Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress. In a career spanning over four decades, she has garnered numerous accolades, including three Tony Awards, three Emmy Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. She has been nominated eight times for an Academy Award, sharing the record for most nominations in acting categories without a win with Peter O'Toole. In 2016, she was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2019, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Close began her professional career on the stage in 1974 with Love for Love. She received her first Tony Award nomination for her role in Barnum and later went on to win three competitive Tony Awards for her roles in the plays The Real Thing (1983), and Death and the Maiden (1992) and the musical Sunset Boulevard (1995). She returned to the Broadway stage in a 2014 revival of A Delicate Balance. She reprised her role as Norma Desmond in a West End and Broadway revival in 2016 and 2017 respectively. She has also hosted the Tony Awards twice in 1992 and 1995.
Often regarded as one of the greatest film actors never to have won an Academy Award, Close received eight such nominations for her roles in The World According to Garp (1982), The Big Chill (1983), The Natural (1984), Fatal Attraction (1987), Dangerous Liaisons (1988), Albert Nobbs (2011), The Wife (2017), and Hillbilly Elegy (2020). She has also starred in Jagged Edge (1985), Reversal of Fortune (1990), Hamlet (1990), The House of the Spirits (1993), The Paper (1994), Mars Attacks! (1996), and Air Force One (1997). She also portrayed Cruella de Vil in 101 Dalmatians (1996) and its sequel 102 Dalmatians (2000).
For her work on television she won her first Primetime Emmy Award for her performance in the television film Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story (1995). For her portrayal of Eleanor of Aquitaine in the Showtime television film The Lion in Winter (2003) she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film. From 2007 to 2012, Close starred as Patty Hewes in the drama series Damages, for which she received two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.
Close has been married thrice, and has a daughter from her relationship with producer John Starke. She is the president of Trillium Productions and has co-founded the website FetchDog. She has made political donations in support of Democratic politicians and is vocal on issues such as women's rights, same-sex marriage, and mental health.
Early life and education
Glenn Close was born on March 19, 1947, in Greenwich, Connecticut, to socialite Elizabeth Mary Hester "Bettine" (Moore) and William Taliaferro Close, a doctor who operated a clinic in the Belgian Congo and served as a personal physician to its dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. She has two sisters, Tina and Jessie, and two brothers, Alexander (nicknamed Sandy) and Tambu Misoki, whom Close's parents adopted while living in the Congo.
During her childhood, Close lived with her parents in a stone cottage on her maternal grandfather's estate in Greenwich. Close began honing her acting abilities in her early years, "I have no doubt that the days I spent running free in the evocative Connecticut countryside with an unfettered imagination, playing whatever character our games demanded, is one of the reasons that acting has always seemed so natural to me." Although Close has an affluent background, she has stated that her family chose not to participate in WASP society. She would also avoid mentioning her birthplace, the wealthy town Greenwich, whenever asked because she did not want people to think she was a "dilettante who didn't have to work."
When Close was seven years old, her parents joined the Moral Re-Armament (MRA), a movement in which her family remained involved for fifteen years. During this period, Close's family lived in communal centers. She has described MRA as a "cult" that dictated every aspect of her life, from the clothes that had to be worn to what she was allowed to say. Close also spent time in Switzerland when studying at St. George's School, and attended Rosemary Hall (now Choate Rosemary Hall), graduating in 1965. She traveled for several years in the mid-to-late 1960s with the nonprofit encouragement singing group Up With People. During her time in Up With People, Close organized a small singing group called the Green Glenn Singers, consisting of herself, Kathe Green, Jennie Dorn, and Vee Entwistle. The group's stated mission was "to write and sing songs which would give people a purpose and inspire them to live the way they were meant to live".