Alexander Rae "
Alec"
Baldwin III (born April 3, 1958) is an American
film and television actor. An actor comfortable in both lead and
supporting roles, he has appeared in numerous Hollywood films
including
Beetlejuice and
The Hunt for Red
October in addition to the
Martin Scorsese films
The Aviator and
The Departed.
He was nominated for the
Academy Award,
Golden
Globe, and
Screen Actors Guild Award for his performance in the 2003 film,
The Cooler. Currently, he
appears as
Jack Donaghy on the NBC
sitcom
30 Rock, a role for which he
has won two
Emmy Awards, two
Golden Globe Awards, and three
Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Baldwin has hosted
Saturday
Night Live 14 times and is the oldest of the
Baldwin brothers, a family which has been
active in film and television for the last two decades.
Early life
Baldwin
was born in Amityville
, New York, the son of Carolyn Newcomb (née
Martineau) and Alexander Rae Baldwin, Jr., a high school history/social studies teacher and
American football coach. Baldwin was raised in a Catholic
family of Irish, English and French descent. He attended
Alfred G. Berner High School in
Massapequa, Long Island, and played football there under Coach
Bob Reifsnyder, who is in the
College Football
Hall of Fame
. Baldwin worked as a busboy at the famous New York City disco Studio
54
. He attended George
Washington University
from 1976 to 1979. He then transferred to
New York
University
to study acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre
Institute under Elaine Aiken and Geoffrey Horne. He
returned to NYU in 1994 and graduated with a
BFA that year.
The other
Baldwin brothers,
Daniel (
Homicide: Life on the
Street),
William
(
Backdraft), and
Stephen (
The Usual Suspects) all followed him
into the acting profession.
Career
Stage
Baldwin
made his Broadway
debut in
1986, in a revival of Joe Orton's
Loot alongside theatre veterans
Zoe Wanamaker, Željko Ivanek, Joseph Maher and Charles Keating. This
production closed after three months.
His other Broadway credits include
Caryl
Churchill's
Serious Money
with
Kate Nelligan and a highly
acclaimed revival of
Tennessee
Williams'
A
Streetcar Named Desire; his performance as
Stanley Kowalski garnered him a
Tony Award nomination for Best Actor. This
production also featured
Jessica
Lange,
Amy Madigan,
Timothy Carhart,
James Gandolfini, and
Aida Turturro. Baldwin would receive an Emmy
nomination for the television version of the production, in which
both he and Lange reprise their roles. That version featured
John Goodman and
Diane Lane.
In 1998, Baldwin played the title role in
Macbeth at the Public theater alongside
Angela Bassett and
Liev Schreiber. The production was directed
by
George C. Wolfe. In 2004, Baldwin starred in a revival
of
Twentieth
Century with
Anne Heche.
On June 9,
2005, he appeared in a concert version of the Rogers and Hammerstein musical
South Pacific at
Carnegie
Hall
. He starred as Luther Billis, alongside
Reba McEntire as Nellie and
Brian Stokes Mitchell as Emile. The
production was taped and telecast by
PBS on
April 26, 2006. In 2006, Baldwin made theater news in
Roundabout Theatre Company's
Off-Broadway revival of
Joe Orton's
Entertaining Mr. Sloane.
Film and television
Baldwin's first major role was as Billy Aldrich on the daytime
soap opera The Doctors from 1980 to
1982. In the fall of 1983 he starred in the short lived television
series
Cutter to Houston.
He then shot to stardom co-starring in the television series
Knots Landing from 1984 to
1986.
In 1986, Baldwin starred in
Dress Gray, a four-hour
made-for-television miniseries, as an honest cadet sergeant who
tries to solve the mystery of a murdered classmate. The film was
adapted by
Gore Vidal from the novel by
Lucian K. Truscott IV.
Baldwin made his theatrical film debut with a minor role in the
1988 film
She's Having a
Baby. Also in 1988, he appeared in
Beetlejuice and
Working Girl. Fresh from those hits, his
film career was firmly established with his role as
Jack Ryan in
The Hunt for Red
October (1990).
Baldwin met his future wife
Kim
Basinger when they played lovers in the 1991 film
The Marrying Man. He appeared with
Basinger again in
The
Getaway, a 1994 remake of the 1972
Steve McQueen film of the same name.
In a brief but memorable role, Baldwin played a ferocious sales
executive in 1992's
Glengarry Glen Ross, a part
added to the film version of
David
Mamet's
Pulitzer Prize-winning
stage play.
He then starred in 1992's Prelude to a Kiss with Meg Ryan, which was based on the Broadway play.
