Meryl Streep

A gawky kid in glasses in Summit, New Jersey, daughter of an artist and a pharmaceutical executive, showing off for the family movie camera. Her mother told her she was capable of anything and she took it literally. At 12 she was picked to sing at a school recital and put into lessons with the voice teacher Estelle Liebling. Four years later she stopped, because, she said, she was singing something she did not feel or understand — and she called learning that an important lesson. She was a cheerleader and homecoming queen at Bernards High. She did not take theater seriously until Miss Julie at Vassar in 1969, then went to the Yale School of Drama, where the load gave her ulcers and she thought about switching to law.

She started on the New York stage in 1975 and never entirely left it — five more roles in her first year, a Tony nomination in 1976, an Obie later. Film began with a small part in Julia in 1977. The Deer Hunter brought the first Academy Award nomination in 1978. Kramer vs. Kramer brought the first win, after she argued the courtroom testimony into a rewrite that turned her character from an antagonist into a woman with her own case. Sophie's Choice took the second in 1982, The Iron Lady the third in 2011. She holds the record for Academy Award nominations at 21, the most recent for The Post in 2017, and for Golden Globe nominations at 34. No performer has been decorated more.

She met John Cazale in 1976 doing Measure for Measure at the Delacorte and moved in with him. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1977. She took a part in the miniseries Holocaust that she found unrelentingly noble and admitted she did for the money, and while she was filming in Germany and Austria his illness advanced. She came home and nursed him until he died on March 12, 1978. Six months later she married the sculptor Don Gummer. Of Cazale she said she never got over it and did not want to. The other standing charge is the one that comes with the technique: Pauline Kael, who had once called her a real beauty, decided she decorporealizes herself, and that this was why her heroines never read as whole people.

The reputation has not so much moved as hardened, and the argument inside it is still Kael's — whether perfect command of an accent is the same thing as feeling. She has kept arguing in public. In January 2017 she used the Cecil B. DeMille Award to condemn the incoming president for mocking a disabled reporter, and the speech became a national argument of its own. In 2018 she helped set up Time's Up. Her separation from Gummer had run more than six years before it was reported in 2023. In 2026 she voiced a Pixar queen in March and opened The Devil Wears Prada 2 on May 1 to the biggest weekend of her career, at home and worldwide.

Meryl Streep's life against the full span of the corpus — the fading end marks a life still in progress.

• Kramer vs. Kramer film
  Her first Oscar. She left it in the ladies' room after the speech 1979
• Sophie's Choice film
  English and German in a Polish accent, and Polish itself 1982
• Silkwood film
  Her first real person — the nuclear whistleblower Karen Silkwood 1983
• A Cry in the Dark film
  Best Actress at Cannes for a hybrid Australian and New Zealand accent 1988
• The Devil Wears Prada film
  Miranda Priestly, and a sequel 19 years later 2006
• The Iron Lady film
  Her third Oscar. She gave the million-dollar fee to a museum 2011

• June 22, 1949 aged 0 Born Mary Louise Streep in Summit, New Jersey
• c. 1961 aged ~12 Begins opera lessons with Estelle Liebling at 12, and quits four years later She said she was singing something she did not feel or understand.
• 1969 aged ~20 Plays Miss Julie at Vassar and takes acting seriously for the first time
• 1975 aged ~26 Takes an MFA at Yale and starts work on the New York stage Five more roles followed in her first year in the city.
• March 12, 1978 aged 28 John Cazale dies of lung cancer She had nursed him through the last of it. I did not get over it, she said. I do not want to.
• September 30, 1978 aged 29 Marries the sculptor Don Gummer, six months after Cazale's death
• 1980 aged ~31 Wins Best Supporting Actress for Kramer vs. Kramer
• January 2017 aged 67 Uses the Cecil B. DeMille Award speech to condemn the president-elect She named his mocking of a disabled reporter an abuse of privilege, power and the capacity to fight back.
• May 1, 2026 aged 76 The Devil Wears Prada 2 opens to the biggest weekend of her career 233.6 million dollars worldwide and 77 million at home.

• Robert De Niro b. 1943
  Academy Award-winning actor whose method performances in Taxi Driver and Raging Bull defined a generation. his performance made her want to work in film
• Dustin Hoffman b. 1937
  Two-time Oscar winner whose roles in The Graduate and Rain Man showcased extraordinary range. co-star in Kramer vs. Kramer
• Katharine Hepburn 1907–2003
  Four-time Oscar-winning actress whose independent spirit and wit made her a screen legend. the acting Oscar record she has not caught
• Julia Child 1912–2004
  Cookbook author and television host who transformed American home cooking and popular attitudes toward food. played her in Julie and Julia
• Steven Spielberg b. 1946
  Director and producer whose blockbusters and dramas have defined American cinema for five decades. directed her in The Post
• Katharine Graham 1917–2001
  Publisher who strengthened The Washington Post and backed its reporting on the Pentagon Papers and Watergate. the publisher she played in The Post