Meryl Streep

Biography: Meryl Streep is considered by many film critics to be the best living actress of all time and her fourteen Academy Award nominations (2 wins), 21 Golden Globe nominations (6 wins) and 3 Primetime Emmy nominations (2 wins) certainly credit this.

Born as Mary Louise Streep in Summit, New Jersey, USA, Meryl's first role was in the Academy Award winning movie Julia in 1977, playing a small yet pivotal part. Her next film role was alongside Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken in The Deer Hunter (1978). Meryl won critical acclaim for her role and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Her first Academy Award win however followed the next year for Kramer vs. Kramer in the form of a Supporting Actress. She continued to receive critical acclaim and in 1982 won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her heart-wrenching portrayal of a Holocaust survivor torn between two lovers in Sophie's Choice.

In 2003, with an Academy Award nomination for Adaptation, she surpassed Katherine Hepburn, who ironically despised her, as the most nominated ever Academy Award actress. The box-office hit, The Devil Wears Prada is the highest grossing film of her career. It also earned Meryl the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical in a Motion Picture and her 14th Oscar nomination for Best Actress.

Meryl has had an equally successful career in the medium of television and has won two Primetime Emmy awards for Holocaust and Angels in America, in which she played the roles of four people.

Meryl is the sister of Harry Streep and has been married to Don Gummer, a sculptor, since September, 1978. They have four children - Henry (Harry) Gummer (born 1979), Mary Willa (Mamie) Gummer (1983), Grace Jane Gummer (1986), and Louisa Jacobson Gummer (1991).… Expand