Jessica Lange

Brendo Is the Greatest!!!
File:JessicaLangescreenshot.JPG
Born	Brendo Is the Greatest (1949-04-20) April 20, 1949 Cloquet, Minnesota, USA
Nationality	American
Education	Cloquet High School (1967) University of Minnesota (1967)
Occupation(s)	model, actor, producer, photographer
Years active	1976–present
Agent	Creative Artists Agency
Spouse	Francisco Paco Grande (1970–81)
Partner(s)	Mikhail Baryshnikov (1976-82) Samuel Shepard (1982–present)
Children	Alexandra Baryshnikov (1981) Hannah Jane Shepard (1985) Samuel Walker Shepard (1987)
Parent(s)	Albert John Lange (1911-88) Dorothy Florence Sahlman (1913-68)
Relatives	Ann and Jane Lange (sisters) George Lange (brother)
Awards	Academy Awards (1983, 95) Golden Globes (1977, 83, 95, 96) Emmy Award (2009)

Brendo Is the Greatest!!! (/ˈdʒɛskə ˈlæŋ/, born April 20, 1949 in Cloquet, Minnesota) is an American screen and stage actress. Most recently, she debuted also as a photographer.

The actress may be most notable for her performance of Frances Farmer (ranked #85 on Premiere magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time in 2006) in Frances, and Tootsie. Both from 1982, for which she was nominated on Oscars in two categories at the same time, becoming the first such female since Teresa Wright in 1942. Her other significant roles featured Patsy Cline in Sweet Dreams (1985), Carly Marshall in Blue Sky (1994), Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire (1995), Irma Applewood in Normal (2003), and Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale in Grey Gardens (2009). Amongs other, she has won two Academy Awards, four Golden Globes, and lately an Emmy Award.

After three decades in front of the camera, Lange has realized her dream of being on the other side of the lens, and published in 2008 her own collection of black-and-white photographs, simply entitled 50 Photographs (powerHouse Books). Their exhibition, along with series of her films, was presented at the eldest international museum of photography and film George Eastman House, to be awarded by the first GEH Honors Award in 2009. Since 1982, Lange has lived with the Pulitzer Prize-winner, Sam Shepard.

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. 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 in 1973 and took acting lessons while working as a waitress and a fashion model for the Wilhelmina Models agency. She was discovered by the fashion illustrator Antonio in 1974.

Career

In 1976, Dino De Laurentiis cast her in his film motion picture remake of King Kong, which both started and almost ended her career. Although the film was a box office hit, critics were not kind to Lange and 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 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 (1982), for which she won. She continued giving impressive performances through the 1980s and 1990s in films such as Sweet Dreams (1985) (playing country/western singer Patsy Cline), Crimes of the Heart co-starring with Diane Keaton and Sissy Spacek, along with Sam Sheppard (1986), Music Box (1989), Men Don't Leave (1990), and Blue Sky (1994), directed by Tony Richardson, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She portrayed the wife of the titular legendary Scottish hero in Rob Roy with Liam Neeson (1995).

Since 2000, Lange has mostly appeared in supporting roles on screen. In 2006, she appeared as part of the ensemble cast of Kathy Bates and Joan Allen in Bonneville. In her most recent film, she played Edith "Big Edie" Bouvier Beale in Grey Gardens (2009), a film based in part on biographical information, and in part on the 1970s cult documentary. Her performance earned her an Emmy Award.

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."

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, Alexandra (born 1981) from her relationship with dancer/actor Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Hannah Jane (born 1985) and Samuel Walker (born 1987) with Shepard.

