« Ben Vereen | Main | John Lithgow »
Jessica Lange
I can still play leading-lady roles now. It would be stupid to say I don’t want to act any more once I’m past that point, but I don’t want to be a character actress, really.
— Jessica Lange
GIVEN solid material to work with, actress Jessica Lange is reliably brilliant, and even when the movies she makes are entirely forgettable, the same can almost never be said of her performances. This remarkable buoyancy was both dramatically revealed and sorely challenged by her very first film, high-rolling producer Dino De Laurentiis’ ill-starred 1976 remake of King Kong, in which Lange took on the role made famous four decades earlier by Fay Wray. Nearly half of the film’s then-extravagant $24 million budget was lavished on her chief co-star, a 40-foot animatronic ape, whose paw alone weighed nearly one ton; perhaps unsurprisingly, the script was a flat and unimaginative redux of its revered source material. Massively hyped prior to its release, the movie was eviscerated by critics after it arrived in theaters; the equally-hyped Lange, though saddled with most of the sorriest lines in the script, was decidedly more warmly received.
Though King Kong made the lissome blonde a household name, it merely hinted at the breadth of her acting abilities. Held in limbo by a cumbersome contract with De Laurentiis, Lange remained off-camera for nearly three years before landing a supporting role in All That Jazz, producer-director Bob Fosse’s semi-autobiographical showbiz paean. The most stunning breakthrough of her career came just four years later, in 1983, when strong performances in Tootsie and Frances led to Lange’s becoming the first person in 40 years to be nominated for two acting Oscars in the same year. Thereafter she became one of Hollywood’s most critically acclaimed leading ladies, and by the time she collected her first Best Actress Oscar, for 1994’s Blue Sky, the erstwhile ape-bedeviled damsel was a five-time Best Actress nominee.
The third daughter and third child of her traveling salesman father and homemaker mother’s four children, Lange was born in Cloquet, Minnesota. The family moved around the state frequently, following dad’s constantly changing work itinerary, and young Jessica relied on an active imagination to cope with resultant feelings of displacement. Though she had little interest in acting as a child, she was attracted by the glamour of Hollywood and developed a particular obsession with Gone With the Wind: numerous viewings of the epic film led to multiple readings of the Margaret Mitchell novel upon which it is based, and the impressionable adolescent even whiled away one summertime illness by spending her hours in bed reenacting Olivia De Havilland’s death scene. Though she took a bow in the lead role of a senior class play in high school, it was Lange’s interest in painting and art that won her a scholarship to the University of Minnesota.
After only a few months of college classes, Lange became romantically involved with a Spanish photographer by the name of Paco Grande, and eventually dropped out of school to accompany him on a cross-country artistic odyssey. The two eventually wed, and spent the next couple of years living out of Grande’s pickup and following his creative muse down lonely highways and dusty backroads. After one of their rambling journeys took them briefly to Paris, Lange decided her artistic ambitions were being stifled Stateside and returned to Paris, sans Grande, in search of a creative rebirth. During her time overseas, she studied with famed mime instructor +tienne DeCroux and danced with the OpTra Comique. Eventually, she left behind such highbrow pursuits and settled for waiting tables at the Lion’s Head saloon in Greenwich Village, devoting her leisure time to acting classes and painting. In order to further augment her income, she modeled sporadically for the Wilhelmina agency, and it was this tenuous public profile that brought her to the attention of De Laurentiis.
In the process of feeding his discovery through the requisite Hollywood star-making machinery, the zealous producer widely propagated the myth that she had been a top-dollar cover girl, an association Lange bitterly resented; as she later told one interviewer, “I hated it, being lumped into that category of model-turned-actress.” In the wake of their King Kong debacle, protTgT and puppetmaster chafed at each other for nearly three years before mutually terminating their seven-year contract.
Determined to attain artistic credibility, Lange ardently pursued the role that eventually went to Mary Steenburgen in the Jack Nicholson vehicle Goin’ South. Impressed by her tenacity, Nicholson sent Lange a dozen roses with a promise that they would work together “some time soon.” Three years later, Nicholson made good on his promise, teaming up with Lange for a steamy 1981 remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice. Restored to the good graces of critics nationwide, Lange was primed for her double-nomination coup the very next year, and collected her first Oscar, in the Best Supporting Actress category, for her performance as the beguiling ingenue who captivates a cross-dressing Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie.
