Glenn Close
Glenn Close is an American actress. In a career spanning five decades on screen and stage, she has received numerous accolades, including three Primetime Emmy Awards, three Tony Awards and three Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for eight Academy Awards, three Grammy Awards, and two British Academy Film Awards. She was named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2019.
Close gained early recognition for her work on the stage, with her Broadway debut in the play Love for Love, before going on to win three Tony Awards, two for Best Actress in a Play for her roles in the plays The Real Thing and Death and the Maiden, and one for Best Actress in a Musical, the musical Sunset Boulevard. She received her first Academy Award nomination for her film debut in The World According to Garp, and her first Emmy nomination in 1984 for the television film Something About Amelia. Close's career further progressed throughout the 1980s and 1990s with a number of acclaimed film performances, including The Big Chill, The Natural, Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons, Reversal of Fortune, The Paper, Mars Attacks!, and Air Force One. During this period, she also portrayed Cruella de Vil in 101 Dalmatians and its 2002 sequel 102 Dalmatians, and voiced Kala in Tarzan.
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, followed by two consecutive Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for playing Patty Hewes in Damages. In film, Close gained continued recognition in the 21st century for her roles in Albert Nobbs, The Wife, Hillbilly Elegy, and Wake Up Dead Man.
Close is the president of Trillium Productions and co-founder of the website FetchDog. She has made political donations in support of Democratic politicians and is vocal on issues such as women's rights, same-sex marriage, and mental health. Married three times, she has one daughter, Annie Starke, from her relationship with producer John Starke.
Early life and background
Glenn Close was born on March 19, 1947, in Greenwich, Connecticut, to socialite Elizabeth Mary Hester "Bettine" and William Taliaferro Close, a doctor who operated a clinic in the Belgian Congo and served as a personal physician to Congolese dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. She has two sisters, Tina and Jessie, and two brothers, Alexander and Tambu Misoki, whom Close's parents adopted while living in Congo.During her childhood, Close lived with her parents in a stone cottage on her maternal grandfather's estate in Greenwich. She began honing her acting abilities in her early years, "I have no doubt that the days I spent running free in the evocative Connecticut countryside with an unfettered imagination, playing whatever character our games demanded, is one of the reasons that acting has always seemed so natural to me." Although Close has an affluent background, she has stated that her family chose not to participate in WASP society. She would also avoid mentioning her birthplace, the wealthy town Greenwich, whenever asked because she did not want people to think she was a "dilettante who didn't have to work."
When Close was seven years old, her parents joined the Moral Re-Armament, a movement in which her family was involved for 15 years. During this period, Close's family lived in communal centers. She has described MRA as a "cult" that dictated every aspect of her life, from the clothes that had to be worn to what she was allowed to say. Close also spent time in Switzerland when studying at St. George's School, and attended Rosemary Hall, graduating in 1965. She traveled for several years in the mid-to-late 1960s with the nonprofit encouragement singing group Up With People. During her time in Up With People, Close organized a small singing group called the Green Glenn Singers, consisting of herself, Kathe Green, Jennie Dorn, and Vee Entwistle. The group's stated mission was "to write and sing songs which would give people a purpose and inspire them to live the way they were meant to live".
When she was 22, Close broke away from MRA. She once stated that her desire to become an actress allowed her to leave the group, adding, "I have long forgiven my parents for any of this. They had their reasons for doing what they did, and I understand them. It had terrible effects on their kids, but that's the way it is. We all try to survive, right? And I think what actually saved me more than anything was my desire to be an actress." She attended The College of William & Mary, double majoring in theater and anthropology. During her senior year of college, Close became inspired to pursue a career in acting after watching an interview of Katharine Hepburn on The Dick Cavett Show. It was in the college's theater department that Close began to train as a serious actor under Howard Scammon, William and Mary's long-time professor of theater. During her years at school in Williamsburg, she also starred in the summer-time outdoor drama, The Common Glory, written by Pulitzer Prize author Paul Green. She was elected to membership in the honor society of Phi Beta Kappa. Through the years, Close has returned to William & Mary to lecture and to visit the theater department.
Through her appearance on the first episode of the seventh season of Finding Your Roots, she came to find out that she is related to Princess Diana through her seven times great-grandparents, is also distantly related to fellow 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.
