fourth installment, Kilmer said he liked the characterization of Simon Templar better than Bruce Wayne. Kilmer commented "Simon is a literary character who uses his wit, and not violence. Batman is a real screwed-up guy who has hustled an entire city, and now he's running around in a cape. What's it all about?"



2000s
Kilmer's first role in 2000 was in the big budget Warner Bros. box office disaster[26] Red Planet. That same year, he had a supporting role in the film Pollock and hosted Saturday Night Live for the first time. In 2002, he starred in the thriller The Salton Sea, which was generally well-reviewed, but received only a limited release. The same year, he teamed with his True Romance co-star, Christian Slater, and the two starred in the low budget film, Hard Cash, also known as Run for the Money.
In 2003, Kilmer starred alongside Kate Bosworth in the drama/thriller Wonderland, as well as appearing in The Missing, where he again worked with Willow director Ron Howard. The next year, he starred in Spartan, where he played a United States government secret agent who is assigned the task of rescuing the kidnapped daughter of the President. He received Delta Force-like training in preparation for the role. Subsequently, he had a role in the drama, Stateside, and starred (again with Slater) in the thriller Mindhunters, which was filmed in 2003 but not released until 2005. Kilmer next appeared in the big budget Oliver Stone production, Alexander, which received poor reviews. Also in 2004, Kilmer returned to the theatre to play Moses in a Los Angeles musical production of The Ten Commandments: The Musical, produced by BCBG founder Max Azria. The production played at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood. Kilmer had previously played Moses in the animated film The Prince of Egypt. Finally in 2004, Kilmer appeared in an episode of Entourage where he played a tripped-out Sherpa shaman whose primary source of income was the growing, harvesting and distributing high-quality marijuana all under a guise of hippy-dippy metaphysical insights.
Kilmer was in negotiations with Richard Dutcher (a leading director of Mormon-related films) to play the lead role in a film entitled Prophet: The Story of Joseph Smith, although the project never materialized. Kilmer performed in The Postman Always Rings Twice on the London stage from June to September 2005. In 2005, he co-starred with Robert Downey, Jr in the action-comedy film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. His performance was praised and the film was well reviewed, but the film received only a limited release.It later won the award as "Overlooked Film of the Year" from the Phoenix Film Critics Society. In 2006, he reunited with director Tony Scott a third time for a supporting role opposite Denzel Washington in the box-office hit Déjà Vu. In 2007, he guest-starred in hit TV series Numb3rs episode "Trust Metric" as torture expert Mason Lancer. In 2008, Kilmer starred alongside Stephen Dorff in the Sony and Stage 6 film Felon. The film was given only a limited theatrical release in New York and Los Angeles in 2008, but it developed into a success secondary to positive word of mouth.
He next starred alongside Nicolas Cage in the Werner Herzog film Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, and alongside Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson in Streets of Blood. Both were released in 2009. He appeared as the main antagonist "Mongoose" in a live TV series adaptation of the comic/video game of XIII on NBC in 2009.
As of 2010, Kilmer was working on writing the movie about the life of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Christian Science church. He is currently working on a possible sequel to 1985's Real Genius[citation needed]. He stars in a 2010 thriller from Michael Oblowitz called Mr. Nobody, wherein he portrays a Police Officer.



Knight Rider revival
He was the voice of KITT for the 2008 Knight Rider TV pilot movie and the following television series. He replaced Will Arnett, who had to step down from the role due to contractual conflict with General Motors.
In keeping with tradition established by the original Knight Rider series and original KITT actor William Daniels, Kilmer was uncredited for the role on-screen.