The film received a lukewarm reception by critics and grossed only
$22 million worldwide.
In 1994, Baldwin made a foray into pulp fiction-based movies with
the role of the
title character in
The Shadow. The film
made $48 million but was considered a commercial failure due to the
high expectations that it would be a blockbuster. Baldwin played in
several thrillers including
The
Edge (with
Anthony
Hopkins),
The Juror (with
Demi Moore) and
Heaven's Prisoners (with
Teri Hatcher).
Between the years of 1998 and 2002, Baldwin was the U.S. narrator
for the children's show
Thomas
and Friends, narrating all 52 episodes of seasons 5 and
6.
Baldwin appeared in a celebrity edition of
Who Wants To Be A
Millionaire in November 2000, competing against
Jon Stewart,
Charlie
Sheen,
Vivica A. Fox and
Norm Macdonald. He won $250,000
for
PAWS, and used
Kim Basinger as one of his "phone-a-friend" partners.
Baldwin then shifted towards
character
acting, including his
Academy
Award-nominated performance in 2003's gambling drama
The Cooler, and in the
Martin Scorsese films
The Aviator and
The Departed.
Baldwin is also a voice actor, working in the films
The Royal Tenenbaums,
Final Fantasy: The Spirits
Within and
Thomas the Tank Engine and
Friends. Baldwin has hosted
Saturday Night Live 14 times as of
February 2009, including a 1998 episode with
Kim Basinger.
Baldwin wrote an episode of
Law
& Order entitled "Tabloid", which aired in 1998. He
played the role of Dr. Barrett Moore, a retired plastic surgeon, in
the series
Nip/Tuck. In 2001,
Baldwin directed and starred in an all-star version of
The Devil and Daniel
Webster with
Anthony
Hopkins,
Jennifer Love
Hewitt and
Dan Aykroyd. The
then-unreleased film became an asset in a federal bank
fraud trial when investor Jed Barron was convicted of
bank fraud while the movie was in production. The film eventually
was acquired by
The Yari Group without
Baldwin's involvement. In 2007, the
Yari
Film Group announced it would give the film, now titled
Shortcut to Happiness a theatrical release in the spring
and cable film network
Starz! announced they
had acquired
pay TV rights for the
film.
In 2002, Baldwin appeared on two episodes of
Friends as
Phoebe Buffay's overly enthusiastic love
interest, Parker. In the episode entitled "The One in Massapequa,"
Parker, seemingly clueless and curious about its history, comments
that Massapequa sounds like a "magical place". In reality, Baldwin
was raised in Massapequa and went to high school there. Baldwin
appeared in a number of episodes in season 7 and 8 of
Will & Grace. He played Malcolm -
a 'top secret agent' and the lover of
Karen Walker (
Megan Mullally). He also appeared in the
first live episode of the series.
In 2006, he starred in the film
Mini's First Time,
alongside
Nikki Reed and
Luke Wilson. Baldwin performed opposite
Sarah Michelle Gellar in the 2007
romantic comedy,
Suburban
Girl.
Baldwin stars in the
Emmy Award-winning
NBC sitcom
30 Rock, which first
aired in October 2006. Baldwin had met series creator
Tina Fey and one of his co-stars,
Tracy Morgan, during several tapings of
Saturday Night Live. He received numerous honors for his
work as TV exec Jack Donaghy, including two Emmy Awards, two
Golden Globe awards and two
Screen Actors Guild Awards. He
was again nominated for the Emmy for Best Actor in a Television
Comedy or Musical in 2007, for the role but lost to
Ricky Gervais. He received his second Emmy
nomination for his role as Jack Donaghy in 2008, marking his
seventh Primetime Emmy nomination and went on to win the award as
Best Actor in a comedy series. He won again in 2009. Since season
3, Baldwin has been credited as
producer of the show.
On July 7, 2007, Baldwin presented at the
American leg of
Live Earth. He recorded two nationally
distributed public service radio announcements on behalf of the
Save the
Manatee Club.
Baldwin joined
TCM’s
The Essentials
Robert Osborne as co-host beginning
in March 2009.
Baldwin is slated to co-host the
82nd Academy Awards with
Steve Martin on March 7, 2010.
Personal life
In 1990, he met his former wife, actress
Kim Basinger, when they played lovers in the
film
The Marrying Man.
They married in 1993. Basinger and Baldwin have a daughter, Ireland
Eliesse "Addie" Baldwin (born October 23, 1995). They filed for
divorce in January 2001; it was finalized in February 2002. Since
then, the couple has been locked in a contentious public custody
battle.
