Early Childhood
Meryl Streep is the self-made Queen Of Hollywood and has been for at least the last half-decade. She's put on a pedestal by her fellow actors and actresses, the academy itself, and most of all, her fans. Her wide range of characters has had us in the palm of her hand, making us cry tears of laughter whenever she wants, and despise her when the role calls for it (mainly in The Devil Wears Prada). While her career tells one story on the big screen, her life story is something of a different color. Here's the incredible, yet unfiltered story of Meryl Streep!
Born Mary Louise Streep on June 22, 1949, in Summit, New Jersey, to pharmaceutical company executive Harry Streep and commercial artist Mary Streep. Meryl describes herself at age seven as already looking like a forty-year-old and acting like one too! The kids thought I was one of their teachers.” Her devoted parents were able to move to Basking Ridge and then Bernardsville, a wealthier nearby community in central New Jersey. Teaching their children arts and literature from an early age on, Meryl was raised with two younger brothers, Harry III (whom she nicknamed Third because of the Roman numeral after his name), and Dana.
Four Going On Forty
Meryl remembers herself as a child with unflinching honesty: “I was an ugly little kid with a big mouth, an obnoxious show-off.” Even so, she got her first applause by age twelve when she sang “O Holy Night” in French in her school’s Christmas concert. She was so good, in fact, that she stunned her family and classmates and others urged her parents to get her singing lessons which she took with internationally renowned coach Estelle Liebling.
It was Meryl’s first encounter with a true artist.
Cheerleading
Once a week for several years, Meryl was driven to Liebling’s Upper East Side residence to take her lessons. The woman who trained the hour before Meryl was Beverly Sills, an admired opera singer in the sixties and seventies.
Eventually, Meryl quit her lessons when she became “far more interested in boys and in being a cheerleader.” Cheerleading turned out to be Meryl Streep’s first role.
Meryl's Makeover
At age fourteen she took off her corrective lenses, refused to wear dental braces and dyed her hair blonde. “This was my make-over…” During football’s off-season, Meryl sang in the chorus, worked on the school newspaper and yearbook and eventually became the homecoming queen of her graduation year. Recalling this period of her life, Meryl says “I was a nice girl, pretty, athletic, and I’d read maybe seven books in four years of high school… had a great vocabulary, and no understanding whatsoever of mathematics or science.
But I had a way of imitating people’s speech that got me an advanced placement in French without really knowing any grammar. I was not what you would call a natural scholar.”
High School
Between honors in French and English Lit, the swim team, the cheerleading practice and the drama club, she arrived at school each day “a Seventeen Magazine knockout”, as she herself recalls with sardonic accuracy. In high school Streep recounted having only two friends and “one was my cousin”, she says “so that didn’t count”.” Then there’s that whole awful kind of competition based on pubescent rivalry for boys”.
She began acting in plays at her high school in Bernardsville, including the lead performances in “Li’l Abner” and “Oklahoma” before she began studying at the all-female Vassar College.
College
Although it was her second choice as a college, Vassar changed her life. “On entering,” she says, “if you had asked me what feminism was. I would’ve thought it had something to do with having nice nails and clean hair.
I felt absolutely great in that atmosphere. Suddenly, I felt accepted by the entire other half of the human race.
Finding Her Identity
Although Streep entered Vassar as a music major, she soon realized that her passion was the stage. From the time I entered college, I never felt the need to compete with anyone.
At Vassar, it was commonplace to give your best shot, so that became a habit. I learned to believe in myself and acquired a genuine sense of identity.” In 1969, she played the title role of August Strindberg’s Miss Julie, a one-act in which aristocratic Julie has a brief affair with Jean, her father’s valet.
Her Husband Had Cancer
Street then took part in a number of major theater Productions and through these efforts she met and became engaged to actor John Cazale. She also auditioned for the lead in the 1976 remake of King Kong but was turned away when producer Dino De Laurentiis announced she was too unattractive for the role.
Instead Street made her debut in 1977 Guilia. At the time she was living in New York with Giselle when she discovered he had contracted terminal bone cancer.
The Deer Hunter
In an effort to spend as much time together as possible, the pair found work in 1978's "The Deer Hunter". Streep landed the starring role in the television miniseries "Holocaust". In that project, she played a who was married to a Jewish artist at the outbreak of the war.
Unfortunately when her overseas shooting finally ended, return home to find her fiance's illness had worsened. He died soon afterward.
Kramer Versus Kramer
In the wake of this project, she received a prime-time Emmy for her role in Holocaust and an Academy Award nomination for her role in The Deer Hunter. By the end of the 70s, she took on even more critically acclaimed roles which included her part in Woody Allen's romantic comedy, Manhattan and the 1979 political drama, The Seduction of Joe Tainan.
That same year she won a Golden Globe for best-supporting actress for her part opposite Dustin in Kramer versus Kramer. Meanwhile, she married sculptor, Don Gummer.
Sophie's Choice
Streep accepted many leading roles throughout the 1980s. These movies included the drama the French Lieutenant's Woman, best psychological Thriller, Still of the Night, any critically praised, Sophie's Choice.
Her willingness to completely submerge herself in her role as a Polish Holocaust Survivor won her an Oscar and cemented her reputation as a method actor. Streep then played in the biographical film, Silkwood.
Falling In Love
She became involved with Robert De Niro in "Falling In Love" and played a self-destructive woman in 1985 "Plenty". The latter half of the decade saw Streep co-star with Robert Redford in "Out of Africa" and Jack Nicholson in both 'Heartburn' and 'Ironweed'.
Streep earned praise for portraying a woman convicted of murdering her infant in 1988's 'Cry In The Dark'. She entertained crowds with much lighter comedic fair in 1989's 'She-Devil'
A.I.
Overall the actress claimed 6 People's Choice Awards for Favourite Motion Picture actress in the years leading up to the 90s. That decade saw Streep in films like 1992 opposite 'Black Comedy', 'Death Becomes Her' opposite Goldie Hawn and Bruce Willis.
She continued taking diverse roles by appearing opposite Clint Eastwood in The Bridges of Madison County.
By starring in 'The River Wild' and 'Marvin's Room', at the turn of the millennium, Streep was cast in Steven Spielberg's A.I., Spike Jones's 'Adaptation' and alongside Nicole Kidman in 'The Hours'.
The Devil Wears Prada
She even played a supporting role in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events before being honored with a 2004 AFI Lifetime Achievement Award. However, her most prominent projects from this period were 'The Devil Wears Prada', the musical 'Mamma Mia' and 'Julia and Julia' in which she played chef and TV personality Julia Child. Even let her boys to Wes Anderson's stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl's 'The Fantastic Mr.
Fox'. In 2011 she was cast as former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in the biopic 'The Iron Lady'.
Academy Award
Meryl Streep boasts countless talents including the ability to sing and fall asleep imitate accents. Paired with her willingness to take on dining has garnered her much praise and recognition over her career.
First staggering number of Academy Award nominations and wins has made her the most critically acclaimed actress in today's film industry.