Personal life

Kilmer was married to Joanne Whalley, an actress, from March 1988 to February 1996. The two met while working together on the film Willow. They have two children, daughter Mercedes, born in 1991, and son Jack, born in 1995.
He dated supermodel Cindy Crawford in the 1990s. A noted incident in their dating life involved Crawford's advertising for a bar of which Kilmer did not approve. He admitted being unreasonable.
Warwick Davis, Kilmer's co-star from the 1988 fantasy Willow, in his audio commentary for the film described Kilmer as a very funny man and a hard working, dedicated actor. Kilmer is also an avid musician, and released a CD in the fall of 2007, proceeds of which went to his charity interests.
Other actors have noted that he prepares for his roles extensively and meticulously. Kevin Jarre, the original director of Tombstone, said that Kilmer once told him, "I have a reputation for being difficult. But only with stupid people."[36] Irwin Winkler (director of At First Sight) talked about his decision to hire Kilmer. "I'd heard the stories, so I checked him out. I called Bob DeNiro and Michael Mann, who'd worked with him on Heat, and they both gave him raves... I had a wonderful experience in spite of all the naysayers." Jeffrey Katzenberg (director of Prince of Egypt) talks about the actor. "Val was one of the first people cast in The Prince of Egypt. He was there every step of the way; patient, understanding, and phenomenally generous with his time."
Following their appearance together in Top Gun, Kilmer and co-star Tom Cruise reportedly had taken their onscreen conflict offscreen. Reports classified the two as holding a vitriolic hatred of one another. Kilmer even refused to participate in a charity beach volleyball game with Cruise on the grounds that he was, quote, "dangerous", although Kilmer is noted to have knocked out Cruise when a fistfight between the two developed during the filming of Top Gun.
Kilmer owns a ranch in New Mexico, where he tracks, hikes, fishes, and raises buffalo. Kilmer is also involved with The Wildlife Center of New Mexico and assists in rescuing animals and releasing them on his ranch.
In 2009, Kilmer listed Pecos River Ranch for sale for $33,000,000 with conservation real estate firm Orvis/Cushman & Wakefield.
He briefly flirted with running for Governor of New Mexico in 2010, but in the end declined to run. He made a donation to Ralph Nader's 2008 presidential campaign. On January 30, 2009, Kilmer was chosen to be the King of Bacchus, a parading Krewe in New Orleans, who in 1969, began the tradition of having celebrities ride in their parade as King.



Filmography

Year Film Role Notes
1984 Top Secret! Nick Rivers Film debut
1985 Real Genius Chris Knight
1986 Top Gun Lt. Tom 'Iceman' Kazanski
The Murders in the Rue Morgue Phillipe Huron TV film
1987 The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains Robert Eliot Burns/Eliot Roberts TV film
CableACE Award for Best Actor in a Movie or Miniseries
1988 Willow Madmartigan
1989 Billy the Kid William Bonney
Kill Me Again Jack Andrews
1991 The Doors Jim Morrison Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Performance - Male
1992 Thunderheart Ray Levoi
1993 The Real McCoy J.T. Barker
Tombstone Doc Holliday Based on a true story
Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Most Desirable Male
Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Performance - Male
True Romance Mentor
1995 Batman Forever Bruce Wayne/Batman Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Most Desirable Male also for Heat
Heat Chris Shiherlis Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Most Desirable Male also for Batman Forever
Nominated – Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor
Wings of Courage Jean Mermoz IMAX Film
1996 The Island of Dr Moreau Montgomery
The Ghost and the Darkness Col. John Henry Patterson Based on a true story
Dead Girl Dr. Dark
1997 The Saint Simon Templar
1998 The Prince of Egypt Moses/God Voice-over
1999 At First Sight Virgil 'Virg' Adamson
Joe the King Bob Henry
2000 Pollock Willem de Kooning
Red Planet Robby Gallagher
2002 The Salton Sea Danny Parker / Tom Van Allen Limited release
Prism Award for Best Performance in a Theatrical Feature Film
Hard Cash FBI Agent Mark C. Cornell a.k.a. Run for the Money
2003 Wonderland John Holmes Based on the Wonderland Murders
The Missing Lt. Jim Ducharme
Blind Horizon Frank Kavanaugh
Masked and Anonymous Animal Wrangler
2004 Entourage The Sherpa Episode: "The Script and the Sherpa"
Spartan Robert Scott
Stateside Staff Sergeant Skeer
Alexander Philip
George and the Dragon El Cabillo uncredited
2005 Mindhunters Jake Harris
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Perry Van Shrike/"Gay Perry" Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture
Nominated– Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor
2006 Summer Love The Wanted Man a.k.a. Dead Man's Bounty
Moscow Zero Andrey
10th & Wolf Murtha
Played Dillon
Déjà Vu Agent Andrew Pryzwarra
The Ten Commandments: The Musical Moses
2007 Have Dreams, Will Travel Henderson
Numb3rs Mason Lancer Episode: "Trust Metric"
2008 Comanche Moon Inish Scull TV mini-series based on the book
Knight Rider voice of KITT TV film based on 1980s TV series
Conspiracy MacPherson direct-to-video
Felon John Smith
Delgo Bogardus voice only
2:22 Maz
Columbus Day John
XIII Mongoose based on Belgian comic book XIII
2008–2009 Knight Rider voice of KITT TV series based on the 2008 TV film
2009 The Chaos Experiment James Pettis a.k.a. The Steam Experiment
Streets of Blood Detective Andy Devereaux
American Cowslip Todd Inglebrink
The Thaw Dr. David Kruipen
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans Stevie Pruit
Hardwired Virgil
2010 Fake Identity also known as Double Identity Nick
Mr. Nobody The Stranger post-production
Provinces of Night Warren Bloodworth post-production
The Irishman Joe Manditski post-production
MacGruber Dieter Von Cunth post-production
Georgia Dutch Journalist post-production
Tales of an Ancient Empire Rollo filming
Source:wikipedia