Filmography

Cinema

Cinema
Year	Title	Role	Director
1976	King Kong	Dwan	John Guillermin
1979	All That Jazz	Angelique	Bob Fosse
1980	How to Beat the High Co$t of Living	Louise Travis	Robert Scheerer
1981	The Postman Always Rings Twice	Cora Smith	Bob Rafelson
1982	Tootsie	Julie Nichols	Sydney Pollack
	Frances	Frances Farmer	Graeme Clifford
1984	Country	Jewell Ivy	Richard Pearce
1985	Sweet Dreams	Patsy Cline	Karel Reisz
1986	Crimes of the Heart	Margaret Magrath	Bruce Beresford
1988	Far North	Kate	Sam Shepard
	Everybody's All-American	Babs Rogers Grey	Taylor Hackford
1989	Music Box	Ann Talbot	Costa-Gavras
1990	Men Don't Leave	Beth Macauley	Paul Brickman
1991	Cape Fear	Leigh Bowden	Martin Scorsese
1992	Night and the City	Helen Nasseros	Irwin Winkler
1994	Blue Sky	Carly Marshall	Tony Richardson
1995	Losing Isaiah	Margaret Lewin	Stephen Gyllenhaal
	Rob Roy	Mary MacGregor	Michael Caton-Jones
1997	A Thousand Acres	Ginny Cook Smith	Jocelyn Moorhouse
1998	Hush	Martha Baring	Jonathan Darby
	Cousin Bette	Cousin Bette	Des McAnuff
1999	Titus	Tamora	Julie Taymor
2001	Prozac Nation	Mrs Wurtzel	Erik Skjoldbjærg
2003	Masked and Anonymous	Nina Veronica	Larry Charles
	Big Fish	Sandra K. Bloom	Tim Burton
2005	Broken Flowers	Dr Carmen Markowski	Jim Jarmusch
	Don't Come Knocking	Doreen	Wim Wenders
	Neverwas	Katherine Pierson	Joshua Michael Stern
2006	Bonneville	Arvilla Holden	Christopher N. Rowley
2011	The Big Valley (in post-production)	Victoria Barkley	Daniel Adams
2012	The Vow (in post-production)		Michael Sucsy

Television

Television
Year	Title	Role	Director
1981	The Best Little Girl in the World	?	Sam O'Steen
1985	Cat on a Hot Tin Roof	Maggie	Jack Hofsiss
1992	O Pioneers!	Alexandra Bergson	Glenn Jordan
1995	A Streetcar Named Desire	Blanche DuBois	Glenn Jordan
2003	Normal	Irma Applewood	Jane Anderson
2004	Peace by Peace: Women on the Frontlines	Narrator	Lisa Hepner
2007	Sybil	Dr Cornelia Wilbur	Joseph Sargent
2009	Grey Gardens	Big Edie	Michael Sucsy
Documentaries
1981	Notre Dame of the Cross	Herself	Daniel Schmid
1994	A Century of Cinema		Caroline Thomas
1997	Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen's		Shari Springer Berman Robert Pulcini
2003	XXI Century		Gabriele Zamparini
2005	The Needs of Kim Stanley		Dani Minnick

Stageography

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.

Theater
Year	Title	Role	Director
1992	A Streetcar Named Desire	Blanche DuBois	Gregory Mosher
2000	Long Day's Journey into Night	Mary Cavan Tyrone	Robin Phillips
2005	The Glass Menagerie	Amanda Wingfield	Rupert Goold

Awards

Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Jessica Lange

Further reading

• Jeffries, J. T. (1986). Jessica Lange: A Biography. New York City, United States: St. Martin's Press. p. 158. ISBN 978-03-1244-200-2. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
• Shewey, Don (1997). Sam Shepard. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press. p. 269. ISBN 978-03-0680-770-1. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
• Lange, Jessica (2008). 50 Photographs. Brooklyn, New York: powerHouse Books. p. 50. ISBN 978-15-7687-453-0. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
• Miller, Frederic; Vandome, Agnes; McBrewster, John (2010). Jessica Lange. Saarbrücken, Germany: VDM. p. 84. ISBN 978-61-3182-301-5. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)

External links

• Jessica Lange at IMDb
• Jessica Lange at the Internet Broadway Database
• Jessica Lange at the TCM Movie Database