Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep was romantically involved with actor John Cazale for three years until the latter’s death in 1978. Same year, she walked up to the altar with sculptor Don Gummer on September 30.

The couple has been blessed with four children, Henry Wolfe Gummer (1979), Mamie Gummer (1983), Grace Gummer (1986), and Louisa Jacobson Gummer (1991). While Mamie and Grace followed their mother and took up the profession of acting, Henry became a musician.

Meryl Streep was born to Mary Wolf and Harry William Streep, Jr. While her mother was a commercial artist and an art editor by profession, her father was a pharmaceutical executive. Streep has two siblings, Dana David and Harry William III.

Born in Summit, raised in Presbyterian and brought up in Bernardsville, New Jersey, young Streep completed her formal education from Bernards High School. Thereafter, she enrolled at the Vassar College from where she obtained a B.A. in Drama.

Meanwhile, Streep also enrolled as an exchange student at Dartmouth College. She went on to receive her M.F.A. degree from Yale School of Drama. It was during her years at Yale that Streep made her debut at the stage, acting in a number of plays. Interestingly, Streep did not play the typical roles then as well and resorted to versatility in the characters she portrayed.

Streep’s initial years were spent performing for several theatre productions in New York and New Jersey. She worked for several productions including the New York Shakespeare Festival productions of Henry V, The Taming of the Shrew, and Measure for Measure. Additionally, she was even featured in the Broadway musical ‘Happy End’.

Streep was next seen in the 1976 Broadway double bill of Tennessee Williams' ‘27 Wagons Full of Cotton’, Arthur Miller's ‘A Memory of Two Mondays’ and Anton Chekhov's ‘The Cherry Orchard’.

Year 1977 saw Streep walk up to the big screen for a small yet significant role for the film, ‘Julia’. Same year, she was seen in the television miniseries ‘Holocaust’ as a German woman married to a Jewish artist in Nazi era Germany.

Streep’s performance at the Holocaust brought her to the limelight. She gained immense fame and recognition and came under public eye. The performance even secured her the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie.

‘Deer Hunter’ released in 1978 witnessed Streep playing yet another small role. However, the movie was a super hit and earned Streep her first ever Academy Award nomination.

Years of playing the second fiddle with perfection laid way for lead roles for Streep, who took yet another jump in her professional career graph with the movie ‘The French Lieutenant's Woman’, wherein she was cast opposite Jeremy Irons. Her performance was immensely applauded and so was her versatility and the willingness to move out of the comfort zone.

Streep’s next venture was a psychological thriller, ‘Still of the Night’ in 1982. The movie was widely appreciated by both public and critics’. Same year, she featured in the movie ‘Sophie's Choice’. Her excellence at acting and mastery of a Polish accent was visibly apparent and drew much praise and applause. Streep even garnered a long list of awards for her role in the movie.

Streep repeated the success story with the biographical film, ‘Silkwood’ released in 1983. This was her first of the many more real-life characters that Streep has portrayed over the years.

Towards the end of the decade, Streep played different roles for various movies including, ‘Falling in Love’, ‘Plenty’, ‘Out of Africa’, ‘Heartburn’ and ‘Ironweed’. However, the most interesting was her biographical role of Lindy Chamberlain for the movie, ‘A Cry in the Dark’. The film received rave reviews and attained both box office and critical success.