A Promise to Ourselves
In 2008 Alec Baldwin and Mark Tabb published
A Promise to
Ourselves, which chronicles his seven-year battle to remain a
part of his daughter's life.
Baldwin contends that after their separation in December 2000, his
former wife,
Kim Basinger, endeavored
to deny him access to his daughter by refusing to discuss
parenting, blocking visitation, not providing telephone access, not
following court orders, not dropping their daughter off for reasons
of it being inconvenient, and directly lobbying the child. He
contends she spent over $1.5 million in the effort.
Baldwin called this
parental
alienation syndrome. Baldwin has called the attorneys in the
case "opportunists" and has characterized Basinger's psychologists
as part of the "divorce industry". He has faulted them more than
Basinger, and writes, "In fact, I blame my ex-wife least of all for
what has transpired. She is a person, like many of us, doing the
best she can with what she has. She is a litigant, and therefore,
one who walks into a courtroom and is never offered anything other
than what is served there. Nothing off the menu, ever."
Baldwin
wrote that he has spent over a million dollars, has had to put time
aside from his career, has had to travel extensively, and needed to
find a house in California
(he lived in New York), so he could stay in his
daughter's life. Baldwin contended that after seven years of
these issues, he hit a breaking point, and left an angry voicemail
message in response to another unanswered arranged call. He
contends that the tape was sold to
TMZ,
which released the recording despite laws against publishing media
related to a minor without the permission of both parents. Baldwin
admitted he made a mistake, but asked not to be judged as a parent
based on a bad moment. He later admitted to
Playboy in June 2009 that he contemplated
suicide over the voice mail that leaked to
the public. Of the incident, he said "I spoke to a lot of
professionals, who helped me. If I committed suicide, [ex-wife Kim
Basinger's side] would have considered that a victory. Destroying
me was their avowed goal."
During the autumn of 2008, Baldwin toured in support of the book,
speaking about his experiences related in it.
Politics
Baldwin serves on the board of
People for the American Way.
Baldwin is an
animal rights activist.
He is a strong supporter of
PETA and has done
work for the organization including narrating the video entitled
Meet your Meat.
When interviewed by the
New York
Times, Baldwin was asked what public office he would
consider running for, he replied:"If I ever ran for anything, the
thing I would like to be is
governor of New York." When asked if he
was qualified, Baldwin answered: "That's what I hate about
Arnold Schwarzenegger. His only
credentials are that he ran a fitness program under some bygone
president...I'm
de Tocqueville
compared to Schwarzenegger."
Baldwin and commentator
Bill
O'Reilly have been in a number of conflicts. Despite their
political differences, however, Baldwin stated on his
blog after an interview with O'Reilly that he "was
aggressive, but was a gentleman throughout," and also called
O'Reilly a "talented broadcaster." Baldwin, however, also referred
to O'Reilly's employer,
Fox News
Channel, in the same
blog post as
"
Roger Ailes'
Luftwaffe/Looney Bin news operation."
During his appearance on the comedy late night show
Late Night with Conan
O'Brien on December 12, 1998, eight days before President
Bill Clinton was to be
impeached, Baldwin said "if we were in
another country... we would stone
Henry
Hyde to death and we would go to their homes and kill their
wives and their children. We would kill their families, for what
they're doing to this country." Baldwin apologized, and the network
explained it was meant as a joke and promised not to rerun
it.
In 2002,
blogger Matt
Drudge threatened to sue Baldwin for his appearance on the
Howard Stern show, during which Baldwin
claimed that Drudge had propositioned him in the hallway at
ABC studios in Los
Angeles when he was doing the
Gloria
Allred show. No other action was taken by Drudge. In March
2008, Baldwin repeated the story to the
LGBT
magazine,
The Advocate, saying
that there was "a kind of creepy quality" to Drudge's sexual
advances, and that he was surprised Drudge was so "uptight about
being
gay."
In a February 2006 editorial column written for his blog on the
Huffington Post, Baldwin provided a searing criticism of
Dick Cheney, saying that he was involved in
former
Governor of California
Gray Davis being
recalled, that Cheney had instigated the
outing of
Valerie Plame as a
CIA agent, and that Cheney had shot
Harry Whittington. Baldwin wrote "The
rumor I heard is that someone yelled, "Look out! Shooter!" and
Cheney thought he said
Scooter and
fired in that general direction." He concluded that Cheney is a
terrorist and Whittington should sue.
