Comprehensive information and links about Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep (born June 22, 1949Meryl Streep is an Oscar-winning American actress who has received numerous accolades for her work in movies and television and who, from the 1980s to the present day, has been regarded as one of the best in her field.

table in Summit, New Jersey, USA. Her father, Harry Streep Jr., was a pharmaceutical executive of Dutch descent; her mother, Mary, was a commercial artist of Irish, Swiss, and English descent. The family's original surname, in the Netherlands by her Sephardic Jewish ancestors [1].

In September 1978 Meryl married sculptor Don Gummer and they are parents to four children: Henry, Mamie, Grace and Louisa. Her son Henry was in the same class as actor Kai Christophe Wong at Dartmouth College, alma mater to Streep, Andrew Shue and Natalie Portman. Her integrity in keeping her personal life personal is well-known within the industry. Streep refers to herself as "an actress who goes home to her family when I'm finished working."

Meryl was raised in nearby Bernardsville, New Jersey, majoring in drama at Vassar College and earning a Master of Fine Arts from the Yale School of Drama. She appeared in her first films, , in 1977 and 1978, the latter of which would earn her her first Academy Award nomination, for Best Supporting Actress. Streep has been nominated a total of 13 times—10 for Best Actress and 3 for Best Supporting Actress—making her the most-nominated actor of all time, surpassing Katharine Hepburn. She won Academy Awards for her roles in , the movie telling of one of the greatest Australian mysteries ever—the disappearance of Chamberlain's baby daughter Azaria at Uluru, and her claims (later substantiated in court) that a dingo had taken the child. Meryl's cry in the movie "That Dingo Ate My Baby" has been parodied in many comedy skits, the most famous being Seinfeld where Elaine says "Maybe the dingo ate your baby." MP3s with the phrase "The Dingo Took My Baby" greet people on many websites.

From 1984 to 1990, Streep won six People's Choice Awards for Favorite Motion Picture Actress and, in 1990, was named World-Favorite. Having been named on so many greatest movie star lists, Streep also defied expectations by her happy home life—marriage to sculptor Don Gummer, with four children—and her truthful approach toward the industry and her own presence within it. As she would say when collecting her Emmy award for , "There are some days when even I think I'm overrated . . . but not today."

But by 1990, her habit of performing marvelously without fail began to have an unusual effect, in that many critics begin to chide her for her tradition of playing "cold" characters, and often those with accents—in short, characters that weren't humanized to the immediate audience. In the 1990s Streep took to playing roles with greater variety, including farce in , for which she learned to play the violin.

Among her other recent work were guest voices in episodes of ; and in 2004 took on two additional roles, playing the character originated by Angela Lansbury in the remake of . That same year, Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields proclaimed May 27 "Meryl Streep Day".

In July 2002, Streep returned to the stage for the first time in over 20 years, playing Arkadina in the Public Theatre's revival of Anton Chekhov's . The beautiful staging, directed by Mike Nichols, also featured Kevin Kline, Natalie Portman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken, Marcia Gay Harden and John Goodman. The all-star cast ensured long lines of people willing to wait as long as 17 hours to acquire the free tickets. Summer 2006 will find her returning to that venue to play the title role in Brecht's ; this new translation by Tony Kushner will be directed by George C. Wolfe.

Streep's most recent film release was October's in which she had a comic role alongside Uma Thurman and Bryan Greenberg. She currently has two films in various stages of production for release in 2006, Robert Altman's Streep has received countless awards, including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame—all of which can be seen at numerous sites, including her page at the Internet Movie Database (link below). Summarized below are her awards from the best recognized institutions.

Academy Awards

She currently holds the record for the most Academy Award nominations of any actor, having been nominated for 13 Academy Awards since her first nomination in 1979 for

Golden Globes

Meryl Streep is also currently the second most nominated for Golden Globes. She has 20 nominations to Jack Lemmon's 22.

2004 - Golden Globe Best Performance by an Actress In A Mini-series or Motion Picture Made for Television, in shared with Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert DeNiro, Dan Hedaya, Diane Keaton, Hal Scardino, Gwen Verdon and Hume Cronyn. shared with Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, Miranda Richardson, Jeff Daniels, Ed Harris, Toni Collette, Claire Danes, Stephen Dillane, John C. Reilly and Allison Janney.Streep co-hosted the annual Nobel Peace Prize Concert with Liam Neeson in Oslo, Norway in 2001. The winner of the prize was United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan. The Nobel Peace Prize and concert is the most prestegious award show in the world.