Apr 20, 1949

Cloquet, Minnesota, USA

Jessica Lange was born in 1949, in Cloquet, Minnesota, USA, where her father worked as a traveling salesman. She obtained a scholarship to study art at the University of Minnesota, but instead went to Paris to study drama. She moved to New York, working as a model, until producer Dino De Laurentiis cast her as the female lead in King Kong (1976). The film attracted much unfavorable comment and as a result Lange was off the screen for three years. She was given a small but showy part in Bob Fosse... ... (read more...) 's All That Jazz (1979), before giving a memorable performance in Bob Rafelson's _Postman Always Rings Twice, The_ (1981), as an adulterous waitress. The following year she won rave reviews for her exceptional portrayal of actress Frances Farmer in Frances (1982) and a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her work in Sydney Pollack's Tootsie (1982) (as a beautiful soap-opera actress). She was also outstanding as country singer Patsy Cline in 'Karel Reisz' 's Sweet Dreams (1985) and as a lawyer who defends her father and discovers his past in Music Box (1989). Other important films include Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991) (as a frightened housewife) and 'Tony Richardson''s Blue Sky (1994), for which she won a Best Actress Academy Award as the mentally unbalanced wife of a military officer. She made her Broadway debut in 1992, playing Blanche in Tennessee Williams' 'A Streetcar Named Desire'.