Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep, born in 1949, American motion-picture actor who is noted for her versatility. Streep has been nominated for more Academy Awards than any other actress and has won best supporting actress for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) and best actress for Sophie’s Choice (1982).

Mary Louise Streep was born in Summit, New Jersey. She was educated at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and at the Yale School of Drama in New Haven, Connecticut. Streep played a number of roles in New York theater from 1975 to 1979 and appeared in several television dramas from 1977 to 1978. After a supporting role in the film Julia (1977), Streep appeared in a major part in The Deer Hunter (1978), as the girlfriend of a man who serves in the Vietnam War (1959-1975).

Streep won her first Academy Award for her role in Kramer vs. Kramer, in which she and Dustin Hoffman costar as a couple who separate and then fight for custody of their son. In The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981), adapted from a book by British novelist John Fowles, Streep plays both a passionate woman in Victorian England and a modern-day actress reflecting upon that role. She won her second Academy Award for Sophie’s Choice, about a Polish survivor of World War II (1939-1945) who must make a terrible choice after she is sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Streep starred in many movies over the following years, including the dramas Silkwood (1983), Out of Africa (1985), A Cry in the Dark (1988), The River Wild (1994), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), Music of the Heart (1999), The Hours (2002), The Manchurian Candidate (2004), and Lions for Lambs (2007). Her comedies include Heartburn (1986), She-Devil (1989), Postcards from the Edge (1990), Defending Your Life (1991), Death Becomes Her (1992), and The Devil Wears Prada (2006). She continued to do stage and television work.