Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American theater, television, and film actress, who is widely regarded as one of the most talented actresses of all time. She has received a record of 21 Academy Awards, winning three, and 27 Golden Globes, winning eight, more nominations than any other actor in the history of either award. She also voiced Mrs. Fox in the 2009 stop-motion film adaptation of Fantastic Mr. Fox.
For Disney, she played the Witch in the 2014 movie version of Into the Woods (for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress) and Topsy in Mary Poppins Returns. She also served as the narrator in Disneynature's Wings of Life and portrayed Dr. Carolyn Ryan in the 1996 Hollywood Pictures film Before and After.
Streep was born in Summit, New Jersey, to Mary Wilkinson Streep, an artist, and Harry William Streep, Jr., a pharmaceutical executive. She has two younger brothers, Harry William Streep III and Dana David Streep, both actors. Her father was of German and Swiss descent; his lineage traced back to Loffenau, from where Streep's great-great-grandfather, Gottfried Streeb, immigrated to the United States and where one of her ancestors served as mayor (the surname was later changed to "Streep"). Her mother had English, German, and Irish ancestry. Some of Streep's maternal ancestors lived in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, and were descended from 17th-century English immigrants. Her maternal great-great-grandparents, Manus McFadden and Grace Strain, were natives of the Horn Head district of Dunfanaghy in Ireland.
Streep attended Cedar Hill Elementary School and the Oak Street School, which was a junior high school at that time. In her junior high debut, she starred as Louise Heller in the Broadway play The Family Upstairs. In 1963, the family moved to Bernardsville, New Jersey, where she attended Bernards High School. Author Karina Longworth described her as a "gawky kid with glasses and frizzy hair", yet noted that she liked to show off in front of the camera in family home movies from a young age. At age 12, Streep was selected to sing at a school recital, leading to her having opera lessons from Estelle Liebling. Despite her talent, she later remarked, "I was singing something I didn't feel and understand. That was an important lesson — not to do that. To find the thing that I could feel through." She quit after four years.
Roles[]
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Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Streep was, at one point, offered to portray P.L. Travers in the 2013 film Saving Mr. Banks before the role ultimately went to Emma Thompson.[citation needed]