Post by petrolino on Aug 4, 2018 14:05:25 GMT
Six-time Academy Award nominated actress Jessica Lange (born April 20, 1949, Cloquet, Minnesota, USA)
"Jessica Lange has much in common with Joan Crawford, the icon she resurrects on Ryan Murphy’s Feud. The two high-cheekboned actresses launched their careers as models and dancers before studying the art of silence; Lange as a mime, and Crawford as one of the last pre-talkies glamour girls to transition into sound. At first, Hollywood typecast them both as “The Babe”, a dismissal they fought by diving into extra homework. Crawford, who quit school after 5th grade, read scripts with a dictionary. “She’d have to look up every couple words,” says Lange over the phone from a well-earned vacation in the woods. “She was an absolutely dedicated, diligent student—she wanted so badly to be a movie star.”
Crawford became one. And then, thanks to a toxic cocktail of misogyny, ageism, ego and vodka, her star faded, a dimming that Lange embodies with what can only be called merciless sympathy. Her 'Feud' portrayal kicks off with Crawford embracing — and conquering — gothic camp in the 1962 hit 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?' “Her scenes in Baby Jane showed she was still vital as an actor,” says Lange, “and from then on it was all downhill.” When Crawford’s gamble didn’t pay off with her agent’s telephone ringing off the hook, and her Oscar hopes were handed instead to her co-star and rival Bette Davis, the legend shuttered her glow from the industry that had once beamed her name in lights."
- Amy Nicholson, Deadline
Crawford became one. And then, thanks to a toxic cocktail of misogyny, ageism, ego and vodka, her star faded, a dimming that Lange embodies with what can only be called merciless sympathy. Her 'Feud' portrayal kicks off with Crawford embracing — and conquering — gothic camp in the 1962 hit 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?' “Her scenes in Baby Jane showed she was still vital as an actor,” says Lange, “and from then on it was all downhill.” When Crawford’s gamble didn’t pay off with her agent’s telephone ringing off the hook, and her Oscar hopes were handed instead to her co-star and rival Bette Davis, the legend shuttered her glow from the industry that had once beamed her name in lights."
- Amy Nicholson, Deadline
Jessica Lange reveals the truth behind her tattoo
Jessica Lange & Patsy Cline
... 
"Jessica Lange won her first Oscar in 1982 for 'Tootsie': she played the sweet-faced love interest of Dustin Hoffman, who spent most of the movie dressed as a woman. Her second was for her role as the super-stressed military wife of Tommy Lee Jones in 'Blue Sky' (1994).
Goldie Hawn famously quipped that there are three ages for actresses: the babe, the district attorney and Driving Miss Daisy. She laughs. 'There's definitely an element of that. And the district attorney has never interested me too much, not unless they have a dark secret...' She shakes her head, remembering with amusement, not bitterness: 'There are so many things I shouldn't have done. I mean, quite a few movies.' Like what? 'Just, wooh.' A warm, gurgling wooh is what she says when she doesn't want to be pinned down but she doesn't want to be brittle or cold.
So she is known for her dark-edged, fragile characters. 'Those are the only characters that interest me, those that walk the edge.' She's said in the past that she's suffered bouts of depression herself, so maybe connecting to these characters with their exaggerated sense of tragedy is some kind of therapy for her. She once said, 'Every time I think about Frances, Blanche and Mary, I think: there but for the grace of God go I.' She says, 'Yeah, there has been black stuff in me, but I don't allow myself to go there.'
She has in fact a couple of films coming up. One is 'Cheri', an adaptation by the brilliant Christopher Hampton of the story by Colette (which is incidentally being produced by Kenwright). It's about an ageing courtesan and how she tries to hang on to her young lover. Next up will be 'Grey Gardens', which is the story of the Beales - a wealthy society mother and daughter who were aunt and cousin to Jackie Kennedy. Drew Barrymore is set to play the daughter to Lange's mother in the film, which spans 40 years. Lange ages from 37 to 77.
Lange's movie presence has always had a sweetness and a sadness and Jack Nicholson, who worked with her in 1981 in 'The Postman Always Rings Twice', has described her as 'a cross between a fawn and a Buick'. She screws her nose up. 'That thing's been floating around for 26 years. The Buick's solid survivor spirit and the fawn's... well...' She does an impression with her arms in front of her as a graceful shy fawn, maybe because she can't bring herself to describe herself as a fawn. So is she in touch with her inner Buick or inner fawn?
'Inner Buick, definitely. There are extremes in all of us, aren't there?'
It seems that Lange feels comfortable in extremes. She lives now in New York, in the city, but grew up in rural Minnesota. She went to college in Minneapolis, then to New York and then Paris on a pilgrimage to bohemia, a rebellion against her homespun roots. At 20 she married photographer Paco Grande. They had met in an art class in Minneapolis. In Paris she studied mime and dance. She looks dreamy as she recalls it. She came back to New York to be shaken up and down in the paw of the gorilla in the first remake of King Kong. Deeply uncomfortable in bimbodom, she dug herself out of it. A few years later, in 1979, Bob Fosse cast her as the angel of death in his memoir 'All That Jazz'. She was ethereal and he fell in love with her. Next was Mikhail Baryshnikov, the greatest dancer of his age. Then in 1982 she met Sam Shepard on the set of 'Frances'. It seems she was always attracted to genius. He was then mostly acting, but has since become revered as a writer and director.
They are still together but have never married. In fact she has only been married once. Was one husband enough? 'It just didn't seem necessary. Sam and I have been together 23 years, so it's not like I don't feel married. The legal thing never seemed important. The commitment is to Sammy. The average marriage lasts seven years. I've done well.'
She has only worked with Shepard a couple of times. More often she has acted in plays that he has written. They are usually dark. Exactly the kind of play she likes."
- Chrissy Iley, 'Belle De Jour'
"This idea of selfishness as a virtue, as opposed to generosity: That, to me, is unnatural."
- Jessica Lange
Galerie
Jack Nicholson & Jessica Lange
Sam Shepard & Jessica Lange
Sally Field, Meryl Streep & Jessica Lange
Martin Scorsese, Jessica Lange, Nick Nolte & Robert De Niro
'A Tribute To Jessica Lange'
Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange & Sissy Spacek
Jessica Lange & Robert De Niro
Meryl Streep, Al Pacino & Jessica Lange
Kathy Bates, Jessica Lange & Angela Bassett
Jessica Lange & Susan Sarandon
Interview with Jessica Lange
Jessica Lange wins the Best Actress Oscar
"I'd never met anybody like hers. She was astounding. One of the great things about her, aside from her natural beauty, which was remarkable, was her humbleness."
- Sam Shepard on meeting Jessica Lange, The Observer
- Sam Shepard on meeting Jessica Lange, The Observer
