Frank Langella

Langella married Ruth Weil on June 14, 1977. They had two children, but their marriage ended in a divorce in 1996.

During the filming of the basketball comedy show ‘Eddie’ (1996), he met actor Whoopi Goldberg. They lived together for almost five years, till March 2001.

Frank Langella was born on January 1, 1938, into an Italian–American family in Bayonne, New Jersey. His father, Frank A. Langella Sr., was the president of the ‘Bayonne Barrel and Drum Company.’ His mother’s name was Angelina Langella. Initially he attended the ‘Washington Elementary School’ and then joined the ‘Bayonne High School’ in Bayonne.

At the age of 11, he participated in a school play based on the life of Abraham Lincoln and decided to pursue acting as a profession. Thereafter, he moved along with his family and joined the ‘Columbia High School’ in the South Orange–Maplewood School District. He completed school in 1955. In 1959, he obtained a ‘Bachelor of Arts’ degree in drama from ‘Syracuse University.’ He studied acting at the ‘Lincoln Center Repertory Company’ with Elia Kazan.

Initially, he worked with the regional theater companies in the East coast and the Mid-west. In 1963, he made his debut in the New York theater arena and played a lead role in an ‘Off-Broadway’ revival of ‘The Immoralist.’ His stage performances from 1964 to 1969 were acknowledged with noted theater awards.

He made his ‘Broadway’ debut in 1966, at the ‘Lincoln Center,’ New York, with Federico García Lorca’s ‘Yerma,’ and then, in 1968, he performed in ‘A Cry of Players’ by William Gibson. His performance in Edward Albee’s ‘Seascape’ (1974) fetched him both fame and awards.

In 1970, he made his film debut with a character role in ‘Diary of a Mad Housewife.’ In the same year, he received a bigger role in ‘The Twelve Chairs,’ written and directed by Mel Brooks.

For a major part of the 1970s, he remained occupied with theater and only intermittently appeared in TV and films. In 1972, he co-starred with Rita Hayworth in ‘The Wrath of God.’

Langella played the lead role of ‘Count Dracula’ in the 1977 ‘Broadway’ revival of the drama ‘Dracula.’ His portrayal of the ‘Count’ earned him a lot of appreciation, and the play received more accolades than expected. In 1979, he essayed the same role in the film ‘Dracula.’ However, he had to modulate his performance for the big-screen, and his work did not receive much appreciation. The film was not a commercial success.

Langella has written two books. His first book, ‘Frank Langella’s Cyrano: An Adaptation of Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac,’ was published in 1999. In the book, Frank has primarily ventured into writing about the genre of drama. His second book, ‘Dropped Names: Famous Men and Women as I Knew Them,’ was published in 2012. This memoir, with its 65 chapters, revealed a good deal about his interactions with many famous people, mostly from the entertainment industry.