Jessica Lange

Early life and education

Jessica Phyllis Lange was born on April 20, 1949, in Cloquet, Minnesota. Her father, Albert John Lange, was a teacher and traveling salesman, and her mother, Dorothy Florence (née Sahlman), was a housewife. She has two older sisters, Jane and Ann, and a younger brother, George. Her paternal ancestry is German and Dutch, her maternal ancestry Finnish. Due to the nature of her father's professions, her family moved more than a dozen times to various towns and cities in Minnesota before settling down in her hometown, where she graduated from Cloquet High School.

In 1967, she received a scholarship to study art and photography at the University of Minnesota, where she met and began dating Spanish photographer Paco Grande. After the two married in 1970, Lange dropped out of college to pursue a more bohemian lifestyle, traveling with Grande in a microbus through the United States and Mexico].

The pair moved to Paris, where they drifted apart. While in Paris, Lange studied mime theater under the supervision of Étienne Decroux and joined the Opéra-Comique as a dancer. After returning to the US, she studied acting with Mira Rostova and at HB Studio in New York City.

Career

1976–1989: Breakthrough and acclaim

While living in Paris, Lange was discovered by fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez and became a model for the Wilhelmina modelling agency. In 1973, she returned to the U.S. and began work in New York City as a waitress at the Lion's Head Tavern in Greenwich Village. While modeling, Lange was discovered by Hollywood producer Dino De Laurentiis, who was looking to cast an ingenue for his remake of King Kong.

Lange made her film debut in the 1976 King Kong, beating actresses Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn for the role of damsel-in-distress. Despite the film's success – it was the fifth-highest-grossing film of 1976 and received an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects – it and Lange's performance were widely panned.

But film critic Pauline Kael wrote, "The movie is sparked by Jessica Lange's fast yet dreamy comic style. [She] has the high, wide forehead and clear-eyed transparency of Carole Lombard in My Man Godfrey, [and] one liners so dumb that the audience laughs and moans at the same time, yet they're in character, and when Lange says them she holds the eye and you like her, the way people liked Lombard." Lange won the 1976 Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year. She remained a favorite of Kael, who later wrote, "She has a facial structure that the camera yearns for, and she has talent, too."

At the close of the decade, Bob Fosse, whom Lange had befriended and with whom she had carried on a casual romantic affair, cast Lange as Angelique, the Angel of Death, a part he had written for her in his semi-autobiographical film All That Jazz (1979). She was considered for the role of Wendy Torrance in Stanley Kubrick's horror film The Shining (1980) before it went to Shelley Duvall.

Lange began the new decade in the light romp How to Beat the High Cost of Living (1980), co-starring Jane Curtin and Susan Saint James, which received mostly negative reviews and quickly disappeared from theaters. A year later, director Bob Rafelson contacted her about a project he was working on with Jack Nicholson, who had recently auditioned Lange for Goin' South (1978). Rafelson paid Lange a visit in upstate New York, where she was doing summer stock theater. He has recounted how he watched her conversing on the telephone for half an hour before their meeting when he decided he had found the lead for his film. After meeting Lange, he wrote her name down on a piece of paper, placed it in an envelope, and sealed it. He had several meetings and auditions with other actresses (Rafelson had already made his decision, but he feared he had done so too quickly and wanted to make sure his choice was right), finally choosing between Lange and Meryl Streep. In the end, Rafelson offered Lange the lead role opposite Nicholson in his remake of the classic film noir The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981). Upon offering her the part, he gave her the sealed envelope and told her of his early choice. The film received mixed reviews, but Lange was highly praised for her performance.

1990–2008: Established actress

Lange continued making films throughout the 1990s, periodically taking time off to raise her children and do theater- and television-based projects. She began the decade in Paul Brickman's warmly received Men Don't Leave (1990), for which she earned positive reviews and came in third place for the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress. She was approached by Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, who had both auditioned her for the role of Jake LaMotta's wife in Raging Bull (1980), to star in a remake of Cape Fear (1991). The film was the year's 12th- highest-grossing film. In 1992, Lange again starred opposite De Niro in Irwin Winkler's Night and the City, and in a television adaptation of Willa Cather's O Pioneers!, receiving her seventh Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress.

Lange made her Broadway debut, which met mixed reviews for her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in a revival of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire opposite Alec Baldwin. Critics rebuked her performance, with the Boston Globe stating "Jessica Lange is learning a new craft—theatre—at Blanche’s expense, and ours."

In 1994, Lange was lauded for her performance as a bipolar army wife in the 1960s in Tony Richardson's final film, Blue Sky. In 1995, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for this performance, along with the Golden Globe Award, the Los Angeles Film Critics, the Utah Film Critics, and the Sant Jordi Award for Best Actress.

She raked in second place for Best Actress by the National Board of Review, the National Society of Film Critics, and the Chicago Film Critics.

