Glenn Close

Glenn Close, born on March 19, 1947, in Greenwich, Connecticut, is an American actress whose career across stage, film, and television has spanned more than five decades. The daughter of Elizabeth Mary Hester Close and William Taliaferro Close, a physician who operated a clinic in the Belgian Congo and served as personal physician to Congolese dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, she grew up on her maternal grandfather's estate in Greenwich. She has two sisters, Tina and Jessie, and two brothers, Alexander and Tambu Misoki, the latter adopted by her parents during their time in Congo. When Close was seven, her family joined the Moral Re-Armament movement, remaining involved for fifteen years. Close has described the organization as a cult that governed every aspect of daily life, and she broke from it at age twenty-two, later crediting her desire to become an actress as the force that enabled her to leave.

Close attended St. George's School in Switzerland and Rosemary Hall, graduating in 1965. She subsequently traveled with the nonprofit singing group Up With People, during which time she organized a smaller ensemble called the Green Glenn Singers, whose members included Kathe Green, Jennie Dorn, and Vee Entwistle. She later enrolled at the College of William and Mary, double majoring in theater and anthropology, where she trained under long-time theater professor Howard Scammon and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. During her senior year, watching a television interview with Katharine Hepburn on The Dick Cavett Show deepened her commitment to acting as a profession. She also performed in the outdoor summer drama The Common Glory, written by Pulitzer Prize author Paul Green, during her years in Williamsburg.

Close began her professional stage career in 1974 at age twenty-seven, when she was hired through the University Resident Theatre Association and TCG to perform at the Helen Hayes Theatre, including in a production of Love for Love directed by Hal Prince — her Broadway debut. She made her television debut the following year in the anthology series Great Performances and also appeared as Cordelia in King Lear at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater. In 1976, she played Mary I in the short-lived Broadway musical Rex, with a score by Richard Rodgers and Sheldon Harnick. From September 1978 to April 1979, she appeared on Broadway in The Crucifer of Blood as Irene St. Claire, alongside Paxton Whitehead and Dwight Schultz. Her final major stage role before transitioning to film was the female lead Chairy in the Broadway musical Barnum, which ran from April 1980 to March 1981.

Her Broadway career extended well beyond those early productions. Among her stage credits are The Member of the Wedding, The Rules of the Game, Benefactors, Death and the Maiden, and Sunset Boulevard, with her work on Broadway spanning from 1974 to 2017. That body of work earned her three Tony Awards: Best Actress in a Play for The Real Thing in 1984, Best Actress in a Play for Death and the Maiden in 1992, and Best Actress in a Musical for Sunset Boulevard in 1995.

Director George Roy Hill discovered Close on Broadway in 1980 and cast her opposite Robin Williams in The World According to Garp, which became both her film debut and her first Academy Award-nominated performance. The 1980s brought a succession of prominent film roles, including The Big Chill, The Natural, Fatal Attraction, and Dangerous Liaisons, accumulating multiple Academy Award nominations across the decade. She also received her first Emmy nomination in 1984 for the television film Something About Amelia. Close portrayed Cruella de Vil in 101 Dalmatians in 1996 and its 2000 sequel 102 Dalmatians, and voiced the character Kala in Tarzan in 1999. Other film appearances from the period include Mars Attacks!, The Paper, Reversal of Fortune, and Air Force One.

On television, Close won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for her portrayal of Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer in Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story in 1995. She subsequently won two consecutive Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her role as Patty Hewes in Damages, which ran from 2007 to 2012. Her film work in the twenty-first century includes Albert Nobbs, The Wife, Hillbilly Elegy, and Wake Up Dead Man. Across her career, Close has accumulated nominations for eight Academy Awards, three Grammy Awards, and two British Academy Film Awards, in addition to her three Tony Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2019.

Close is the president of Trillium Productions and co-founder of the website FetchDog. She has been married three times and has one daughter, Annie Starke, from her relationship with producer John Starke. She has been vocal on issues including women's rights, same-sex marriage, and mental health, and has made political donations in support of Democratic politicians. Through her appearance on the genealogy series Finding Your Roots, she learned that she is related to Diana, Princess of Wales through seven-times great-grandparents, is distantly related to actor Clint Eastwood, and that some of her ancestors were slaveholders. She also has a tangential connection to Marjorie Post, who was once married to her grandfather, Edward Bennett Close.