Mary Louise Streep was born on 06/22/1949 on New Jersey, USA.
Even before she was in her teens, Streep was studying classical voice. While in high school, she appeared in musicals and went on to major in drama and English at Vassar. After working with a traveling theater company in Vermont and her NYC stage debut in 1971, Streep enrolled at the prestigious Yale School of Drama where she distinguished herself in numerous productions.
In spite of forays into comedy, Merryl Streep has always been considered a "serious" actress -- talented, well-bred and intelligent. In the 1990s Streep worked less and raised a family, but still turned in critically-acclaimed performances in television and film, including her roles in The Bridges of Madison County (1995, opposite Clint Eastwood) and 1998's One True Thing, for which she received another Oscar nomination.
In 1976, Streep appeared in a double bill of "27 Wagons Full of Cotton" and "A Memory of Two Mondays". It is a tribute to her skills that many audience members did not realize that she was featured in both plays. For her performance as the blowzy simple-minded wife in the former, Streep received a Tony Award nomination as Featured Actress in a Play.
Having cemented her reputation as a film actress, Streep went on to offer a gallery of portraits that proved her mastery of idiom, accent or social milieu. She proved effective as the blue-collar whistle-blower in "Silkwood" (1983), was believable as the unstable British woman who had been the Resistance worker in "Plenty" (1985) and delivered another tour de force as author Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen in the sweeping epic "Out of Africa" (also 1985).
Streep's 2003 best supporting actress nomination for Adaptation gave her a total of 13 Oscar nominations -- a new record for an actress. (Katharine Hepburn had 12; Walt Disney holds the all-time nomination record, with 64.)
Over her career, the blonde New Jersey native has demonstrated an astonishing range, equally comfortable with comedic material as with heavy dramatic fare, and has become noted for her facility with foreign accents