Meryl Streep

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.
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 has received 16 Academy Award nominations, winning two, and 25 Golden Globe nominations, winning seven, more nominations than any other actor in the history of either award. Her work has also earned her two Emmy Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Cannes Film Festival award, four New York Film Critics Circle Awards, five Grammy Award nominations, a BAFTA award, an Australian Film Institute Award, and a Tony Award nomination.

Early life and background

Streep was born Mary Louise Streep in Summit, New Jersey, the daughter of Mary Wolf (née Wilkinson), a commercial artist and former art editor, and Harry William Streep, Jr., a pharmaceutical executive. She has two brothers, Dana and Harry. Streep is of German, Swiss and English ancestry. Her heritage can be traced back ten generations to Loffenau, from where her second great-grandfather, Gottfried Streeb, emigrated to the United States, and where one of her ancestors served as mayor. Another line of the Streep family was from Giswil, a small town in Switzerland. Her maternal ancestry can be traced to Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. Her eighth great-grandfather, Lawrence Wilkinson, was one of the first Europeans to settle Rhode Island. Streep is a distant relative of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, and records show her family were among the first purchasers of land in Pennsylvania.
She was raised a Presbyterian, and grew up in Bernardsville, New Jersey, where she attended and graduated as valedictorian from Bernards High School. 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. While at Yale she played a variety of roles onstage, from the glamorous Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream to an eighty-year old woman in a wheelchair in a comedy written by then-unknown playwrights Christopher Durang and Albert Innaurato. "It was immediately apparent," said then-dean Robert Brustein, "that she was destined for greatness."



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.Streep's first feature film was Julia (1977), in which she played a small but pivotal role during a flashback scene. Streep was living in New York City with her fiancé, 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."
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", and had taken the role only because she had needed money. 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", and performed the role of Kate in The Taming of the Shrew for Shakespeare in the Park. 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". 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.
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, and that she had not been permitted to improvise a word of her dialogue. 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". Jaffee, Benton and Hoffman agreed with Streep, and the script was revised.In preparing for the part, Streep spoke to her own mother about her life as a mother and housewife with a career, and frequented the Upper East Side neighborhood in which the film was set.Benton allowed Streep to write her dialogue in two of her key scenes, despite some objection from Hoffman.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."
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

Streep at the Academy Awards, 1988
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.[28] 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".
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.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 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."
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."
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. 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."




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. 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".
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.Streep commented that she had limited her options by her preference to work in Los Angeles, close to her family, 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."
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.


Streep in 2004
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.
In 2009, she starred in Julie & Julia, in which she played the late Julia Child. For this role she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and also shared the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress with Sandra Bullock. Streep also received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for this performance. She then starred in Nancy Meyers' romantic comedy It's Complicated, with Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin.[38] She received nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for this film as well. Streep also lent her voice to Mrs. Felicity Fox in the stop-motion film Fantastic Mr. Fox.




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. 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

Streep (fourth from left) at the premiere of Mamma Mia!
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, 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".[42] In 2008, Streep was nominated for a Grammy Award (her fifth nomination) for her work on the Mamma Mia! soundtrack.



Personal life


Please help improve this article by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (May 2010)
Streep married sculptor Don Gummer on September 15, 1978. They have four children: Louisa Jackson, Grace Jane, Henry, and Mamie Gummer, an actress.



Awards

Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Meryl Streep
Streep holds the record for the most Academy Award nominations of any actor, having been nominated 16 times since her first nomination in 1979 for The Deer Hunter (13 for Best Actress and 3 for Best Supporting Actress).
Meryl Streep is the most nominated performer for a Golden Globe Award as well (she has 25 nominations as of 2009 and has won the most overall when she won for Julie & Julia in 2010). Streep 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.
In 2010, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.



