Glenn Close
The eternal Oscar nominee is celebrating her birthday
Glenn Close has been nominated for an Oscar several times.
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Glenn Close turns 75 on March 19. She has already failed eight times at the Oscars. However, she does not see herself as a loser.
Glenn Close celebrates her 75th birthday on March 19th. The US actress knew about her acting dream since she was a child, but it wasn’t until college that she pursued it. A steep career followed, which was never crowned with an Oscar. To this day, that doesn’t bother one person in particular: Glenn Close himself.
trauma in childhood and adolescence
Glen Close was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, in 1947. Her father was a doctor and was appointed head of a Congolese hospital in 1960. So Close grew up in the Democratic Republic and attended boarding schools, including in Switzerland and New England.
A trauma from her childhood and youth still haunts her to this day, as she revealed in May 2021 in Prince Harry’s (37) documentary series “The Me You Can’t See”. Close was seven years old when her parents joined the arch-conservative Moral Re-Armament religious group. With tears, the actress described the organization as a cult that still makes it impossible for her to have normal relationships. “Because of the emotional and psychological devastation of the cult, I have been unsuccessful in my relationships and my search for a lasting partner. And I regret that. It is our natural state to have such connections.”
She was married three times, all marriages broke up. Her daughter Annie Starke (33) comes from a relationship with producer John Starke. She was under constant scrutiny until she was 22, Close explained. “The way we were raised, anything you did for yourself was considered selfish.” There was an endless list of rules and she and her siblings, like the other members, were under constant scrutiny. When her family finally left after 15 years, she continued to have nightmares about her time there and had to undergo therapy like her sister Jessie.
nominations and awards
In Virginia, Close studied drama and anthropology. Already in her senior year of college she appeared on Broadway. In 1980 she was nominated for a Tony Award for the first time, two years later she was able to hold the prize in her hands. A series that continues to this day also began at this time: Close was nominated for an Oscar for “Best Supporting Actress” for her performance in “Garp and How He Saw the World”, but went away empty-handed. 1984 and 1985 followed further (unsuccessful) nominations in this category.
It continued with four nominations, all in the Best Actress category. In the erotic thriller “A Fateful Affair” (1987) Close played alongside Michael Douglas (77), in the drama “Dangerous Liaisons” (1988) alongside John Malkovich (68). In Albert Nobbs (2011), Close, who became known to a wider audience as Cruella De Vil in 101 Dalmatians and 102 Dalmatians, excelled as a putative 19th-century Irish butler who no one knows was a woman is. The Oscar nomination in 2012 was once again certain.
She remained true to the strong, often more complex female roles: In “The Wife of the Nobel Prize Winner” she played Joan Castleman in 2017, who accompanies her husband to the Nobel Prize ceremony and was actually once a promising young writer herself. Daughter Annie Starke mimed the young Joan. It wasn’t a golden boy this time either, but Close was able to look forward to a Golden Globe.
No loser
At the 93rd Academy Awards, Close again went away empty-handed, being nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Hillbilly Elegy. She is only the third person in film history to be nominated for both a Golden Boy for Best Actress and a Golden Raspberry for Worst Actress for the same role. After her eight-time Oscar nomination went through the press without a happy ending, colleague Sarah Paulson (47) wrote on twitter: “I wish these discussions would stop. She is brilliant and continues to have an exceptional and enviable career.”
In an interview with the Associated Press, Close also made it clear what she thinks of such headlines: “I don’t think I’m a loser. I’m among five people who have been honored for their work. What could be better? Me I honestly feel like the press likes to have winners and losers, but that’s not the point.”
In addition, things went even better when it came to awards in the television division. From the 1990s, Close was increasingly seen in TV series such as “Damages – Im Netz der Macht”. Her role as celebrity attorney Patty Hewes earned her Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe. In 2017 she was honored with the Golden Icon Award for her life’s work at the Zurich Film Festival. At the award, Close quoted a letter her role model Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003) once wrote to her: “I’m glad I convinced you when you were a child to go into this horrible profession, this horrible one profession and, let’s face it, this wonderful way of living your life.”