Glenn Close
Glenda Veronica "Glenn" Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress. In a career spanning five decades, she has garnered numerous accolades, including three Tony Awards, three Emmy Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. She has been nominated eight times for an Academy Award, sharing the record for most nominations in acting categories without a win with Peter O'Toole. In 2016, she was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2019, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Glenn Close
March 19, 1947
Actress
1974–present
-
Cabot Wade(m. 1969; div. 1971)
-
James Marlas(m. 1984; div. 1987)
-
David Shaw(m. 2006; div. 2015)
Len Cariou (1979–1983)
John Starke (1987–1991)
Steve Beers (1995–1999)
- William Close (father)
Close began her professional career on the stage in 1974 with Love for Love. She received her first Tony Award nomination for her role in Barnum and later went on to win three competitive Tony Awards for her roles in the plays The Real Thing (1983) and Death and the Maiden (1992), and the musical Sunset Boulevard (1995). She returned to the Broadway stage in a 2014 revival of A Delicate Balance. She reprised her role as Norma Desmond in a West End and Broadway revival in 2016 and 2017 respectively. She has also hosted the Tony Awards twice, in 1992 and 1995.
Close received eight Academy Award nominations for her roles in The World According to Garp (1982), The Big Chill (1983), The Natural (1984), Fatal Attraction (1987), Dangerous Liaisons (1988), Albert Nobbs (2011), The Wife (2017), and Hillbilly Elegy (2020). She has also starred in Jagged Edge (1985), Reversal of Fortune (1990), Hamlet (1990), The House of the Spirits (1993), The Paper (1994), Mars Attacks! (1996), and Air Force One (1997). She also portrayed Cruella de Vil in 101 Dalmatians (1996) and its sequel 102 Dalmatians (2000).
For her work on television she won her first Primetime Emmy Award for her performance in the television film Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story (1995). For her portrayal of Eleanor of Aquitaine in the Showtime television film The Lion in Winter (2003) she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film. From 2007 to 2012, Close starred as Patty Hewes in the drama series Damages, for which she received two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.
Close has been married three times, and has a daughter from her relationship with producer John Starke. She is the president of Trillium Productions and has co-founded 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.
Career[edit]
1970s: Early work[edit]
Close started her professional career on the stage in 1974 at age 27.[13] 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.[13] 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.[15] She made her television debut in 1975 with a small role in the anthology series Great Performances. 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.[16] 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.
1980s: Breakthrough and rise to prominence[edit]
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.[17] She played Robin Williams's 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 (Academy Award) nomination all in the same calendar year after the release of The Big Chill. Also in 1980, she received her first Tony Award nomination for her performance in the musical Barnum.
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.''[18] Close also starred opposite Robert Duvall in the drama The Stone Boy (1984), 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 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.[19] 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.[20][21] 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.[22] Jagged Edge received mixed-to-positive reviews and grossed $40-million on a $15-million budget.[23]
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."[19] Close received her fourth Oscar nomination for this role, her first in the leading role[24] and also won the People's Choice Award for Favorite Motion Picture Actress.
She played a scheming aristocrat, the Marquise de Merteuil, in 1988's period romantic drama Dangerous Liaisons.[13] Close earned stellar reviews for this performance, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. In addition, she received her first BAFTA Award nomination.[25] 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 company. Close's final film role of the decade was Immediate Family (1989), 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.
Personal life[edit]
Relationships and family[edit]
Close has been married three times, with each marriage ending in divorce. Her first marriage at age 22 — which Close has described as "kind of an arranged marriage" — ended before she attended college.[119] This marriage (from 1969 to 1971) was to Cabot Wade, a guitarist and songwriter with whom she had performed during her time at Up with People.[120] From 1979 to 1983, she lived with actor Len Cariou.[121] She was married to grocery heir James Marlas from 1984 to 1987.[120] Later, Close began a relationship with producer John Starke, whom she had met on the set of The World According to Garp.[120] Their daughter, Annie Starke, was born in 1988 and is an actress.[122] Close and Starke separated in 1991.[120] In 1995, Close was engaged to carpenter Steve Beers, who had worked on Sunset Boulevard; the two never married, and their relationship ended in 1999.[120] In February 2006, Close married executive and venture capitalist David Evans Shaw in Maine,[120][123] but they divorced in August 2015.[124]
Business ventures and assets[edit]
As of 2016, Close primarily resides in Bedford Hills, New York, and also owns a condo in the West Village.[125] She also owns properties in Wellington, Florida, and Bozeman, Montana.[126] In the early 1990s she owned a coffee shop in Bozeman but sold it in 2006.[127] In 2011 Close sold her apartment in The Beresford for $10.2 million.[128] She also runs a 1,000 acre ranch in Wyoming.[129]
Close is the president of Trillium Productions Inc.[130][131] Her company has produced films like Albert Nobbs, Sarah, Plain and Tall, and South Pacific. With Barbra Streisand she produced the TV film Serving in Silence (1995), for which both were nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Television Movie.
In 2007 she co-founded FetchDog, a dog accessories catalog and Internet site. Part of her work was publishing blogs in which she interviewed other celebrities about their relationships with their dogs. She sold the business in 2012.[132][133]
Interests and views[edit]
Close was born into a Democratic family.[134] Her political donations have mostly been made in support of Democratic politicians, including Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, John Edwards, Angus King, and Barack Obama.[135] Close also spoke at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.[136][137] She voted for Obama in the 2008 presidential election and attended his inauguration.[138][139] In a 2016 interview with Andrew Marr for the BBC, Close criticized then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, calling his campaign "terribly frightening."[140] She reiterated her sentiments about Trump in 2017, stating that "he doesn't stand for anything I believe in."[141]
Close keeps all of her costumes after completing films and rents them out to exhibits.[142][143] She lent one of the dresses she wore in Dangerous Liaisons to Madonna for her 1990 VMA performance of "Vogue".[144][145] In 2017, she donated her entire costume collection to Indiana University Bloomington.[146]
Close is a New York Mets fan, and has sung the national anthem at Shea Stadium and Citi Field numerous times since 1986.[147][148]
Due to her upbringing, Close has stated that she is a spiritual but irreligious person.[149]
Activism[edit]
Philanthropy[edit]
Close has campaigned for several issues such as women's rights, same-sex marriage, and mental health. In 1989 she attended pro-choice marches in Washington, D.C., with Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda.[150] In 1998, Close was a part of a star-studded cast that performed The Vagina Monologues at a benefit. It raised $250,000 in a single evening with proceeds going to the effort to stop violence against women.[151][152] She was honored with a GLAAD Media Award in 2002 for promoting equal rights among the LGBT community.[153] She volunteered and produced a documentary for "Puppies Behind Bars", an organization that provides service dogs for wounded war veterans.[154][155]
Close is also a trustee of The Wildlife Conservation Society[156] and volunteers at Fountain House in New York City, a facility dedicated to the recovery of those suffering from mental illness.[157] She is a founding member of the Panthera Conservation Advisory Committee. Panthera is an international nonprofit whose sole mission is conservation of the world's 36 species of wild cats.[158] Close has also been a longtime supporter of late friend Christopher Reeve's foundation.[159][160] She is also a member of the CuriosityStream Advisory Board.[161]