Jessica Phyllis Lange (/læŋ/; born April 20, 1949)[1] is an American actress. She is one of the few performers to achieve the "Triple Crown of Acting",[2] having received a Tony Award, two Academy Awards, and three Primetime Emmy Awards.
Lange made her professional film debut in Dino De Laurentiis's 1976 remake of the 1933 action-adventure classic King Kong, which despite receiving mixed reviews,[3] earned her the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year. She returned to the screen after three years in Bob Fosse's acclaimed musical film All That Jazz (1979). In 1982, Lange starred as the troubled actress Frances Farmer in the biographical drama film Frances and had a supporting role as a soap opera star in the comedy Tootsie, which allowed her to become the first performer since 1944 to receive two Academy Award nominations in the same year, being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for Frances and winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Tootsie.[4] Lange received three more nominations for the Best Actress Oscar for the films Country (1984), Sweet Dreams (1985) and Music Box (1989), before winning for her performance as a bipolar housewife in Blue Sky (1994). She remains one of the most Oscar-nominated actresses ever.[5]
As her screen career started to decline, Lange found success in television. She holds the record for most nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film for titles that include O Pioneers! (1992), A Streetcar Named Desire (1995) and Normal (2003).[6] In 2010, Lange won her first Primetime Emmy Award for her portrayal of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's aunt Big Edie in HBO's Grey Gardens (2009). Lange then gained new recognition by starring in FX's horror anthology, American Horror Story (2011–2015, 2018), which earned her two additional Primetime Emmys for its first and third seasons, along with her first Screen Actors Guild Award, first Critics' Choice Television Award and fifth Golden Globe Award. She received her ninth Emmy Award nomination for her portrayal of actress Joan Crawford in the miniseries Feud (2017). In 2016, Lange won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play and a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play for her performance in the Broadway revival of Long Day's Journey into Night.[7]
Lange is also a photographer with five published books of photography.[8][9][10] She has been a foster parent[11] and holds a Goodwill Ambassador position for UNICEF, specializing in HIV/AIDS in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Russia.[12][13]
