Considered by many critics to be the greatest living actress, Meryl
Streep has been nominated for the Academy Award an astonishing 21
times, and has won it three times. Meryl was born Mary Louise Streep in
1949 in Summit, New Jersey, to Mary Wolf (Wilkinson), a commercial
artist, and Harry William Streep, Jr., a pharmaceutical executive. Her
father was of German and Swiss-German descent, and her mother had English, Irish, and German ancestry.
Meryl's early performing ambitions leaned toward the opera. She became
interested in acting while a student at Vassar and upon graduation she
enrolled in the Yale School of Drama. She gave an outstanding
performance in her first film role,
Julia (1977), and the next year she was
nominated for her first Oscar for her role in
The Deer Hunter (1978). She went
on to win the Academy Award for her performances in
Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) and
Sophie's Choice (1982), in which
she gave a heart-wrenching portrayal of an inmate mother in a Nazi
death camp.
A perfectionist in her craft and meticulous and painstaking in her
preparation for her roles, Meryl turned out a string of highly
acclaimed performances over the next decade in great films like
Silkwood (1983);
Out of Africa (1985);
Ironweed (1987); and
A Cry in the Dark (1988). Her career
declined slightly in the early 1990s as a result of her inability to
find suitable parts, but she shot back to the top in 1995 with her
performance as
Clint Eastwood's
married lover in
The Bridges of Madison County (1995)
and as the prodigal daughter in
Marvin's Room (1996). In 1998 she
made her first venture into the area of producing, and was the
executive producer for the moving
...First Do No Harm (1997).
A realist when she talks about her future years in film, she remarked
that "...no matter what happens, my work will stand..."