Jessica Lange
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| Jessica Lange | |
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 Lange at the 1990 Academy Awards |
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| Born | Jessica Phyllis Lange April 20, 1949 Cloquet, Minnesota, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1976–present |
| Spouse(s) | Paco Grande (1970-1981) |
| Domestic partner(s) | Sam Shepherd (1982-present) |
Jessica Phyllis Lange (born April 20, 1949) is a two-time Academy Award-, four-time Golden Globe-winning American stage and screen actress. With a career that has spanned thirty-five years and six Oscar nominations, she is most notable for her performances in Frances, Tootsie, Sweet Dreams and Blue Sky.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Lange, the third of four children, was born in Cloquet, Minnesota, the daughter of Dorothy Florence (née Sahlman) and Albert John Lange, who was a teacher and salesman.[1] Her maternal grandparents were of Finnish descent, while her paternal grandparents were German and Dutch.[2][3][4] She studied art briefly at the University of Minnesota before going to Paris, France, where she studied mime with Étienne Decroux. She returned to New York City, New York in 1973 and took acting lessons while working as a waitress and a fashion model for the Wilhelmina Models agency.
[edit] Career
In 1976, Dino De Laurentiis cast her in his motion picture remake of King Kong, which started and almost ended her career. Although the King Kong remake was a top moneymaker for Paramount Pictures, critics were not kind to the film and Lange did not appear in another film for three years, when Bob Fosse cast her as the glamorous figure of death in All That Jazz (1979). The unfavorable reviews were devastating but critics took notice with her impressive turn in Bob Rafelson's remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981).
Her performance in her next film, Frances (1982), in which she portrayed actress Frances Farmer, was highly lauded and earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. She received two Academy Award nominations that year, the other for Best Supporting Actress in the comedy Tootsie (1982), for which she won. She continued giving impressive performances through the 1980s and 1990s in films such as Sweet Dreams (1984) (playing country/western singer Patsy Cline), Music Box (1989), Men Don't Leave (1990), and Blue Sky (1994), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
In 1992, Lange made her Broadway-theatre début in New York City opposite Alec Baldwin in Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire. She appeared in the West End in London, United Kingdom, in 2000, as Mary Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night. In 2005, she returned to Broadway in another Tennessee Williams play, The Glass Menagerie with Christian Slater.
[edit] Humanitarian work and political views
She is a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). She has also been a public critic of former U.S. President George W. Bush, once calling his administration, "a self-serving regime of deceit, hypocrisy and belligerence."[5]
[edit] Personal life
Lange was married to photographer Paco Grande from 1970-1981. Since 1982, she has lived with playwright/actor Sam Shepard.
She has three children, Aleksandra (born 1981) from her relationship with dancer/actor Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Hannah Jane (born 1985) and Walker Samuel (born 1987) with Shepard.
Lange currently lives in New York City.
[edit] Filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1976 | King Kong | Dwan | Golden Globe |
| 1979 | All That Jazz | Angelique | |
| 1980 | How to Beat the High Co$t of Living | Louise | |
| 1981 | Notre Dame of the Cross | uncredited | documentary |
| 1981 | The Postman Always Rings Twice | Cora Papadakis | |
| 1981 | The Best Little Girl in the World | TV | |
| 1982 | Tootsie | Julie Nichols | Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe; Nominated - BAFTA Award |
| 1982 | Frances | Frances Farmer | Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actress; Nominated - Golden Globe |
| 1984 | Country | Jewell Ivy | Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actress; Nominated - Golden Globe |
| 1985 | Sweet Dreams | Patsy Cline | Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actress |
| 1985 | Cat on a Hot Tin Roof | Maggie | TV |
| 1986 | Crimes of the Heart | Margaret 'Meg' Magrath | |
| 1988 | Far North | Kate | |
| 1988 | Everybody's All-American | Babs Rogers Grey | |
| 1989 | Music Box | Ann Talbot | Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actress; Nominated - Golden Globe |
| 1990 | Men Don't Leave | Beth Macauley | |
| 1991 | Cape Fear | Leigh Bowden | |
| 1992 | O Pioneers! | Alexandra Bergson | Nominated - Golden Globe |
| 1992 | Night and the City | Helen Nasseros | |
| 1994 | A Century of Cinema | Herself | documentary |
| 1994 | Blue Sky | Carly Marshall | Academy Award for Best Actress; Golden Globe |
| 1995 | Losing Isaiah | Margaret Lewin | |
| 1995 | Rob Roy | Mary MacGregor | |
| 1995 | A Streetcar Named Desire | Blanche DuBois | Golden Globe; Nominated - Emmy Award |
| 1997 | A Thousand Acres (film) | Ginny Cook Smith | Nominated - Golden Globe |
| 1997 | Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen's | Herself | uncredited; documentary |
| 1998 | Hush | Martha Baring | |
| 1998 | Cousin Bette | Cousin Bette | |
| 1999 | Titus | Tamora | |
| 2001 | Prozac Nation | Mrs. Wurtzel | |
| 2003 | XXI Century | documentary | |
| 2003 | Masked and Anonymous | Nina Veronica | |
| 2003 | Big Fish | Older Sandra Bloom | |
| 2003 | Normal | Irma Applewood | Nominated - Emmy Award; Nominated - Golden Globe |
| 2004 | Peace by Peace: Women on the Frontlines | Narrator | documentary |
| 2005 | The Needs of Kim Stanley | documentary | |
| 2005 | Broken Flowers | Carmen | |
| 2005 | Don't Come Knocking | Doreen | |
| 2005 | Neverwas | Katherine Pierson | |
| 2006 | Bonneville | Arvilla | |
| 2007 | Sybil | Dr. Cornelia Wilbur | TV |
| 2009 | Grey Gardens | "Big Edie" |
[edit] References
- ^ Jessica Lange Biography (1949-)
- ^ Jessica Lange genealogy. Rootsweb.com.
- ^ Jessica Lange as Willa Cather's Prairie Heroine - Patricia Brennan, ""I'm half Finnish and half Dutch and German", The Washington Post, February 2, 1992
- ^ http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/archives/1990/9001170071.asp M.L. Lyke, "The Yin and Yang of Jessica Lange Actress Often Defies Her Glamorous Image, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 16, 1990
- ^ White House: Kerry Should Apologize for Filthy Fund-Raiser. Newsmax.com. 9 July 2004.
[edit] External links
- Jessica Lange at the Internet Movie Database
- Jessica Lange at the Internet Broadway Database
- Jessica Lange commentary on the Iraq War
- Jessica Lange biographical page
- PopMatters.com, Jessica Lange: The Anti-Streep
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