Oscar Profile #156: Jessica Lange

Born April 20, 1949 in Cloquet, Minnesota to a teacher/traveling salesman and his wife, Jessica Lange was the third of four children.

The future actress received an art scholarship from the University of Minnesota in 1967 where she met and began dating photographer, Paco Grande. After marrying him in 1970, Lange left college to pursue a bohemian lifestyle, traveling throughout the United States and Mexico in a pickup truck with Grande. The couple then moved to Paris, France, where they drifted apart. While in Paris, Lange became a dancer. While sharing an apartment with Jerry Hall and Grace Jones, she was discovered by fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez and became a model for the Wilhelmina modeling agency. In 1973, she returned to the U.S. and began work as a waitress at the Lion’s Head Tavern in New York City’s Greenwich Village.

It was while modeling that Lange was discovered by producer Dino De Laurentiis who was looking for his 1976 remake of King Kong. While the film was a commercial success it was a critical failure with Lange receiving the brunt of the poor notices. She next appeared three years later as the Angel of Death in Bob Fosse’s 1979 film, All That Jazz and 1980’s flop How to Beat the High Cost of Living.

Lange received praise for her performance in the 1981 remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice opposite Jack Nicholson and became the first actress to receive Oscar nominations for both Best Actress and Supporting Actress in the same year in 1982’s Frances and Tootsie, winning an Oscar for the latter.
Long separated from her husband, Lange officially divorced him in 1982, the year after her first child by dancer/actor Mikhail Baryshnikov. She later had two children with longtime partner actor/writer Sam Shepard, a relationship lasted from 1982 to 2009.

Now recognized as a world class actress, Lange racked up three additional Best Actress Oscar nominations in the 1980s for Country; Sweet Dreams and Music Box. She also received awards recognition for 1990’s Men Don’t Leave before going on to win a second Oscar for 1994’s Blue Sky.

Lange continued to receive widespread acclaim for her performances in such films as 1995’s Rob Roy and TV’s A Streetcar Named Desire for which she was nominated for an Emmy; 1999’s Titus; 2003’s Big Fish and TV’s Normal and 2009’s TV movie Grey Gardens for which she recived her first Emmy.

Lange’s bravura performance in 2011-2012’s American Horror Story earned her a second Emmy. She was nominated again this year for American Horror Story: Asylum.

Lange’s latest theatrical film is Therese based on Emile Zola’s Therese Raquin which is seeking a distributer.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

TOOTSIE (1982), directed by Sydney Pollock

Lange’s versatility was certainly on display in December, 1982 when she appeared in two completely different films. In the harrowing Frances she played 1930s Hollywood star Frances Farmer (1913-1970) focusing on the actress’s confinement to a mental institution in the 1940s. In the instant comedy classic, Tootsie, she played a beautiful soap actress who becomes the object of Dustin Hoffman’s affection. Although her Oscar win for this performance is generally considered compensation for losing the higher profile lead actress Oscar to Meryl Streep in Sophie’s Choice, her utterly beguiling performance is strong enough to stand on its own.

MEN DON’T LEAVE (1990), directed by Paul Brickman

Lange had already received five Oscar nominations by the time this almost forgotten charmer appeared. Although she is better here than in anything she had previously done on the screen, the film just wasn’t successful enough to bring her a sixth nod.

Lange expertly plays a newly widowed mother of two, 17 year-old Chris O’Donnell and 9 year-old Charlie Korsmo, who is forced to give up her house in suburbs and move to an apartment in Baltimore where her eldest son thwarts her courtship opportunities. The performances of everyone here, including Joan Cusack as Lange’s friend and neighbor who seduces O’Donnell, are first rate. This film definitely deserves to be better known.

BLUE SKY (1974), directed by Tony Richardson

Lange won a richly deserved second Oscar for her portrayal of Tommy Lee Jones’ manic-depressive sexpot wife who causes no end of trouble in this film made in 1990.

Originally intended for release in 1991, the film went into limbo due to distributer Orion Pictures’ bankruptcy. The delay proved fortunate for Lange who may not have even scored a nomination in the more competitive years of 1991-1993, but 1994 was so bereft of strong leading actress candidates that Lange waltzed to her win. Director Richardson wasn’t as fortunate. He died in 1991.

GREY GARDENS (2009), directed by Michael Sucsy

Lange is extraordinary in her first Emmy winning role as Jacquliene Bouvier Kennedy Onassis’ nutty impoverished aunt in this film about the extraordinary descent from luxury to squalor endured by Big Edie (Lange) and her daughter, Little Edie (an equally unforgettable Drew Barrymore).

The film’s narrative takes the Beales from 1936 through 1975 when the Mayles brothers’ documentary about their life, also called Grey Gardens opens theatrically. Both stars were nominated for Golden Globes and Emmys with Barrymore winning a Golden Globe the January following Lange’s September Emmy win.

AMERICAN HORROR STORY: ASYLUM (2012-2013), created by Brad Falchuk and Ryan Murphy

Lange won a second Emmy for American Horror Story’s first anthology season set in and around a haunted house in which she played Dylan McDermot and Connie Britton’s mysterious neighbor. As good as she was, she was even better in the second season’s story about an insane asylum that was previously a tuberculosis hospital. Playing a nun with a deep, dark secret, she was an unholy terror through much of the proceedings until a lobotomy slowed her down. Redeemed in the end, she was the best of a very strong cast that included James Cromwell, Sarah Paulson, Zachary Quinto, Evan Peters and Lily Rabe, most of whom had also appeared in different roles in the first season.