Work

Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1977 Julia Anne Marie
1978 The Deer Hunter Linda National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
1979 Manhattan Jill Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress also for The Seduction of Joe Tynan and Kramer vs. Kramer
National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress also for The Seduction of Joe Tynan and Kramer vs. Kramer
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress also for The Seduction of Joe Tynan and Kramer vs. Kramer
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
The Seduction of Joe Tynan Karen Traynor Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress also for Manhattan and Kramer vs. Kramer
National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress also for Manhattan and Kramer vs. Kramer
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress also for Manhattan and Kramer vs. Kramer
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress also for Kramer vs. Kramer
Kramer vs. Kramer Joanna Kramer Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
Kansas City Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress also for The Seduction of Joe Tynan and Manhattan
National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress also for The Seduction of Joe Tynan and Manhattan
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress also for The Seduction of Joe Tynan and Manhattan
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress also for The Seduction of Joe Tynan
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
1981 The French Lieutenant's Woman Sarah/Anna BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
1982 Still of the Night Brooke Reynolds
Sophie's Choice Sophie Zawistowski Academy Award for Best Actress
Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
Kansas City Film Critics Award for Best Actress shared with Julie Andrews for Victor Victoria
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
National Board of Review Award for Best Actress
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
1983 Silkwood Karen Silkwood Kansas City Film Critics Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
1984 Falling in Love Molly Gilmore David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actress
1985 Plenty Susan Traherne
Out of Africa Karen Blixen David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actress
Kansas City Film Critics Award for Best Actress
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
1986 Heartburn Rachel Samstat Valladolid International Film Festival Best Actress
1987 Ironweed Helen Archer Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
1988 A Cry in the Dark Lindy Chamberlain Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Best Actress Award (Cannes Film Festival)
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
1989 She-Devil Mary Fisher Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1990 Postcards from the Edge Suzanne Vale Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1991 Defending Your Life Julia Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Actress
1992 Death Becomes Her Madeline Ashton Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1993 The House of the Spirits Clara del Valle Trueba
1994 The River Wild Gail Hartman Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
1995 The Bridges of Madison County Francesca Johnson Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
1996 Before and After Dr. Carolyn Ryan
Marvin's Room Lee Nominated — Chlotrudis Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
1998 Dancing at Lughnasa Kate 'Kit' Mundy Nominated — Irish Film and Television Awards — Best Actor in a Female Role
One True Thing Kate Gulden Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
1999 Chrysanthemum Narrator
Music of the Heart Roberta Guaspari Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
2001 A.I. Artificial Intelligence Blue Fairy (voice cameo)
2002 Adaptation. Susan Orlean Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress
Florida Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
Southeastern Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Nominated — Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated — London Film Critics Circle Film Award for Actress of the Year
Nominated — Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated — Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated — Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Cast
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
The Hours Clarissa Vaughan Silver Bear for Best Actress shared with Julianne Moore and Nicole Kidman
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated — Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Cast
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2003 Stuck on You Herself
2004 The Manchurian Candidate Eleanor Shaw Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Actress
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events Aunt Josephine
2005 Prime Lisa Metzger, therapist
2006 A Prairie Home Companion Yolanda Johnson National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress also for The Devil Wears Prada
Nominated — Gotham Awards - Best Ensemble Cast
"The Music of Regret" The Woman (short musical)
The Devil Wears Prada Miranda Priestly, editor-in-chief Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
North Texas Film Critics Award for Best Actress
London Film Critics Circle Film Award for Actress of the Year
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress also for A Prairie Home Companion
Satellite Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — MTV Movie Award for Best Villain
The Ant Bully Queen Ant (voice)
2007 Dark Matter Joanna Silver
Evening Lila Wittenborn Ross
Rendition Corrine Whitman, CIA official
Lions for Lambs Janine Roth
2008 Mamma Mia! Donna Sheridan Irish Film and Television Award for Best International Actress - People's Choice
Rembrandt Award (NL) - Best International Actress
National Movie Award (UK) — Best Female Performance
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Doubt Sister Aloysius Beauvier Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress tied with Anne Hathway for Rachel Getting Married
Iowa Film Critics Award for Best Actress
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
North Texas Film Critics Award for Best Actress
Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — London Film Critics Circle Film Award for Actress of the Year
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2009 Julie & Julia Julia Child Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress
North Texas Film Critics Award for Best Actress
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
New York Film Critics Online
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress also for The Fantastic Mr. Fox
Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress
San Francisco Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Southeastern Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Oklahoma Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Satellite Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress (tied with Sandra Bullock)
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Alliance of Woman Journalists Award for Best Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Detroit Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Houston Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress
Nominated — St Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association for Best Actress
Fantastic Mr. Fox Mrs. Fox[45] (voice) New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress also for Julie & Julia
It's Complicated Jane Irish Film and Television Award for Best International Actress - People's Choice
National Board of Review Award for Best Cast
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy



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
Source:wikipedia

Bridget Fonda

Bridget Jane Fonda, (born 27 January 1964) is a US actress.