After Meryl Streep, she was the second actress to follow winning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar with a Best Actress Oscar, an achievement not repeated until nearly 20 years later by Cate Blanchett. Despite the critical praise, and Lange's Oscar-winning performance, Blue Sky was not a box office success.

In 1995, Lange gave critically lauded performances in Losing Isaiah, opposite Halle Berry, and Rob Roy, with Liam Neeson. The same year, she reprised her role as Blanche DuBois in a CBS television adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire, opposite Alec Baldwin, Diane Lane, and John Goodman. She received glowing reviews for her performance, which earned her fourth Golden Globe Award and her first Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie.

2009–2015: Career resurgence

In 2009, Lange co-starred as Big Edie, opposite Drew Barrymore, in HBO's Grey Gardens, directed by Michael Sucsy and based on the 1975 documentary of the same name. The film was a tremendous success, garnering 17 Primetime Emmy Award nominations and winning five. Lange won her first Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie, after having two previous nominations in the same category. She received her 11th Golden Globe Award nomination and second Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for her performance, but lost to Barrymore.

In 2011, Lange joined the cast of FX's horror anthology series American Horror Story. Series co-creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk originally wrote her part as a supporting character, but after Lange acquired the role, they expanded it. Murphy, a long-time admirer of Lange, said he chose her because he wanted to expose her work to a new generation of viewers. He also singled out her performance as Blanche DuBois on Broadway in 1992, which he saw twice, as his favorite performance, citing it as another motivation to cast Lange. The show was a huge success not only for the network and creators but also for Lange, who had a resurgence in her popularity, receiving rave reviews and several awards for her controversial role. She was chosen by TV Guide, Entertainment Weekly, and MTV for giving one of the "best performances of 2011". In addition, she won a second Primetime Emmy Award, a fifth Golden Globe Award, and her first Screen Actors Guild Award, after two previous nominations. She was also awarded a Special Achievement Satellite Award for Outstanding Performance in a Television Series by the International Press Academy and the Dorian Award for Best TV Performance of the Year by the Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association (GALECA). She was further nominated for the TCA Award for Individual Achievement in Drama, Critics' Choice Television Award, and Saturn Award.

In 2012, she had a supporting role in director Michael Suscy's box-office hit The Vow, opposite Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams. She returned to TV to star as the lead in the second season of American Horror Story, titled American Horror Story: Asylum. Once again, she was chosen by TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly for giving one of the "best performances of 2012". She won a second Dorian Award for Best TV Performance of the Year by the GALECA, and received a fifth Emmy nomination, a thirteenth Golden Globe Award nomination, a fourth Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, a second Saturn Award nomination, and a second Critics' Choice Television Award nomination.

2016–present: Return to Broadway

In 2016, Lange had a supporting role in Louis C.K.'s critically acclaimed and Peabody Award-winning web series Horace and Pete, which debuted on C.K.'s website on January 30, 2016. C.K. told Howard Stern that he had written the part for Lange and had asked her to be in the series at the Emmy Awards. The series also starred Steve Buscemi, Edie Falco, Alan Alda, and Laurie Metcalf.

She returned to Broadway alongside Michael Shannon, Gabriel Byrne and John Gallagher Jr. in a 2016 revival of Long Day's Journey into Night at the American Airlines Theatre, produced by Ryan Murphy and the Roundabout Theatre Company. Theatre critic Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote of her performance "You can feel Ms. Lange giving her all to each of her big set pieces, but they often feel too exquisitely self-contained, like coloratura arias in an opera. Ms. Lange is often acting beautifully, but she is also often palpably acting. And her final soliloquy is stretched self-indulgently thin." At the 70th Tony Awards the show received the most nominations of any play of the season. Lange won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. She also won the Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Lead Actress, with nominations for the Drama League Award for Distinguished Performance and a Time Out New York Award. She told filmmaker Michael Stever that Kim Stanley remained one of her truest inspirations.

On November 12, 2016, Lange was honored at the Camerimage Film Festival, rreceiving the Krzysztof Kieślowski Award for Acting. Lange next starred in FX's anthology series, Feud: Bette and Joan (2017), also serving as producer alongside Susan Sarandon, who also co-starred, and executive producers Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. The first season revolved around the infamous rivalry between Hollywood legends Bette Davis (Sarandon) and Joan Crawford (Lange), which came to a head during the making of the classic film, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1963). Alfred Molina, Stanley Tucci, Judy Davis and Catherine Zeta-Jones co-starred. Production began in the fall of 2016 and it was released on March 5, 2017. The series garnered Lange her eighth Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie, her sixteenth Golden Globe Award nomination, her sixth Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, her fourth Critics' Choice Television Award nomination and her second TCA Award nomination for Individual Achievement in Drama. Lange also received the Trinity Repertory Company's Pell Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts on May 23, 2017.

Style and reception

Lange is often included in the milieu of America's most respected actresses.

