Detailed Biography

Jessica Phyllis Lange is an American stage and screen actress. With a career that has spanned thirty-five years and six Academy Award nominations , she may be most notable for her performances in Frances, Tootsie, Sweet Dreams, Blue Sky, and Grey Gardens.

Early life

Lange, the third of four children, was born in Cloquet, Minnesota, the daughter of Dorothy Florence and Albert John Lange, who was a teacher and salesman. Her maternal grandparents were of Finnish descent, while her paternal grandparents were German and Dutch. 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.

Career

Film

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 . The unfavorable reviews were devastating but critics took notice with her impressive turn in Bob Rafelson's remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice .

Her performance in her next film, Frances , in which she portrayed actress Frances Farmer, was highly lauded and earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She received two Academy Award nominations that year, the other for Best Supporting Actress in the comedy Tootsie , for which she won. She continued giving impressive performances through the 1980s and 1990s in films such as Sweet Dreams , Music Box , Men Don't Leave , and Blue Sky , directed by Tony Richardson, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She portrayed the wife to the legendary Scottish hero in Rob Roy alongside Liam Neeson .

Since 2000, Lange has mostly appeared in supporting roles on screen. In her most recent film, Grey Gardens , a remake of the 1970s cult documentary, she played Edith "Big Edie" Bouvier Beale which earned her an Emmy Award.

Broadway/Stage

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.

Humanitarian work and political views

She is a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Children's Fund . 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."

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 from her relationship with dancer/actor Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Hannah Jane and Samuel Walker with Shepard.

Lange currently lives in New York City.