Jessica Lange

Jessica Phyllis Lange (born April 20, 1949) is an American actress and photographer whose career has stretched across more than fifty years, with work in film, television, and theater. She has won two Academy Awards, five Golden Globes, three Primetime Emmys, and a Tony, and has also been nominated for a BAFTA and a Laurence Olivier Award. Lange is among the small group of performers who have achieved the Triple Crown of Acting.

She made her professional film debut in the 1976 remake of *King Kong*, a role that won her the Golden Globe for New Star of the Year. Her first Academy Award came for Best Supporting Actress as a soap opera star in the comedy *Tootsie* (1982), and her second for Best Actress as a bipolar housewife in the drama *Blue Sky* (1994). Other Oscar-nominated performances include *Frances* (1982), *Country* (1984), *Sweet Dreams* (1985), and *Music Box* (1989). Her film credits also include *All That Jazz* (1979), *The Postman Always Rings Twice* (1981), *Crimes of the Heart* (1986), *Cape Fear* (1991), *Rob Roy* (1995), *Big Fish* (2003), and *Broken Flowers* (2005).

On television, Lange won her first Primetime Emmy for playing Big Edie in the HBO movie *Grey Gardens* (2009). She gained wider recognition starring in FX’s horror anthology *American Horror Story* (2011–2014, 2018, 2026), earning two more Emmys for its first and third seasons. She received Emmy nominations for playing Blanche DuBois in the CBS film *A Streetcar Named Desire* (1995), a wife in the HBO movie *Normal* (2003), and Joan Crawford in the FX miniseries *Feud: Bette and Joan* (2017). She has also appeared in the television films *O Pioneers!* (1992) and *The Great Lillian Hall* (2024), as well as the Netflix series *The Politician* (2019).

On stage, Lange made her Broadway debut in 1992 as Blanche DuBois in a revival of Tennessee Williams’ *A Streetcar Named Desire*. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her role as Mary Cavan Tyrone in the 2016 Broadway revival of Eugene O’Neill’s *Long Day’s Journey into Night*. She returned to Broadway in 2024 as the hardheaded matriarch in Paula Vogel’s *Mother Play*.

As a photographer, Lange has published five books of her work. She has been a foster parent and serves as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF, focusing on HIV/AIDS in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Russia.

Lange was born on April 20, 1949, in Cloquet, Minnesota. Her father, Albert John Lange, was a teacher and traveling salesman; 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. Because of her father’s jobs, the family moved more than a dozen times across Minnesota before settling in Cloquet, where she graduated from high school.

In 1967, she received a scholarship to study art and photography at the University of Minnesota. There she met Spanish photographer Paco Grande, and after they married in 1970, she dropped out to travel with him in a microbus through the United States and Mexico. The couple moved to Paris, where they drifted apart. In Paris, she studied mime under Étienne Decroux and danced with the Opéra-Comique. After returning to the U.S., she studied acting with Mira Rostova and at HB Studio in New York City.

While in Paris, Lange was discovered by fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez and began modeling for the Wilhelmina agency. She returned to the U.S. in 1973 and worked as a waitress at the Lion’s Head Tavern in Greenwich Village. While modeling, she was spotted by producer Dino De Laurentiis, who was casting the lead in his *King Kong* remake. She made her film debut in that 1976 film, beating out Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn for the damsel-in-distress role. Though the film was the fifth-highest-grossing movie of 1976 and won an Oscar for visual effects, both it and Lange’s performance were widely criticized. Critic Pauline Kael, however, praised Lange’s “fast yet dreamy comic style,” comparing her to Carole Lombard. Lange won the Golden Globe for New Star of the Year. Kael remained a supporter, later writing that Lange “has a facial structure that the camera yearns for.”

At the end of the decade, Bob Fosse—a friend and casual romantic partner—cast Lange as Angelique, the Angel of Death, a part he wrote for her in his semi-autobiographical film *All That Jazz* (1979). She was considered for the role of Wendy Torrance in Stanley Kubrick’s *The Shining* (1980) before it went to Shelley Duvall. She began the 1980s in the poorly received comedy *How to Beat the High Cost of Living* (1980). The following year, director Bob Rafelson visited her in upstate New York, where she was doing summer stock theater, to discuss a project with Jack Nicholson. Rafelson later said he decided to cast her after watching her talk on the phone for half an hour before their meeting.