Early life

Fonda was born in Los Angeles, California into a family of actors including her grandfather Henry Fonda, her father Peter Fonda, and her aunt Jane Fonda. Her mother Susan Jane Brewer is an artist. She is named after actress Margaret Sullavan's daughter Bridget Hayward who committed suicide at the age of 21. Sullavan was her grandfather's first wife. Her parents divorced and Peter remarried Portia Rebecca Crockett (former wife of author Thomas McGuane). Peter and Portia brought up Bridget, her brother Justin, and older stepbrother Thomas McGuane Jr (born circa 1962) in the Coldwater Canyon section of Los Angeles as well as just south of Livingston, Montana, where both brothers attended high school.[citation needed] Fonda attended Westlake School for Girls in Los Angeles. During this time she and Justin had little contact with the Fonda family, with Bridget recalling in an interview: "When I was a kid, the most important thing for me was my home. People would come and go and things would change but that place wouldn't. I loved it. I want to have that for the rest of my life. I want to have a place".



Career

Fonda first became involved with the theatre when she was cast in a school production of Harvey. She refused to solicit acting tips and advice from her famous relatives and studied method acting at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute.
She made her film debut at the age of five in the 1969 movie Easy Rider as a child in the hippie commune that Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper visit on their trek across the United States. Her second (also non-speaking) bit part was in the 1982 comedy Partners. In 1988 she got her first substantial film role, costarring with John Hurt in Scandal, based on the Profumo affair. That year she also appeared in You Can't Hurry Love and Shag.
Her breakthrough role, however, was as a journalist in The Godfather, Part III. After gaining additional work experience in a few theater productions she was cast in the lead in Barbet Schroeder's Single White Female, followed by a role in Cameron Crowe's ensemble comedy Singles, both in 1992. A review in the New Yorker proclaimed her "provocative, taunting assertiveness", and Rolling Stone said Fonda was "a comic delight". In 1997 Fonda was on the same plane flight as Quentin Tarantino when he offered her the part of a beach babe in Jackie Brown. Fonda was also offered the lead role in the television series Ally McBeal (later accepted by Calista Flockhart), but turned it down to focus on her film career.



Personal life

Fonda has not appeared in films since 2002. On 29 November 2003 Fonda married film composer and former Oingo Boingo frontman Danny Elfman.They have a son Oliver, born in mid-January 2005.



Award nominations

1990 - Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture for Scandal
1997 - Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for In the Gloaming
2002 - Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress In A Mini-series or Motion Picture Made for Television for After Amy



Filmography

Easy Rider (1969) (uncredited part as little girl in hippie commune)
Partners (1982)
Aria (1987)
You Can't Hurry Love (1988)
Light Years (1988) (voice in English version)
Scandal (1989)
Jacob Have I loved (1989)
Shag (1989)
Strapless (1989)
Frankenstein Unbound (1990)
The Godfather Part III (1990)
Out of the Rain (1991)
Doc Hollywood (1991)
Iron Maze (1991)
Drop Dead Fred (1991)
Leather Jackets (1992)
Single White Female (1992)
Singles (1992)
Army of Darkness (1992)
Bodies, Rest & Motion (1993)
Point of No Return (1993) aka (outside the US) The Assassin
Little Buddha (1993)
It Could Happen to You (1994)
The Road to Wellville (1994)
Camilla (1994)
Rough Magic (1995)
Balto (1995) (voice of Jenna)
City Hall (1996)
Grace of My Heart (1996)
Touch (1997)
Mr. Jealousy (1997)
Jackie Brown (1997)
Break Up (1998)
A Simple Plan (1998)
Finding Graceland (1998)
Lake Placid (1999)
South of Heaven, West of Hell (2000)
Delivering Milo (2001)
Monkeybone (2001)
Kiss of the Dragon (2001)
No Ordinary Baby (2001)
The Whole Shebang (2001)
Snow Queen (2002)
Source:wikipedia

Robert Redford

Charles Robert Redford, Jr. (born August 18, 1936) better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, model, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime Achievement in 2002.

