Jessica Lange

Jessica Phyllis Lange was born on April 20, 1949, in Cloquet, Minnesota, to Albert John Lange, a teacher and traveling salesman, and Dorothy Florence Lange, a housewife. She grew up alongside two older sisters, Jane and Ann, and a younger brother, George, and her family relocated more than a dozen times across Minnesota before settling back in Cloquet, where Lange graduated from Cloquet High School. Her paternal ancestry is German and Dutch, and her maternal ancestry is Finnish. In 1967, she enrolled at the University of Minnesota on an art and photography scholarship, where she met Spanish photographer Paco Grande. The two married in 1970, after which Lange left college and traveled through the United States and Mexico before the couple relocated to Paris. There she studied mime theater under Étienne Decroux and joined the Opéra-Comique as a dancer. She later studied acting with Mira Rostova and at HB Studio in New York City.

During her time in Paris, Lange was discovered by fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez and signed with the Wilhelmina modeling agency. After returning to the United States in 1973, she worked as a waitress at the Lion's Head Tavern in Greenwich Village while continuing to model. Hollywood producer Dino De Laurentiis cast her as the lead in his remake of King Kong (1976), a role she secured over Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn. The film earned Lange the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year. Director Bob Fosse, with whom Lange had a personal friendship, wrote the role of Angelique, the Angel of Death, specifically for her in his semi-autobiographical film All That Jazz (1979).

Lange's career accelerated significantly in the early 1980s. Director Bob Rafelson cast her opposite Jack Nicholson in the film noir remake The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), and she subsequently took on the demanding title role in the biographical drama Frances (1982), co-starring Kim Stanley and Sam Shepard. She also accepted a supporting role in Sydney Pollack's comedy Tootsie (1982) opposite Dustin Hoffman. In 1982, Lange became the first performer in forty years to receive two Academy Award nominations in the same year, for Frances and for Tootsie, winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the latter. Her additional Oscar-nominated performances came in Country (1984), Sweet Dreams (1985), and Music Box (1989), and she received a second Academy Award, for Best Actress, for her portrayal of a bipolar housewife in the drama Blue Sky (1994). Her film work also includes All That Jazz (1979), Crimes of the Heart (1986), Cape Fear (1991), Rob Roy (1995), Big Fish (2003), and Broken Flowers (2005).

On television, Lange received her first Primetime Emmy Award for portraying Big Edie in the HBO film Grey Gardens (2009). She earned two additional Primetime Emmys for her work in FX's horror anthology American Horror Story, which she joined in 2011 and appeared in through 2014 and again in 2018, winning 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 television film Normal (2003), and Joan Crawford in the FX miniseries Feud: Bette and Joan (2017). Her television work also includes the films O Pioneers! (1992) and The Great Lillian Hall (2024), as well as the Netflix series The Politician (2019).

Lange's Broadway career spans more than three decades, beginning in 1992 and extending through 2024. She made her stage debut on Broadway as Blanche DuBois in the revival of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire in 1992. She subsequently appeared in productions of The Glass Menagerie and Long Day's Journey Into Night, the latter earning her the Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play in 2016 for her portrayal of Mary Cavan Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's play. That same performance also brought her the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play in 2016. Lange returned to Broadway in 2024 in Paula Vogel's Mother Play, playing the hardheaded matriarch, a role that earned her the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lead Performance in a Play. Her stage accolades place her among the rare performers to have achieved Triple Crown of Acting status, having won competitive Emmy, Oscar, and Tony Awards.

Beyond acting, Lange has published five books of photography. She has served as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, focusing on HIV/AIDS in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Russia, and has worked as a foster parent.