Academy Award for Best Actress

1994

Jessica Lange 

as

Carly Marshall

Blue Sky

Jessica Phyllis Lange (/læŋ/; born April 20, 1949) is an American actress who has worked in film, theater and television. The recipient of several awards, including two Oscars, three Emmys, five Golden Globes, one SAG Award and three Dorian Awards, Lange is widely considered to be one of the greatest actors of her generation.

Lange was discovered by producer Dino De Laurentiis while modeling part-time for the Wilhelmina modelling agency. She made her professional film debut in his 1976 remake of the 1933 action-adventure classic King Kong, for which she won her first Golden Globe Award. In 1982, she became the first performer in forty years to receive two Oscar nominations within the same year; 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 and was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of the troubled actress Frances Farmer, in Frances. Lange received three more nominations, for Country (1984), Sweet Dreams (1985) and Music Box (1989), before her sixth Oscar nomination — and a win, along with her third Golden Globe Award — for her performance as a manic depressive housewife in Blue Sky (1994). Her other films include All That Jazz (1979), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), Crimes of the Heart (1986), Men Don't Leave (1990), Cape Fear (1991), Rob Roy (1995), A Thousand Acres (1997), Cousin Bette (1998), Titus (1999), Big Fish (2003), Don't Come Knocking (2005), Bonneville (2006), The Vow (2012), In Secret (2013), The Gambler (2014) and Wild Oats (2015).

She made her Broadway debut playing Blanche DuBois in the 1992 revival of A Streetcar Named Desire, and made her West End debut in her reprise of that role in 1996. Other stage roles include the 2000 West End revival of Long Day's Journey into Night, for which she received an Olivier Award nomination as Best Actress, the 2005 Broadway revival of The Glass Menagerie and the 2016 Broadway revival of Long Day's Journey Into Night. She won her first Primetime Emmy Award for her portrayal of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' famed aunt, Big Edie, in HBO's Grey Gardens (2009), while she won her first Screen Actors Guild Award, fifth Golden Globe Award, and second and third Emmy Awards for her performances in the first and third seasons of FX's anthology horror show, American Horror Story (2011–2015).

In addition to acting, Lange is a photographer with two published works. She has also been a foster parent and currently holds a Goodwill Ambassador position for UNICEF, specializing in HIV/AIDS in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Russia. In 2014, Marc Jacobs chose her to be the premiere model of his new high-end beauty line, Marc Jacobs Beauty.