Personal life

Redford was born in Santa Monica, California, the son of Martha W. (née Hart) and Charles Robert Redford Sr. (November 19, 1914 – April 2, 1991), a milkman-turned-accountant from Pawtucket, Rhode Island. He has a half-brother, William, from his father's re-marriage. Redford is of English and Scots-Irish ancestry.

He attended Van Nuys High School in Los Angeles, California, where he was classmates with Don Drysdale, and was a teammate on the Van Nuys High School baseball team with Don Drysdale. He graduated in 1954 and received a baseball scholarship to the University of Colorado, where he was a pitcher and a member of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity. While there, he worked at the famous restaurant/bar The Sink. He later studied painting at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and took classes in theatrical set design at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.

On August 9, 1958 in Las Vegas, Nevada, Redford married Lola Van Wagenen, who dropped out of college to marry him. They had four children: David James "Jamie", Shauna, Amy Redford, and Scott Anthony Redford. Scott, their first child was born September 1, 1959 and died of sudden infant death syndrome on November 17, 1959 at age 2½ months. He is buried at Provo City Cemetery in Provo, Utah. Robert and Lola divorced in 1985. He has five grandchildren, Dylan and Lena Redford (of son Jamie), Mica and Conor Schlosser (of daughter Shauna) and Eden August (of daughter Amy).

In July 2009, Redford married his longtime partner, Sibylle Szaggars, at the luxurious Louis C. Jacob Hotel in Hamburg, Germany. She had moved in with Redford in the 1990s and shares his Sundance, Utah, home.

Acting career

Television

Redford's career, like that of almost all major stars who emerged in the 1950s, began in New York, where an actor could find work both in television and on stage. Starting in 1959, he appeared as a guest star on numerous programs, including The Untouchables, Whispering Smith, Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Route 66, Dr. Kildare, Playhouse 90, Tate and The Twilight Zone, among others. He earned an Emmy nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Voice of Charlie Pont (ABC, 1962). One of his last television appearances was on October 7, 1963, on Breaking Point, an ABC medical drama about psychiatry.

Theater

Redford's Broadway debut was in a small role in Tall Story (1959), followed by parts in The Highest Tree (1959) and Sunday in New York (1961). His biggest Broadway success was as the stuffy newlywed husband of Elizabeth Ashley in Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1963).

Film

Redford in Barefoot in the Park.

While still largely an unknown, Redford made his screen debut in War Hunt (1962), co-starring with John Saxon in a film set during the last days of the Korean War. This film also marked the debuts of Sydney Pollack and Tom Skerritt. After his Broadway success, he was cast in larger feature roles in movies. He played a bisexual movie star who marries starlet Natalie Wood in Inside Daisy Clover (1965) and rejoined her for Pollack's This Property Is Condemned (1966)—again as her lover. The same year saw his first teaming with Jane Fonda, in Arthur Penn's The Chase. Fonda and Redford were paired again in the big screen version of Barefoot in the Park (1967) and were again co-stars in Pollack's The Electric Horseman (1979).

Redford became concerned about his blond male stereotype image and turned down roles in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate. Redford found the property he was looking for in George Roy Hill's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), scripted by William Goldman, in which he was paired for the first time with Paul Newman. The film made him a bankable star and cemented his screen image as an intelligent, reliable, sometimes sardonic good guy. Redford became one of the most popular stars of the 1970s.

Redford suffered through a few films that did not achieve box office success during this time, including Downhill Racer (1969), Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969), Little Fauss and Big Halsy (1970), and The Hot Rock (1972). But his overall career was flourishing with the critical and box office hit Jeremiah Johnson (1972), the political satire The Candidate (1972), The Way We Were, (1973) and The Sting (1973), for which he was nominated for an Oscar.

During the years 1974-76, exhibitors voted Redford Hollywood's top box office name. His hits included The Great Gatsby (1974), The Great Waldo Pepper (1975), and Three Days of the Condor (1975). The popular and acclaimed All the President's Men (1976), directed by Alan J. Pakula and scripted once again by Goldman, was a landmark film for Redford. Not only was he the executive producer and co-star, but the film's serious subject matter, the Watergate scandal, also reflected the actor's offscreen concerns for political causes.