In a career spanning nearly five decades, Lange has come to be associated with playing intelligent women who often have a troubled internal life. She has been credited for her ability to deliver emotional intensity without resorting to excessive melodrama. Critics have frequently pointed out her tendency to play women on the edge of a nervous breakdown, a notion that Lange herself has also acknowledged. Nicholas Bell of Ioncinema writes that her Oscar-winning role of Carly in Blue Sky is reminiscent of her signature performances, as "Lange excels [here] at the small tics hinting at the madness always lurking below the surface".

Referring to her acting style, Lange has said that she performs on "pure emotion" rather than relying on a specific technique. Director Glenn Jordan, who has directed her in O Pioneers!, noted that "Jessica reminds me of what someone once said of Jack Lemmon. Whatever emotion or whatever small nuance you want, she is like a supermarket. Her shelves are stocked full and it's all accessible to her". This sentiment was echoed by actress Sarah Paulson who, after working with Lange on the 2005 stage production of The Glass Menagerie as well as five seasons of American Horror Story, described the actress as being "like a cat on a wire" and added that "she is very instinctual, she doesn't come up with an entire plan on how to play a scene". As a result, Lange's performance style has positively been referred to as unpredictable, since she acts out the trajectory of her characters' emotional journey with unexpected turns.

Personal life

Marriage and relationships

Lange was married to photographer Francisco "Paco" Grande from 1970 to 1982. Though they separated not long after moving to Europe during the mid-1970s, they did not divorce until the early 1980s, after which Lange paid him an undisclosed sum in alimony. According to biographer Anthony Uzarowski, the former couple "remain close friends."

From 1976 to 1982, she partnered with renowned Russian ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, with whom she had her first child, Aleksandra Lange "Shura" Baryshnikov (born 1981). During that time, she was also sporadically linked with Bob Fosse, with whom she remained friends until his death.

In 1982, she met and entered into a relationship with playwright Sam Shepard. They had two children together: daughter Hannah Jane Shepard (born 1986) and son Samuel Walker Shepard (born 1987). They lived together in Virginia, New Mexico, Minnesota, and eventually New York City, before separating in 2009.

Lange often returns to Duluth, Minnesota, and has said of the city, "It's the one place that has remained constant in my life ... After living all over [the world] and traveling everywhere I've wanted to go, I keep coming back here."

Activism and beliefs

Lange is a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), specializing in the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in spreading awareness of the disease in Russia. Lange fostered a Romanian child with disabilities during the early 1990s.

Though she does not adhere to a formal religion, she periodically practices Buddhism, describing it as "a discipline that makes sense more than anything because it's like a science". She is a vegetarian. In September 2013, Lange joined the opposition to Minnesota's wolf hunt and wrote a letter to Governor Mark Dayton.

Health issues

Lange has revealed that she suffers from severe bouts of depression, once admitting, "I have never been a believer in psychoanalysis or therapy or anything like that. I've never done that." She confessed, "Though my dark side is dormant right now, it continues to play a big role in whatever capacity I have to be creative. That's the well I'm able to tap into, where all the anguish, rage and sadness are stored." In 2022, Lange shed more light on her dark moods, admitting, "I've suffered bouts of depression my whole life. They ebb and flow. I have a hard time separating the sadness, [and] the depression, from my overwhelming sense of loneliness."

Photography

In 2008, Lange published a collection of her black-and-white photographs, 50 Photographs (powerHouse Books), with an introduction by Patti Smith. In 2009, an exhibition of her work, along with a series of her films, was presented at the George Eastman House, the oldest international museum of photography and film, which honors distinguished contributions to film with the George Eastman Award. Lange received the first George Eastman Honors Award, an award given to an artist whose life work embodies the traditions and values championed by George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film. In 2010, she published a second collection of photographs, In Mexico. In 2013, she released a children's book of photography, It's About a Little Bird. In 2014, she exhibited at Moscow's Multimedia Art Museum. In 2019, she published her fourth book of photography, Highway 61, composed of photographs of U.S. Route 61.

Lange's fifth book of photography Dérive was published by powerHouse Books and distributed by Simon & Schuster in 2023.

Acting credits and accolades

She has earned two Academy Awards, three Emmys Awards, and a Tony Award. She has also earned five Golden Globe Awards among sixteen nominations. Along with Helen Mirren, Lange holds the record for most nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film.

Lange has been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) for the following films:

55th Academy Awards, Best Actress in a Leading Role, nomination, for Frances (1982)

55th Academy Awards, Best Actress in a Supporting Role, win, for Tootsie (1982)

57th Academy Awards, Best Actress in a Leading Role, nomination, for Country (1984)

58th Academy Awards, Best Actress in a Leading Role, nomination, for Sweet Dreams (1985)

62nd Academy Awards, Best Actress in a Leading Role, nomination, for Music Box (1989)

67th Academy Awards, Best Actress in a Leading Role, win, for Blue Sky (1994)