Born April 20, 1949 in Cloquet, Minnesota, Jessica Phyllis Lange is an American actress who has worked in film, theatre and television. The recipient of several awards, including two Academy Awards, four Golden Globes and one Emmy, Lange is regarded as one of the premiere female actresses of her generation.
The third of four children, Lange was the daughter of Dorothy Florence and Albert John Lange, who was an educator and salesman. Her maternal grandparents were of Finnish descent, while her paternal grandparents were German and Dutch. As a child, Lange’s family moved constantly due to her father’s frequently changing jobs. Lange later noted that her family lived like gypsies. But instead of rebelling against this transient lifestyle, Lange inherited the travel bug. By the time she enrolled as an art student at the University of Minnesota in 1967, she had big dreams of seeing the world. Lange studied art and photography at the University of Minnesota where she formed a relationship with photographer Francisco “Paco” Grande. The two married, and Lange dropped out of university in favor of travelling with Grande throughout the United States, both of them living the “bohemian life” out of a “beat-up van” throughout the late 1960s. She then relocated to Paris, France, where their relationship would eventually end. Lange, however, remained in Paris and would go on to study mime with the renowned Étienne Decroux.
In 1973, Lange returned to New York to “witness Nixon get impeached”. Supporting herself as a waitress at the Lion’s Head Tavern while sharing an apartment with soon-to-be-famous fashion models Jerry Hall and Grace Jones in Manhattan, she was discovered by fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez and was briefly a fashion model for the Wilhelmina Models agency before being discovered by Hollywood producer Dino De Laurentiis. She made her professional debut in 1976 with King Kong, which earned her a Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year and became the fifth highest-grossing film of the year. She had her first true major critical and financial success, however, with a starring role in 1981’s The Postman Always Rings Twice. The following year, Lange was the first film actor in forty years to receive two Academy Award nominations within the same year; she was nominated for the Best Actress award for her portrayal of former Hollywood actress Frances Farmer in Frances and received the award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as a soap opera star in the comedy Tootsie, the second-highest grossing picture of 1982.
Lange followed it with several critically acclaimed performances throughout the 1980s and the 1990s, garnering several awards and nominations for such films as Country (1984), Sweet Dreams (1985), Music Box (1989), and the television movie O Pioneers! (1992). She finally won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as a manic depressive army wife in Tony Richardson’s last film, Blue Sky (1994). The following year, she appeared as Blanche DuBois in CBS’s television production of A Streetcar Named Desire, for which she received her fourth Golden Globe Award for Best Actress and an Emmy Award nomination. Lange was later acknowledged with two nominations of the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Movie for her work in the HBO drama films Normal (2003) and Grey Gardens (2009), among other honors, eventually winning for the latter. Lange currently stars in FX’s American Horror Story, which debuted as the network’s highest-rated television show premiere ever.
In addition to acting, she is an award-winning photographer with two published works, and is a humanitarian, holding a position as a Goodwill Embassador for UNICEF and specializing in the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Congo and Russia. She is mother to three adults and is coupled with playwright Sam Shepard.
Jessica Lange Photo Gallery
