Annette Bening
Annette Carol Bening (born May 29, 1958) is an American actress. With a career spanning over four decades, she is known for her versatile work across screen and stage. Bening has received numerous accolades, including a BAFTA Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and nominations for five Academy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award and two Tony Awards, making her one of few artists nominated for the Triple Crown of Acting without winning.
Annette Bening
Actress
1980–present
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J. Steven White(m. 1984; div. 1991)
4
A graduate of San Francisco State University and the American Conservatory Theater, Bening started her career on stage with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival company in 1980, and played Lady Macbeth in 1984 at the American Conservatory Theater. She made her Broadway debut in the Tina Howe play Coastal Disturbances (1987) for which she received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. Making her film debut in 1988, she gained further recognition for her role in The Grifters (1990), for which she received her first Academy Award nomination. This acclaim continued throughout the 1990s and 2000s with further Oscar-nominated performances in the comedy-dramas American Beauty (1999) and Being Julia (2004), which respectively won her the BAFTA and Golden Globe for Best Actress. Bening's performance as the title character in the British television film Mrs. Harris (2005) earned her a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie.
In following decades, Bening received two additional Oscar nominations for her leading roles as a lesbian mother in The Kids Are All Right (2010) and swimmer Diana Nyad in the Netflix biographical film Nyad (2023), the former of which also won her a Golden Globe. She returned to Broadway in the revival of Arthur Miller's All My Sons (2019) earning another Tony nomination for Best Actress in a Play. Her other roles during this period include in the films 20th Century Women (2016), Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2017), Captain Marvel (2019) and Death on the Nile (2022), and the miniseries Apples Never Fall (2024).
Bening serves as Vice Chair on the board of trustees for The Actors Fund. In 1992, she married actor Warren Beatty, with whom she has four children.
Early life and education[edit]
Annette Carol Bening[1] was born on May 29, 1958[2] in Topeka, Kansas,[2] to Shirley Katherine (née Ashley)[3] and Arnett Grant Bening. Her mother was a church singer and soloist, and her father was a sales training consultant and insurance salesman.[4][5] Her parents, originally from Iowa, were practicing Episcopalians and conservative Republicans. She is of mostly German and English descent.[6][7]
The youngest of four children, she has an older sister Jane, and two older brothers Bradley and Byron. The family moved to Wichita, Kansas, in 1959, where she spent her early childhood. When Bening was in elementary school, her father relocated the family to San Diego, California, where she spent the remainder of her youth.[8]
She began acting in junior high school, playing the lead in The Sound of Music. She graduated in 1975 from San Diego's Patrick Henry High School, where she studied drama. She then spent a year working as a cook on a charter boat taking fishing parties out on the Pacific Ocean, and scuba diving for recreation. Bening attended San Diego Mesa College and graduated with a degree in Theatre Arts at San Francisco State University.[9]
Personal life[edit]
She has been married to actor Warren Beatty since March 3, 1992. They have four children.[36]
Bening has received numerous accolades, including a BAFTA Award,[37] two Golden Globe Awards,[14] and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.[38] She has also received nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award[17] and two Tony Awards.[11][29]
She has also received five Academy Award nominations, for the following films: