Meryl Streep

Biography

Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress. Widely regarded by peers and critics as the greatest actress of her generation, and by many as the greatest of all time, she is recognized as one of the most versatile performers in cinema, noted for her technical precision, nuanced emotional depth, command of dialects, and professional longevity. Streep is an alumna of Vassar College and the Yale School of Drama, holding a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Fine Arts. Her artistic process often includes refining her characters' dialogue so that their motivations possess a psychological depth and agency that transcend traditional archetypes. Beyond her creative work, she is a prominent advocate for gender parity, labor protections, and a challenge to the influence of the male gaze in film criticism and production. Streep began her professional stage career in 1975 in Trelawny of the Wells and earned a Tony Award nomination the following year for 27 Wagons Full of Cotton. She transitioned to film in Julia (1977), followed by her first Academy Award nomination for The Deer Hunter (1978). For Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), she won her first Oscar after advocating to rewrite her character's courtroom testimony, shifting the role from a secondary antagonist to a portrayal focused on a woman's autonomy. She became a leading actress of the 1980s with performances in The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), Sophie's Choice (1982), Out of Africa (1985), and A Cry in the Dark (1988), for which she received the Best Actress Award at Cannes. After expanding into various genres in the 1990s, Streep achieved a new level of commercial stardom in the 2000s. She transitioned from her established dramatic niche to lead high-grossing mainstream successes, portraying a formidable antagonist in The Devil Wears Prada (2006) and a singing lead in the musical Mamma Mia! (2008). During this period, she continued to receive critical acclaim for her dramatic turns in Doubt (2008) and The Iron Lady (2011), the latter earning her a third Academy Award. Streep's career honors include three Academy Awards, eight Golden Globe Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, one Children's and Family Emmy Award, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. She is a recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award, the Honorary Palme d'Or, the Kennedy Center Honor, the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award, and an Honorary César. In 2014, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She holds the record for the most Academy Award and Globe nominations of any performer, with 21 and 34 respectively. A prolific artist, her career spans over 64 films and 18 television projects, alongside more than 20 musical recordings and 30 audiobooks. Mary Louise Streep was born on June 22, 1949, in Summit, New Jersey, to artist Mary Wilkinson Streep and pharmaceutical executive Harry William Streep Jr. She has two younger brothers, Harry William Streep III and Dana David Streep, both actors. Streep's mother, who she claims looks like Dame Judi Dench, strongly encouraged her daughter and instilled confidence in her from a very young age. Streep was raised as a Presbyterian in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, and attended Cedar Hill Elementary School and the Oak Street School, which was a junior high school at that time. In her junior high debut, she starred as Louise Heller in the play The Family Upstairs. In 1963, the family moved to Bernardsville, New Jersey, where she attended Bernards High School. As a "gawky kid with glasses and frizzy hair", she liked to show off in front of the camera in family home movies from a young age. At age 12, Streep was selected to sing at a school recital, leading to her having opera lessons from Estelle Liebling. Despite her talent, she later remarked, "I was singing something I didn't feel and understand. That was an important lesson—not to do that. To find the thing that I could feel through." She quit after four years. She had many Catholic school friends and regularly attended Mass. She was a high school cheerleader for the Bernards High School Mountaineers. She was also chosen as the homecoming queen her senior year. Although Streep appeared in numerous school plays during her high school years, she was uninterested in serious theater until acting in the play Miss Julie at Vassar College in 1969, in which she gained attention across the campus. Vassar drama professor Clinton J. Atkinson noted, "I don't think anyone ever taught Meryl acting. She really taught herself." Streep demonstrated an early ability to mimic accents and to quickly memorize her lines. She earned her AB in drama cum laude in 1971, before applying for a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree from the Yale School of Drama.