Profile of Meryl Streep on Famous Like Me

Meryl Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an 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.

Biography

Born Mary Louise Streep in Summit, New Jersey, USA. Her father, Harry Streep Jr., was a pharmaceutical executive of Dutch descent (with distant Sephardic Jewish roots - the family name was changed from Messerschnitz to Streep in Holland); her mother, Mary McFadden, was a commercial artist of half Irish, 1/4 Swiss, and 1/4 English descent. Meryl was raised in nearby Bernardsville, majoring in drama at Vassar College and earning a Master of Fine Arts from the Yale School of Drama. 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. Streep has been nominated a total of 13 times—10 for Best Actress and 3 for Best Supporting Actress—making her the most-nominated actor of all time, surpassing Katharine Hepburn. She won Academy Awards for her roles in Kramer vs. Kramer (Best Supporting Actress, 1979), and Sophie's Choice (Best Actress, 1982).

Streep's career continued to climb in 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, 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 star lists, Streep also defied expectations by her happy home life—marriage to sculptor Don Gummer, with four children—and 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."

However, by 1990, her habit of performing marvelously without fail began to have an unusual effect, in that many critics begin to chide her for her tradition of playing "cold" characters, and often those with accents—in short, characters that weren't humanized to the immediate audience. In the 1990s, therefore, 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.

However, that is not to say that Streep did not maintain her reputation as an acting great—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 were guest voices in episodes of The Simpsons and King of the Hill. She 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 largely comedic 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".

Streep currently has ten different films in various stages of production for release in 2005, 2006, and 2007, beginning with Prime, in which she stars with Uma Thurman and Bryan Greenberg, which premieres in October.

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 the best recognized institutions.

Awards:

• 1978 - Emmy for best actress in a mini-series, in Holocaust
• 1980 - Golden Globe for best supporting actress, in Kramer vs. Kramer
• 1980 - Academy Award for best supporting actress, in Kramer vs. Kramer
• 1982 - Golden Globe for best actress, drama, in The French Lieutenant's Woman
• 1982 - BAFTA for best actress, in The French Lieutenant's Woman
• 1983 - Golden Globe for best actress, in Sophie's Choice
• 1983 - Academy Award for best actress, in Sophie's Choice
• 1989 - Cannes Film Festival for best actress, in A Cry in the Dark
• 1991 - American Comedy Awards for funniest actress, in Postcards from the Edge
• 2003 - Golden Globe Best Performance by an Actress In A Mini-series or Motion Picture Made for Television, in Angels in America
• 2003 - Golden Globe for best supporting actress, in Adaptation.
• 2004 - SAG for best actress, in Angels in America
• 2004 - Emmy for best actress, in Angels in America
• 2004 - American Film Institute life achievement award

Nominations:

• 1979 - Golden Globe Best Supporting Actress, in The Deer Hunter
• 1979 - BAFTA Best Actress, in The Deer Hunter
• 1979 - BAFTA Best Supporting Actress, in Manhattan
• 1981 - BAFTA Best Actress, in Kramer vs. Kramer
• 1982 - Academy Award Best Actress, in The French Lieutenant's Woman
• 1983 - BAFTA Best Actress, in Sophie's Choice
• 1984 - Golden Globe Best Actress, in Silkwood
• 1984 - Academy Award Best Actress, in Silkwood
• 1985 - BAFTA Best Actress, in Silkwood
• 1986 - Golden Globe Best Actress, in Out of Africa
• 1986 - Academy Award Best Actress, in Out of Africa
• 1987 - BAFTA Best Actress, in Out of Africa
• 1988 - Academy Award Best Actress, in Ironweed
• 1989 - Golden Globe Best Actress, in A Cry in the Dark
• 1989 - Academy Award Best Actress, in A Cry in the Dark
• 1990 - Golden Globe Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical, in She-Devil
• 1991 - Golden Globe Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical, in Postcards from the Edge
• 1991 - Academy Award Best Actress, in Postcards from the Edge
• 1993 - Golden Globe Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical, in Death Becomes Her
• 1995 - Screen Actors Guild Best Actress, in The River Wild
• 1995 - Golden Globe Best Actress, in The River Wild
• 1996 - SAG Best Actress, in The Bridges of Madison County
• 1996 - Golden Globe Best Actress, in The Bridges of Madison County
• 1996 - Academy Award Best Actress, in The Bridges of Madison County
• 1997 - SAG Best Cast, in Marvin's Room (shared - see note below)
• 1997 - Golden Globe Best Actress, in Marvin's Room
• 1998 - Emmy Best Actress in a Mini-series, in ...First Do No Harm
• 1998 - Golden Globe Best Actress in a Mini-series, in ...First Do No Harm
• 1999 - SAG Best Actress Nomination for One True Thing
• 1999 - Golden Globe Best Actress, in One True Thing
• 1999 - Academy Award Best Actress, in One True Thing
• 2000 - SAG Best Actress, in Music of the Heart
• 2000 - Golden Globe Best Actress, in Music of the Heart
• 2000 - Academy Award Best Actress, in Music of the Heart
• 2002 - SAG Best Cast, in The Hours
• 2002 - SAG Best Cast, in Adaptation (shared - see note below)
• 2002 - Golden Globe Best Actress Nomination for The Hours
• 2002 - BAFTA Best Actress Nomination for The Hours
• 2002 - BAFTA Best Supporting Actress, in Adaptation
• 2002 - Academy Award Best Supporting Actress, in Adaptation
• 2005 - Golden Globe Best Supporting Actress, in The Manchurian Candidate

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)
• 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)
• 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)
• Assignment: Rescue (1997) (short subject) (narrator)
• Eternal Memory: 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)
• The Papp Project (2001) (documentary)
• AI: Artificial Intelligence (2001) (voice only)
• Adaptation. (2002)
• The Hours (2002)
• Monet's Palate: A Gastronomic View from the Gardens of Giverny (2003) (documentary) (narrator)
• Stuck On You (2003) (Cameo)
• The Manchurian Candidate (2004)
• Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)
• Prime (2005) (in post production)
• Dark Matter (2005) (in pre-production)
• The Last Broadcast (2006) (in post-production)
• Ant Bully (2006) (voice) (currently filming)
• The Devil Wears Prada (2006) (in pre-production)
• Chaos (2006) (in pre-production)
• Dirty Tricks (2006) (announced start of production)
• Wanted (2007) (announced start of production)

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