JESSICA LANGE Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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JESSICA LANGE

Name: Jessica Phyllis Lange                                                                 
Born: 20 April 1949 Cloquet, Minnesota, U.S.                                               
                                                                                           
Jessica Phyllis Lange (born April 20, 1949) is a two-time Academy Award-winning             
American actress.                                                                           
                                                                                           
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. 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 where she studied mime. She                   
returned to New York City in 1973 and took acting lessons while working as a               
waitress and a fashion model for the Wilhelmina modeling agency.                           
                                                                                           
In 1976, Dino De Laurentiis cast her in his motion picture remake King Kong,               
which started and almost ended her career. Although, the King Kong remake was a             
top moneymaker for Paramount Pictures, film critics were not kind to the film.             
The unfavorable reviews were devastating but critics took notice when she made             
an 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 a nomination for Academy Award             
for Best Actress. She received two nominations that year, the other as                     
Supporting Actress in the comedy Tootsie (1982), for which she won. She                     
continued giving impressive performances through the 80s and 90s 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 Best Actress             
Academy Award.                                                                             
                                                                                           
In 1992, Lange made her Broadway debut opposite Alec Baldwin in Tennessee                   
Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. In 2000, she appeared on the London stage 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 actor Christian Slater.