During the ’80s, Lange continued to deliver complex, critically lauded performances, particularly in 1984’s Country and 1985’s Sweet Dreams (both films brought her Best Actress Oscar noms), and worked her way through a string of celebrity romances, most notably with ballet hero and famed Russian defector Mikhail Baryshnikov, who fathered her first child. She eventually settled into an enduring relationship with her Frances co-star, playwright-actor Sam Shepard, had two more kids, and collected a fourth Best Actress nomination, for 1990’s Music Box. Though her performance in Blue Sky?released two years after its completion as a result of the financial insolvency of its major distributor — lacked the restraint of her best work, it was good enough to swell a tide of sentiment in her favor that finally delivered her the long-coveted Best Actress statuette.
Since the late ’80s, Lange and Shepard have kept house together, dividing their time between their Virginia horse farm and their Stillwater, Minnesota, spread; though unmarried, the two have remained together in the face of many a rumored breakup. In recent years, Lange’s career has been a bit of a hit-and-miss affair. Though 1995’s Rob Roy was a modest commercial success, Lange was relegated to the undemanding role of virtuous wife and trophy in the manly machinations between Liam Neeson and Tim Roth. Tepid grosses overshadowed Lange’s strong performance in 1997’s A Thousand Acres, which teamed her with Michelle Pfeiffer and Jennifer Jason Leigh, and 1998 witnessed the venerated actress in a thoroughly embarrassing assignment alongside Gwyneth Paltrow in the mother-love horror thriller Hush. She rebounded with Des McAnuff’s adaptation of Honoré de Balzac’s period novel Cousin Bette, which also featured Elisabeth Shue and Bob Hoskins. Lange hopes to return to London’s West End — where she was a sensation in a late-’80s run of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire — for a production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night.
Occupation: Actress
Date of Birth: April 20, 1949
Place of Birth: Cloquet, Minn., USA
Sign: Sun in Taurus, Moon in Aquarius
Relations: Al (traveling salesman); mother: Dorothy (homemaker); ex-husband: Paco Grande (photographer); ex-companions: Mikhail Baryshnikov (dancer, actor), Bob Fosse (director); longtime companion: Sam Shepard (playwright, actor); kids: Alexandra (with Baryshnikov), Hannah Jane and Samuel Walker (both with Shepard)
Education: University of Minnesota dropout
Fan Mail: C/O PMK
955 S. Carillo Dr., Suite 200
Los Angeles, CA 90048
USA.
Jessica Lange: Credits
MOVIES
Actor
Titus — 1999
Cousin Bette — 1998
Hush — 1998
A Thousand Acres — 1997
Rob Roy — 1995
Losing Isaiah — 1995
Blue Sky — 1994
A Century of Cinema — 1994
O Pioneers! — 1992
Night and the City — 1992
Cape Fear — 1991
Men Don’t Leave — 1990
The Music Box — 1989
Music Box — 1989
Far North — 1988
Everybody’s All-American — 1988
Crimes of the Heart — 1986
Sweet Dreams — 1985
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof — 1984
Country — 1984
Frances — 1982
Tootsie — 1982
The Postman Always Rings Twice — 1981
How To Beat the High Cost of Living — 1980
All That Jazz — 1979
King Kong — 1976
Producer
Country — 1984
Other Movie Credits
Country — 1984 (Co-Producer)
TV
Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire — 1996 (Movie)
A Century of Women — 1994 (Special)
O Pioneers! — 1992 (Movie)
Jessica Lange: It’s Only Make-Believe — 1991 (Special)
Vivian Leigh: Scarlett and Beyond — 1990 (Special; host)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof — 1984 (Movie)
Lange, Jessica Web sites
Titus: The Movie video
Official movie site from Fox Searchlight Pictures. Includes cast information and trailer. Site requires Flash 4.
http://www.foxsearchlight.com/titus/
Last reviewed by DottieHinkle
Mr. Showbiz Celebrities: Jessica Lange Profile
Photo, bio, news, and credits.
http://mrshowbiz.go.com/people/jessicalange/
Entertainment Asylum - Cousin Bette - Jessica Lange
Interview with video clips.
http://chat01.asylum.com/odv/indexes/31.html
MovieWeb: Hush
Information on the film starring Jessica Lange, Gwyneth Paltrow, Johnathon Schaech, and others.
http://www.movieweb.com/movie/hush/
Online Movie Club: Spotlight: Jessica Lange
Biography and career history, with filmography and related links.
http://www.sacbee.com/leisure/themovieclub2/spotli…
TV Now: Jessica Lange
Find out when and where you can see Jessica Lange on TV.
http://www.tv-now.com/stars/jessica.html
Photo Gallery:
Topics: Actress, Celebrities
Tags: Actress, All That Jazz, Blue Sky, Cape Fear, Country, Cousin Bette, Far North, Frances, Hush, King Kong, Losing Isaiah, Sweet Dreams, Titus, Tootsie
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
