
Jessica Lange
Acting • Born 1949-04-20
Biography
Jessica Phyllis Lange (born April 20, 1949) is an American actress. She is the 13th actress to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting, having won two Academy Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Tony Award, along with a Screen Actors Guild Award and five Golden Globe Awards. Lange made her professional film debut in Dino De Laurentiis's 1976 remake of the 1933 action-adventure classic King Kong, for which she also won her first Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year. In 1979, she starred in the acclaimed musical film All That Jazz. In 1983, she won her second Golden Globe Award and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as a soap opera star in Tootsie (1982) and was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of the troubled actress Frances Farmer in Frances (1982). Lange received three more nominations for Country (1984), Sweet Dreams (1985) and Music Box (1989), before winning her third Golden Globe Award and the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as a bipolar housewife in Blue Sky (1994). In 2010, Lange won her first Primetime Emmy Award for her portrayal of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's aunt Big Edie in HBO's Grey Gardens (2009). Between 2011 and 2014, she won her first Screen Actors Guild Award, first Critics Choice Award, fifth Golden Globe Award, three Dorian Awards and her second and third Emmy Awards for her performances in the first, second and third seasons of FX's horror anthology series American Horror Story (2011–2015, 2018). In 2016, Lange won her first Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play, an Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Lead Actress in a Play and a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play for her performance in the Broadway revival of Long Day's Journey into Night. She also had a supporting role in Louis C.K.'s Peabody Award-winning web series Horace and Pete. In 2017, for her portrayal of actress Joan Crawford in the miniseries Feud, Lange received her eighth Emmy, 16th Golden Globe, sixth Screen Actors Guild Award and second TCA Award nominations. In 2019, she received a tenth Emmy nomination for her performance in American Horror Story: Apocalypse. Lange is also a photographer with four published books of photography. She has been a foster parent and holds a Goodwill Ambassador position for UNICEF, specializing in HIV/AIDS in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Russia.
Filmography
76 credits
Broken Flowers
Movie • 2005
Carmen

Big Fish
Movie • 2003
Sandra Bloom (senior)

Cape Fear
Movie • 1991
Leigh Bowden

Music Box
Movie • 1989
Ann Talbot

Frances
Movie • 1982
Frances Farmer

Don't Come Knocking
Movie • 2005
Doreen

King Kong
Movie • 1976
Dwan

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Movie • 1984
Maggie

Shepard & Dark
Movie • 2012
Self (archive footage)

The Postman Always Rings Twice
Movie • 1981
Cora Papadakis

Long Day's Journey into Night
Movie • 2025
Mary Tyrone

Neverwas
Movie • 2005
Katherine Pierson

Rob Roy
Movie • 1995
Mary MacGregor

Masked and Anonymous
Movie • 2003
Nina Veronica

Tootsie
Movie • 1982
Julie Nichols

Everybody's All-American
Movie • 1988
Babs Rogers Grey

Sybil
Movie • 2007
Dr. Cornelia Wilbur

Titus
Movie • 1999
Tamora

Marlowe
Movie • 2023
Dorothy Quincannon

Losing Isaiah
Movie • 1995
Margaret Lewin

Country
Movie • 1984
Jewell Ivy

Night and the City
Movie • 1992
Helen Nasseros

Sweet Dreams
Movie • 1985
Patsy Cline

Prozac Nation
Movie • 2003
Mrs. Wurtzel

Bonneville
Movie • 2006
Arvilla Holden

All That Jazz
Movie • 1979
Angelique

Hush
Movie • 1998
Martha Baring

A Thousand Acres
Movie • 1997
Ginny Cook Smith

Crimes of the Heart
Movie • 1986
Meg Magrath

Normal
Movie • 2003
Irma Applewood

Cousin Bette
Movie • 1998
Cousin Bette

Grey Gardens
Movie • 2009
Big Edie

The Vow
Movie • 2012
Rita Thornton

Men Don't Leave
Movie • 1990
Beth Macauley

Blue Sky
Movie • 1994
Carly Marshall

O Pioneers!
Movie • 1992
Alexandra Bergson

Far North
Movie • 1988
Kate

The Making of 'Cape Fear'
Movie • 2001
Self

The Peace!
Movie • 2005
Self

A Streetcar Named Desire
Movie • 1995
Blanche DuBois

How to Beat the High Cost of Living
Movie • 1980
Louise

In Secret
Movie • 2014
Madame Raquin

Notre Dame de la Croisette
Movie • 1983
Self (uncredited)

The Gambler
Movie • 2014
Roberta

The Great Lillian Hall
Movie • 2024
Lillian Hall

The Year of Magical Thinking
Movie
Joan Didion

Wild Oats
Movie • 2016
Maddie

King Kong Lives
Movie • 1986
Dwan (archive footage)

A Better Man: The Making of 'Tootsie'
Movie • 2008
Self

Behind the Fright: The Making of American Horror Story
Movie • 2012
Self

A Hollywood Life: Remembering Frances
Movie • 2001
Herself

Vivien Leigh: Scarlett and Beyond
Movie • 1990
Self - Host

Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco
Movie • 2018
Self

Scorsese's Women
Movie • 2014
Star

Peace by Peace: Women on the Frontlines
Movie • 2004
Self - Narrator (voice)

Inside the Actors Studio
TV • 1994
Self

Today
TV • 1952
Self

Hallmark Hall of Fame
TV • 1951
Alexandra Bergson

Intimate Portrait
TV • 1993
Self

The Oscars
TV • 1953
Self

American Horror Story
TV • 2011
Fiona Goode

American Horror Story
TV • 2011
Constance Langdon

American Horror Story
TV • 2011
Sister Jude Martin

American Horror Story
TV • 2011
Elsa Mars

Horace and Pete
TV • 2016
Marsha

FEUD
TV • 2017
Joan Crawford

The American Film Institute Salute to ...
TV • 1973
Self

Close Up with The Hollywood Reporter
TV • 2015
Self

The Politician
TV • 2019
Dusty Jackson

FEUD
TV • 2017
Lillie Mae Faulk

Bambi
TV • 1948
Self

Late Night with Seth Meyers
TV • 2014
Self

The View
TV • 1997
Self

Variety Studio: Actors on Actors
TV • 2014
Self

Hollywood '84
TV • 1984
Self

The Ellen DeGeneres Show
TV • 2003
Self