He also starred in the 1977 war film A Bridge Too Far, and the baseball film The Natural (1984). Redford has continued his involvement in mainstream Hollywood movies, though projects became fewer. He appeared as a disgraced Army general sent to prison in the political thriller The Last Castle (2001), directed by Rod Lurie, someone else with a strong interest in politics. Redford, a leading environmental activist, narrated the IMAX documentary Sacred Planet (2004), a sweeping journey across the globe to some of its most exotic and endangered places. In The Clearing (2004), a thriller co-starring Helen Mirren, Redford was a successful businessman whose kidnapping unearths the secrets and inadequacies that led to his achieving the American Dream.

Redford stepped back into producing with The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), a coming-of-age road film about a young medical student, Ernesto 'Che' Guevera, and his friend Alberto Granado. It also explored political and social issues of South America that influenced Guevara and shaped his future. Five years in the making, Redford was credited by director Walter Salles for being instrumental in getting the film made and released.

Back in front of the camera, Redford received good notices for his turn in director Lasse Hallstrom's An Unfinished Life (2005) as a cantankerous rancher who is forced to take in his estranged daughter-in-law (Jennifer Lopez)—whom he blames for his son's death—and the granddaughter he never knew he had when they flee an abusive relationship. The film, which sat on the shelf for many months while its distributor Miramax was restructured, was generally dismissed as clichéd and overly sentimental. Meanwhile, Redford returned to familiar territory when he signed on to direct and star in an update of The Candidate.

Director

Redford at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival.

Redford had long harbored ambitions to work on both sides of the lens. As early as 1969, Redford had served as the executive producer for Downhill Racer. His first outing as director was in 1980's Ordinary People, a drama about the slow disintegration of an upper-middle class family, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Director. Redford was credited with obtaining a powerful dramatic performance from Mary Tyler Moore, as well as superb work from Donald Sutherland and Timothy Hutton, who also won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

Redford did not direct again until The Milagro Beanfield War (1988), a well-crafted, though not commercially successful, screen version of John Nichols' acclaimed novel of the Southwest. The Milagro Beanfield War is the story of the people of Milagro, New Mexico (based on the real town of Truchas, in northern New Mexico) overcoming big developers who set about to ruin their community and force them out because of tax increases. Other directorial projects have included the period family drama A River Runs Through It (1992), based on Norman Maclean's novella, and the exposé Quiz Show (1994), about the quiz show scandal of the late 1950s. Redford worked from a screenplay by Paul Attanasio with noted cinematographer Michael Ballhaus and a strong cast that featured John Turturro, Rob Morrow, and Ralph Fiennes. Redford handpicked Morrow for his part in the film (Morrow's only high-profile feature film role to date), because he liked his work on Northern Exposure. Redford also directed Matt Damon and Will Smith in The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000).

Beside his directing and producing duties, Redford continued acting. He played opposite Meryl Streep in Sydney Pollack's Oscar-winning Out of Africa, Michelle Pfeiffer in the newsroom romance Up Close & Personal, and Kristin Scott Thomas in The Horse Whisperer, which he also directed. Redford also continued work in films with political context, such as Havana (1990), Sneakers (1992), Spy Game (2001), and Lions for Lambs (2007).

Honors

U.S. President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush pose with the Kennedy Center honorees, from left to right, actress Julie Harris, actor Robert Redford, singer Tina Turner, ballet dancer Suzanne Farrell and singer Tony Bennett on December 4, 2005, during the reception in the Blue Room at the White House.

He attended the University of Colorado in the 1950s and received an Honorary Degree in 1983.

In 1995, Redford received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Bard College. He was a 2002 Lifetime Achievement Award/Honorary Oscar recipient at the 74th Academy Awards.

In 1996, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts.

In December 2005, he received honors at the Kennedy Center for his contributions to American culture. The Honors recipients are recognized for their lifetime contributions to American culture through the performing arts: whether in dance, music, theater, opera, motion pictures or television.

The University of Southern California (USC) School of Theater announced the first annual Robert Redford Award for Engaged Artists in 2009. According to the school's web site, the award was created "to honor those who have distinguished themselves not only in the exemplary quality, skill and innovation of their work, but also in their public commitment to social responsibility, to increasing awareness of global issues and events, and to inspiring and empowering young people."

Robert Redford received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from Brown University at the 240th Commencement exercises on May 25, 2008. He also spoke during the ceremonies.

