Meryl Streep Meryl Streep, born in 1949, American motion-picture actor who is noted for her versatility.

Meryl Streep Meryl Streep, born in 1949, American motion-picture actor who is noted for her versatility. Streep has been nominated for more Academy Awards than any other actress and has won twice, for best supporting actress in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) and for best actress in Sophie's Choice (1982). Mary Louise Streep was born in Summit, New Jersey. She was educated at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and at the Yale School of Drama in New Haven, Connecticut. Streep played a number of roles in New York theater from 1975 to 1979 and appeared in several television dramas from 1977 to 1978. After a supporting role in the film Julia (1977), Streep appeared in a major part in The Deer Hunter (1978), as the girlfriend of a man who serves in the Vietnam War (1959-1975). In Manhattan (1979), a comedy starring and directed by Woody Allen, Streep plays the ex-wife of Allen's character. Streep won her first Academy Award for her role in Kramer vs. Kramer, in which she and Dustin Hoffman costar as a couple who separate and then fight for custody of their son. In The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), adapted from a book by British novelist John Fowles, Streep plays a mysterious lady in Victorian England. She won her second Academy Award for Sophie's Choice, about a Polish woman who moves to the United States after World War II (1939-1945). Streep starred in many movies over the following years, including the dramas Silkwood (1983), Out of Africa (1985), Ironweed (1987), A Cry in the Dark (1988), The House of the Spirits (1994), and The River Wild (1994). Her comedies include Heartburn (1986), She-Devil (1989), Postcards from the Edge (1990), Defending Your Life (1991), and Death Becomes Her (1992). Streep appeared in several dramas in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The Bridges of Madison County (1995) features her as a woman in rural Iowa who has a love affair while her husband is out of town. In Marvin's Room (1996) she and Diane Keaton costar as estranged sisters who reevaluate their relationship. In Music of the Heart (1999), based on a true story, Streep portrays Roberta Guaspari, a violin teacher who starts a music program for inner-city children in New York City. In The Hours (2002) she played a woman whose former lover is dying; in Adaptation, a New York magazine writer who becomes involved with an eccentric orchid expert in Florida. Streep was next seen as Senator Eleanor Shaw in the 2004 remake of The Manchurian Candidate. She then starred as a Jewish psychoanalyst in the romantic drama Prime (2005), as a radio-show country singer in the Robert Altman-directed A Prairie Home Companion (2006), and as the overbearing fashion editor Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada (2006). In 2007 she played a veteran news correspondent in the political drama Lions for Lambs. She also appeared on stage in 2006 in New York's Central Park in Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.