Meryl Streep

Born : Mary Louise Streep, June 22, 1949 (1949-06-22) (age 59), Summit, New Jersey, United States
Years active : 1977–present
Spouse(s) : Don Gummer (1978–present)
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an American award-winning actress who has worked in theatre, television, and film. She is widely regarded as being one of the most talented and respected movie actors of the modern era. She made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, and her screen debut came in 1977's made-for-television movie, The Deadliest Season. Streep made her film debut in Julia (1977), starring opposite Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave.
Both critical and commercial success came quickly with roles in The Deer Hunter, with Robert De Niro and John Cazale, and Kramer vs. Kramer, with Dustin Hoffman, the former giving Streep her first Oscar nomination and the latter her first win. Streep's work has earned her two Academy Awards, a Cannes award, six Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards (SAG), four Grammy Award nominations, two Emmy Awards, a BAFTA award, and a Tony Award nomination. She has received 15 Academy Award nominations, more than any other actor or actress in the history of the awards, and is tied with Angela Lansbury and Jack Nicholson for most Golden Globe Award wins, with six each. She has now been nominated a record-breaking 23 times for a Golden Globe award, beating Jack Lemmon, who had 22. She is now the most nominated actor in the history of the awards. She is also one of the few actors to have won all four major screen acting awards (Oscars, Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild, and BAFTA awards).
Early life
Streep was born Mary Louise Streep in Summit, New Jersey, the daughter of Mary W. Streep, a commercial artist, and Harry William Streep, Jr., a pharmaceutical executive. Streep's mother was of Swiss, Irish, and English ancestry, and her father's family was of Dutch descent. Streep was raised Presbyterian; the name "Streep" means "straight line" in Dutch. She has two younger brothers, Dana and Harry. Streep was raised in Bernardsville, New Jersey, where she attended and graduated from Bernards High School. She received her B.A. in Drama at Vassar College in 1971 but also enrolled as a transfer student at Dartmouth College for a semester before that school had become coeducational. She subsequently earned an M.F.A. from Yale School of Drama.
Early career
She performed in several theater productions in New York after graduating from Yale, including the New York Shakespeare Festival productions of Henry V, The Taming of the Shrew with Raul Julia, 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's first feature film was Julia, in which she played a small but pivotal role during a flashback scene. The Deer Hunter (1978) was her second feature film, and it earned Streep her first Academy Award nomination (for Best Supporting Actress). The following year, she won an Academy Award for her role opposite Dustin Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer (Best Supporting Actress, 1979). In 1982 she won again, for Sophie's Choice (Best Actress), where she starred alongside Peter MacNicol and Kevin Kline.
In 1978, she won her first Emmy Award, for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series for the miniseries Holocaust. A year later, she appeared in her only Woody Allen film, Manhattan. Streep was engaged to John Cazale ("Fredo" in The Godfather), her costar in The Deer Hunter, until his death from bone cancer on March 12, 1978. In September 1978, she married sculptor Don Gummer. They have four children: Henry W. Gummer (1979), Mary Willa Gummer (Mamie Gummer) (1983), Grace Jane Gummer (1986), and Louisa Jacobson Gummer (1991). While Streep still continued her career during motherhood, she chose to raise her family and be there for her children rather than work full time. Henry is an actor, filmmaker and co-founder of the rock band Bravo Silva. Mamie has chosen acting as a career, and made her off-Broadway debut as Lucy in a 2005 production of Mr. Marmalade at the Laura Pels Theatre. Grace made her acting debut at the Wild Project in New York in The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents, by the Swiss playwright Lukas Bärfuss in November 2008.
Awards
Streep holds the record for the most Academy Award nominations of any actor, having been nominated 15 times since her first nomination in 1979 for The Deer Hunter (12 for Best Actress and 3 for Best Supporting Actress).
Meryl Streep also holds the record for actress with the most Golden Globe Awards, with six wins. She is the most nominated performer for a Golden Globe Award (she has 23 nominations) and is also tied with Jack Nicholson for most Golden Globes overall by an actor or actress (six wins). Streep has received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 2003, she was awarded an honorary César award by the French Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinema. 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.
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