Glenn Close biography

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Glenn Close was born on March 19, 1947, in Greenwich, Connecticut, into an upper class family with a long history in the northeastern United States. She grew up with two sisters, Jessie and Tina, and one brother, Sandy. Although her parents, Dr. William Close and Bettine Moore Close, were both born into an elite social circle, they did not raise Close and her siblings in that world. "My parents were real black sheep in Greenwich. The milieu was highly social and very elite, and we had that as our heritage – my grandparents founded Round Hill Country Club. But we never participated in that kind of a life. I've always been a little bit proud of that fact," Close explains.

In 1954, Close's parents joined Moral Rearmament (MRA), a group with cult-like trappings that sent its members out into the world to convert people to its brand of spirituality. When Close was thirteen, her parents moved the family to the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) to spread the word; Dr. Close also operated a clinic there. Close split her time between Africa and boarding schools in Switzerland. She later attended the prep school Rosemary Hall back in Greenwich before joining the MRA-associated singing group Up With People, with which she toured throughout Europe and the United States for four years. Close broke away from the group at age 22 in order to attend the College of William and Mary, where she studied drama and anthropology. After college, Close moved to New York City. There, she and good friend Meryl Streep joined the Phoenix Theatre Company.

Close soon began her acting career in earnest. She made her Broadway debut in 1974's Love for Love. At first, she loved the stage so much that she did not seriously consider film acting. "I went into acting just thinking about the stage. All the games I used to play as a child, I never even thought about movies." Close's talent, though, translated well to the silver screen. In 1980, after seeing her in a Tony-nominated role in Barnum, director George Roy Hill cast Close as Jenny Fields, a feminist writer, in his film The World According to Garp. For her first film role, Close received an Academy Award nomination; it was the first of five for her in the 1980s.

Glenn Close's reputation as a powerful dynamo in Hollywood was cemented by her role in the thriller Fatal Attraction, that of Alex Forrester, a seductive but psychotic stalker. During filming, Close found out that she was pregnant with her first and only child, Annie Maude Starke, whose father is John Starke. Only seven weeks after giving birth to Annie, Close started filming a lead role in the film Dangerous Liaisons, for which she received another Oscar nomination.