Meryl Streep, a woman who never put her career above love and still achieved incredible success

Meryl Streep holds all the records for the number of Oscar nominations. There are no less than 20. In addition, she is a devoted mother and affectionate wife, who has been married to her husband for over 40 years. This fantastic actress has an impeccable biography and a career that has been delighting fans for nearly half a century.

we, from awesome.club, we’ve always known that Meryl Streep is an excellent actress. What we didn’t know were other stories of her life that made us even more fans. Check it out!

Mary Louise Streep, or Meryl, as she was called in the family, was born in 1949 in the city of New Jersey, USA. Her father was a manager of a pharmaceutical company and her mother was an artist. Incidentally, Meryl has Swiss, Irish and German ancestry.

It was her mother, Mary Wilkinson Streep, who encouraged her love of art and always supported the girl’s creative efforts, encouraging self-confidence from a very young age. She would say something like, “Meryl, you can do anything. You are wonderful. You can do whatever you want if you’re not lazy.” And even if in childhood the future star was quite closed and shy, she believed in herself thanks to her mother’s lessons.

After graduating from high school, Meryl’s future profession had already been determined. She was able to perfectly play her schoolmates and teachers; therefore, she chose the acting career without a second thought. Streep graduated with excellence from the drama course, then won a scholarship and completed a Master of Arts at the famous Yale University. During her studies, she acted in an amateur theater and played various characters such as beautiful young women, old women and many others. Shortly after that, the young woman, until then called Mary (her given name), decided to adopt the stage name of Meryl and went to conquer Broadway.

When Meryl moved to New York, several theater directors soon noticed her; the actress dove headfirst into every role she played. She not only memorized the lines, but completely changed her style, gait and facial expressions. Literally she “entered” the characters. Streep has played leading roles in both classic and contemporary plays, receiving a standing ovation and receiving positive reviews.

The young woman also dreamed of a career in cinema, but entering this world was very difficult. She had to accept a few supporting roles, often excluded from the films during final editing. In 1975, she participated in an audition for the main character in the movie “King Kong”. The producer of the project, talking about Meryl, said in Italian: “She is so ugly. Why did you bring her here?” But since the actress spoke Italian, she replied, “I’m sorry I let you down.”

She would only appear on the big screen two years later, in a non-prominent role in the movie “Julia”. From that moment, the career of the future star began to take off. At age 28, she starred in the war drama “The Deer Hunter” alongside Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken. The film won 5 Oscars, and Meryl was nominated for the first time, as Best Supporting Actress. “Streep is the best actress of all time. Forever”, — was the comment she received from critics at the time. However, she was left without the statuette.

In the same year, the girl got a role in the miniseries “Holocaust” (Holocaust), in which she played a German who married a Jewish artist. For this work, she received her first Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries. A year later, she played “Jill” in a Woody Allen comedy movie called “Manhattan”. It was already 1979.

He then had roles in the political drama “The Seduction of Joe Tynan” and in “Kramer versus Kramer,” in which he starred with Dustin Hoffman.

For her role as Joanna Kramer, she won her first Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

As her career took off, Meryl met actor John Cazale. They acted together in a play and soon discovered that there was more than a job in common. Audiences knew John for his role as one of Don Corleone’s sons in the classic The Godfather. Many found the relationship between the little famous and shy 40-year-old actor and the then young actress with a clearly promising future to be strange. But the love was real.

John had been responsible for bringing Meryl to the movies, convincing her to audition for the movie “Julia” (back in 1977). Also, after a while, Streep confessed that she agreed to act in the hit movie “The Deer Hunter” just because of Cazale’s participation. The actor, however, would not live to see his girlfriend’s explosion of success. He died of cancer in 1978, aged 42, shortly after filming the film.

It was also John who convinced his beloved to act in the miniseries “Holocaust”, in Austria. He simply couldn’t allow the young actress to become his nurse, tending to the cancer, by then well advanced. But when the girl discovered that John was getting worse, she tried to return to the US and spent the rest of the time with her lover in the hospital. John Cazale died in Meryl’s arms. In that moment, she told herself that she would never put her career above her family and loved ones.

Meryl was completely devastated by her boyfriend’s death, but fate is unpredictable at times. Just six months after Cazale’s death, the sculptor Don Grummer, a man who was a friend of her brother, appeared in the actress’s life. At that time, the girl was in a difficult situation. After John’s death, she had no place to live and the artist offered her his apartment. After all, he was always traveling the world. She accepted. Meryl and Grummer began writing to each other, which brought them so close that soon the letters turned into a romance. When the sculptor returned to the United States, they no longer had any doubts that they were made for each other. Don proposed to Meryl, and in the fall of 1978, they walked down the aisle.

Meryl and Don have been together for no less than 41 years. During that time, they raised 4 children: Henry, Mary, Grace and Louise.

At the 2012 Oscars ceremony, Meryl Streep began her speech like this: “First, I want to thank my husband. Because when you go to thank your husband at the end of the speech, the music gets in the way of words. And my husband doesn’t deserve that. I want him to know that everything I have in my life that’s precious, I owe him🇧🇷

At 33, Streep won another Oscar, this time for the drama film “Sophie’s Choice”, but for Best Actress. She then became one of the most sought after professionals in Hollywood.

After this achievement, Meryl started a sequence of great works, in which she explored all her talent, such as in the comedy “She’s the Devil” (She-Devil), in the drama “The Bridges of Madison County” (The Bridges of Madison County) and in the thriller “O Rio Selvagem” (The River Wild).

Despite her success, at this point, Meryl seemed fearful about the future of her career. She said that every year in Hollywood new talented actresses appeared. “I was afraid that after 40, I wouldn’t get any roles,” she said in an interview with Woman’s Weekly magazine.

But the fears were not justified. Each year, the actress acted in more brilliant films, such as the drama “The Hours” and the miniseries “Angels in America”, in which she played four different roles at the same time: a caring mother, a spy, a rabbi and an angel. Soon after, she became the youngest woman in history to receive the American Film Institute’s (AFI) Lifetime Achievement Award.

And recognition went far beyond American borders. In 2004, Meryl received the Russian award “I believe. Konstantin Stanislavsky”, which was given to him by the great-grandson of the great Russian actor and director.

In 2006, Meryl would conquer the world’s attention once again, with the brilliant “The Devil Wears Prada” (The Devil Wears Prada), in which she played a powerful businesswoman inspired by the editor Anna Wintour, of Vogue magazine in the United States. The film became the second highest-grossing film of the actress’ career. The first is from the musical “Mamma Mia!”. For Meryl, who loved to sing and was always a fan of the Swedish group ABBA (whose song inspired Mamma Mia!), the role in the film was a gift.

His third Oscar was won for the brilliant performance of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the film “The Iron Lady”. With him, Meryl became the only living actress with three statuettes.

Today, Streep who is 70 years old and still in high demand in Hollywood. Many consider her one of the best actresses of our time. Recently came to an end the second season of the miniseries “Big Little Lies”, in which she played one of the main roles.

“I was once told that the secret of life is to enjoy every moment. And that’s what I do: I’m happy to be living here, doing what I love, acting in movies,” Meryl once said modestly.

Do you agree that Meryl Streep is one of the best actresses of our time? What is her best career job?