American Academy-Award winning actress who began her film career with the remake of “King Kong” in 1976 and despite criticism, went on to win the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for “Tootsie” in 1982, when she became the first actress to be nominated for two acting Oscars in the same year. (The other nomination was for Best Actress in “Frances.”) She won the Oscar for Best Actress on 27 March 1995 for her performance in “Blue Sky.” She has also been nominated for awards in other roles.
Finnish and Polish by birth, Lange was the third of four children, three girls and a boy, of Dorothy and Al Lange. The family moved about twelve times before Lange was a high-school senior as her dad, a history teacher, also worked as a traveling salesman.
In 1967, with an art scholarship, Jessica studied at the University of Minnesota where she embraced the sixties counterculture. While in college, she met Paco Grande, part of a group of experimental filmmakers, whose dad taught at the university. She ditched the college life after three months and the two bummed around Europe, then returned to America and toured the country. They married in 1970, primarily because, according to Lange, “he was busted and the lawyer said it would look good.”
Lange then went to Paris, alone, to study with Etienne Decroux, the master of classical mime and Marcel Marceau’s guru. She reconciled with Paco, but he decided to live in Los Angeles and she opted for New York. They finally divorced in 1982, though Paco, a victim of retinitis pigmentosa, was losing his sight. Lange ended up paying him alimony.
She started to study acting and eventually joined a modeling agency where, in 1975, producer Dino De Laurentiis was looking for an unknown to reprise the Fay Wray role in the “King Kong” remake. The critics were not kind, but director Bob Fosse took a liking to her, and they had an “on and off” relationship for years. She later redeemed herself in 1981 with her performance in “The Postman Always Rings Twice.” She went on in 1982 to win the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for “Tootsie.” However, her performance in “Frances,” 1982, the story of the tragic life of actress Frances Farmer, established her as a serious actress.
She co-produced and starred in “Country,” 1984, a film about the crisis in America’s farming community, and “Sweet Dreams” in 1985, both of which earned her Oscar nominations. She was also nominated in 1990 for “The Music Box.” In recent years, Lange has appeared in 1995’s “Rob Roy” and 1997’s “A Thousand Acres,” as well as in “Hush” in 1998. She has also done several television specials, including “A Streetcar Named Desire” in the mid-90s.
Lange met Mikhail Baryshnikov in 1976, when he was filming “The Turning Point.” For the next seven years they were a couple, and produced a daughter, Shura, “a triple Pisces.”
She met playwright/actor Sam Shepard while filming “France,” and the relationship has produced one daughter, Hannah (born 1985) and a son, Walker (1987). Lange and Shepard divide their time between a Virginia horse farm and their Stillwater, Minnesota spread.
Link to Wikipedia biography