"Cheney... terrorizes our enemies abroad and innocent citizens here
at home indiscriminately. Who ever thought Harry Whittington would
be the answer to America's prayers?" When asked if he had gone too
far, Baldwin replied that Cheney was not a terrorist, but rather
just "a lying, thieving Oil Whore. Or, a murderer of the
US Constitution..."
In another editorial, Baldwin compared the consequences of
George W. Bush's controversial victory in the
2000 election to
the damage done by the
September 11, 2001 attacks. While
bringing up such things as the
Bush administration's
warrantless wiretapping program, he
noted, "I know that's a harsh thing to say, perhaps, but I believe
that what happened in 2000 did as much damage to the pillars of
democracy as terrorists did to the pillars of commerce in New York
City."
In
February 2009, Baldwin spoke out to encourage state leaders to
renew New York's tax break for the film and television industry,
stating that if the "...tax breaks are not reinstated into the
budget, film production in this town is going to collapse and
television production is going to collapse and it's all going to go
to California." The conservative
American Spectator endorsed
Baldwin's statement, noting that the tax revenue brought in from
the industry presence in New York outweighs the amount of the tax
breaks offered.
On a May 12
Late Show
with David Letterman appearance in 2009, Baldwin made a
joke about getting a "Filipino mail-order bride...or a Russian one"
in order to have more children.
Baldwin was targeted by members of the
Filipino community who were offended, including Senator Ramon "Bong" Revilla, Jr. of the Philippines
. Baldwin later apologized for the remark via
his
Huffington Post blog;
the Philippines' Department of Foreign Affairs has not lifted the
ban on the actor from entering the country due to his status as an
"undesirable alien".
Filmography
Awards
References
- Stated on Inside the Actors Studio,
2007
- Alec Baldwin Biography (1958-). filmreference.com
- Newsday
- Prelude to a Kiss.
TheNumbers.com.
- "Alec Baldwin to Co-Host TCM's The
Essentials." TV Guide. October 23, 2008. Retrieved on
October 24, 2008.
- "Newly Crowned Emmy Winner Alec Baldwin Coming to
TCM As Co-Host of THE ESSENTIALS Weekly Movie Showcase, Set to
Premiere March 2009." TCM.com.
- Baldwin 2008.
- Alec Baldwin: A Promise to Ourselves."
Men's News Daily. January 2, 2009.
- Baldwin 2008. p25.
- Baldwin 2008. pp 71, 117, 150–51, 153, 166, 169.
- Baldwin 2008. pp. 43, 71, 127, 153–54, 178, 180.
- Baldwin 2008. pp. 117, 155, 165, 175–77.
- Baldwin 2008
- Baldwin 2008. p. 66.
- Baldwin 2008. pp. 185, 202.
- Baldwin 2008. pp.75-94.
- Baldwin 2008. pp 215-216.
- Baldwin 2008. pp. 202–03.
- Baldwin 2008. p. 99, 102.
- Baldwin 2008. pp. 41, 45, 151–53.
- Baldwin 2008. pp. 44, 47, 117.
- Baldwin 2008. pp173-184.
- Baldwin 2008. pp. 178-179.
- Baldwin 2008. pp. 101, 151.
- Italie, Hillel. "Alec Baldwin's Book Tour: Crowded And
Conflicted." Huffington Post. September 24, 2008.
- "Alec Baldwin: A Journey Through Fatherhood and
Divorce." Fora.tv. September 24, 2008.
- " Baldwin book rails against US family court
system." International Herald Tribune. September 23,
2008.
- Georgiades, William. "Emmy winner Alec Baldwin talks about the book he
didn't want to write." Los Angeles Times. September
25, 2008.
- Baldwin, Alec. "Hannity Makes Political Pornography."
Huffington Post. March 28, 2006.
- "Baldwin Outburst Video." Media Research
Center. December 16, 1998. (Vol. Three; No. 200).
- "Baldwin Chastised." Media Research
Media. December 22, 1998 (Vol. Three; No. 203).
- Baldwin, Alec. Will They Go to Court? Huffington
Post. February 17, 2006.
- Baldwin, Alec. "Republicans Married into the Wrong Family."
Huffington Post. February 22, 2006.
- "Alec Baldwin says disputed vote damaged
democracy."
- "Alec Baldwin Calls on Governor To Extend Tax
Credit." NY1 News. February 26, 2009.
- "Alec Baldwin, Right on Taxes." The
American Spectator. March 6, 2009.
- "Alec Baldwin banned from RP despite
apology"
Further reading
- Baldwin, Alec. A Promise to Ourselves - A Journey through
Fatherhood and Divorce. St. Martin's Press, 2008.
External links
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