Filmography

Actor

Year Film Role Notes

1960 Tall Story Basketball Player

1962 War Hunt Private Roy Loomis

Nothing in the Dark (episode of The Twilight Zone) Harold Beldon

1965 Inside Daisy Clover Wade Lewis

Situation Hopeless ... But Not Serious Captain Hank Wilson

1966 This Property Is Condemned Owen Legate

The Chase Charlie 'Bubber' Reeves

1967 Barefoot in the Park Paul Bratter

1969 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid The Sundance Kid BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role

also for Downhill Racer and Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here

Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here Deputy Sheriff Christopher 'Coop' Cooper BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role

also for Downhill Racer and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Downhill Racer David Chappellet BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role

also for Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

1970 Little Fauss and Big Halsy Halsy Knox

1972 Jeremiah Johnson Jeremiah Johnson

The Candidate Bill McKay

The Hot Rock John Archibald Dortmunder

1973 The Sting Johnny Hooker Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor

The Way We Were Hubbell Gardiner

1974 The Great Gatsby Jay Gatsby

1975 Three Days of the Condor Joseph Turner/The Condor

The Great Waldo Pepper Waldo Pepper

1976 All the President's Men Bob Woodward

1977 A Bridge Too Far Major Julian Cook

1979 The Electric Horseman Norman 'Sonny' Steele

1980 Brubaker Henry Brubaker

1984 The Natural Roy Hobbs

1985 Out of Africa Denys Finch Hatton

1986 Legal Eagles Tom Logan

1990 Havana Jack Weil

1992 A River Runs Through It Narrator (Uncredited) Voice Only

Also Producer/Director

Sneakers Martin "Marty" Bishop

Incident at Oglala Narrator

1993 Indecent Proposal John Gage

La Classe américaine Steven

1996 Up Close & Personal Warren Justice

1998 The Horse Whisperer Tom Booker Also Producer/Director

2001 Spy Game Nathan D. Muir

The Last Castle Lt. Gen. Eugene Irwin

2004 The Clearing Wayne Hayes

Sacred Planet Narrator

2005 An Unfinished Life Einar Gilkyson

2006 Charlotte's Web Ike Voice Only

2007 Lions for Lambs Dr. Stephen Malley Also Producer/Director

Director

Year Film Notes

1980 Ordinary People Academy Award for Best Director

Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing - Feature Film

Golden Globe Award for Best Director

1988 The Milagro Beanfield War

1992 A River Runs Through It Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Director

1994 Quiz Show Nominated — Academy Award for Best Picture

Nominated — Academy Award for Best Director

Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Film

Nominated — Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing - Feature Film

Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Director

1998 The Horse Whisperer Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Director

2000 The Legend of Bagger Vance

2007 Lions for Lambs

2010 The Conspirator

Sundance

Mount Timpanogos, panoramic view

With the financial proceeds of his acting success, starting with his salaries from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Downhill Racer, Redford bought an entire ski area on the east side of Mount Timpanogos northeast of Provo, Utah called "Timp Haven," which was renamed "Sundance." Redford's wife Lola was from Utah and they had built a home in the area in 1963. Portions of the movie Jeremiah Johnson (1972), a film which is both one of Redford's favorites and one that has heavily influenced him, were shot near the ski area. He founded the Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Institute, Sundance Cinemas, Sundance Catalog, and the Sundance Channel, all in and around Park City, Utah, 30 miles (48 km) north of the Sundance ski area. The Sundance Film Festival caters to independent filmmakers in the United States and has received recognition from the industry as a place to open films. In 2008, Sundance exhibited 125 feature-length films from 34 countries, with more than 50,000 attendees. The name Sundance comes from his character, the Sundance Kid. In addition, Redford owns a celebrated restaurant called Zoom, located on Main Street in the former mining town of Park City.

ndependent films

Since founding the nonprofit Sundance Institute in Park City, in 1981, Redford has been deeply involved with independent film. Through its various workshop programs and popular film festival, Sundance has provided much-needed support for independent filmmakers. In 1995, Redford signed a deal with Showtime to start a 24-hour cable TV channel devoted to airing independent films—the Sundance Channel premiered on February 29, 1996.

Political activity

Redford is politically liberal, and has supported environmentalism, Native American rights, and the arts. Most of his federal political contributions have been to Democrats (61%) or advocacy groups (34.6%), such as the Political Action Committee of the Directors Guild of America. However Redford has on occasion also supported Republicans, including Brent Cornell Morris in his unsuccessful 1990 race for Utah's 3rd congressional district seat. Redford also supported Gary R. Herbert, another Republican and a friend, in Herbert's successful campaign to be elected Utah's Lieutenant Governor, and is currently the Governor of Utah. He is an avid environmentalist and is a trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

(source:wikipedia)