Career
1970s: Early work
Close started her professional career on the stage in 1974 at age 27. In her senior year of college, she called her school's theater department to be nominated for a series of auditions through the University Resident Theatre Association and TCG. Eventually, she was given a callback and hired for one season to do three plays at the Helen Hayes Theatre, one of those plays being Love for Love directed by Hal Prince. She made her television debut in 1975 with a small role in the anthology series Great Performances. In 1975, Close 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, Glenn appeared on Broadway in The Crucifer of Blood playing the part of Irene St. Claire, with Paxton Whitehead and Dwight Schultz. In 1979, she filmed the television movies Orphan Train and Too Far to Go. The latter film included Blythe Danner and Michael Moriarty in the cast, and Close played Moriarty's lover. Her last major stage role before beginning her motion picture career was playing Chairy, the female lead in the Broadway musical Barnum, from April 1980 to March 1981.
1980s: Breakthrough and rise to prominence
The 1980s proved to be Close's breakthrough in Hollywood. In 1980, director George Roy Hill discovered Close on Broadway and asked her to audition with Robin Williams for a role in The World According to Garp, which would become her first film role, as well as her first Academy Award nominated performance. She played Williams's feminist mother, despite being just four years older. The following year she played Sarah Cooper in The Big Chill, a character that director Lawrence Kasdan said he specifically wrote for her. The movie received positive reviews and was a financial success. Close became the third actor to receive a Tony, Emmy, and Oscar nomination all in the same calendar year after the release of The Big Chill.In 1984, Close was given a part in Robert Redford's baseball drama The Natural, and although it was a small supporting role, she earned a third consecutive Oscar nomination. Close, to this day, credits her nomination to cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, stating "That hat was designed so the sunlight would come through. We waited for a certain time of day, so the sun was shining through the back of the stadium. And he had a lens that muted the people around me. It was an incredibly well thought-out shot. And I honestly think that's the reason I got nominated." Close also starred opposite Robert Duvall in the drama The Stone Boy, a film about a family coping after their youngest child accidentally kills his older brother in a hunting accident. She continued to appear in television films in the following years, beginning with The Elephant Man, and in 1984, she starred in the critically acclaimed drama Something About Amelia, a television film about a family destroyed by sexual abuse. She won her first Tony Award in 1984 for her performance as Annie in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing, directed by Mike Nichols.
Eventually, Close began to seek different roles to play because she did not want to be typecast as a motherly figure. She starred in the 1985 romantic comedy Maxie, alongside Mandy Patinkin. Close was given favorable reviews and even received her second Golden Globe Award nomination, but the movie was critically panned and under-performed at the box office. In 1985, Close starred in the legal thriller Jagged Edge, opposite Jeff Bridges. Initially, Jane Fonda was attached to the role, but was replaced with Close when she requested changes in the script. Producer Martin Ransohoff was against the casting of Close because he said she was "too ugly" for the part. Close eventually heard about this and said she didn't want Ransohoff on set while she was making her scenes. Director Richard Marquand stood by her side and sent Ransohoff away. Infuriated, Ransohoff went to the studio heads trying to get Close and Marquand fired from the picture. The studio refused, stating they were pleased with their work in the film. Jagged Edge received positive reviews and grossed $40-million on a $15-million budget.
In 1987, Close played the disturbed book editor Alex Forrest in the psychological thriller Fatal Attraction. The film became a huge box-office success, the highest-grossing film worldwide of that year. The film propelled Close to international stardom and the character of Alex Forrest is considered one of her most iconic roles; the phrase "bunny boiler" has even been added to the dictionary, referring to a scene from the movie. During the re-shoot of the ending, Close suffered a concussion from one of the takes when her head smashed against a mirror. After being rushed to the hospital, she discovered, much to her horror, that she was actually a few weeks pregnant with her daughter. Close stated in an interview that, "Fatal Attraction was really the first part that took me away from the Jenny Fields, Sarah Coopers—good, nurturing women roles. I did more preparation for that film than I've ever done." Close received her fourth Oscar nomination for this role, her first in the leading role and also won the People's Choice Award for Favorite Motion Picture Actress.
She played scheming aristocrat Marquise de Merteuil in 1988's period romantic drama Dangerous Liaisons. Close earned stellar reviews for this performance, and received her fifth Oscar nomination and her first BAFTA nomination. Also in 1988, she appeared alongside Keith Carradine in Stones for Ibarra, a television film adapted from the book written by Harriet Doerr and produced by the Hallmark Channel. Close's final film role of the decade was Immediate Family, a drama about a married couple seeking to adopt a child. Producer Lawrence Kasdan had Close star in the film, as he directed her previously in The Big Chill.