Meryl Streep

Some Lesser Known Facts About Meryl Streep

• Does Meryl Streep smoke?: Yes

• Does Meryl Streep drink alcohol?: Yes

• Streep’s father Harry William Streep, Jr. was of German and Swiss ancestry. Her father’s lineage traces back to Loffenau, Germany, from where her second great-grandfather, Gottfried Streeb, immigrated to the United States. Another line of her father’s family was from Giswil, Switzerland.

• Her Mother Mary Wolf Wilkinson was a commercial artist and editor and was the English, German, and Irish descent.

• Streep is one of the six actors to have won three or more competitive Academy Awards for acting. She also grabs the record of being the most Oscar-nominated actress, with a total of 19 nominations than any other actor or actress in history.                                                                                                                                                            

• She is the only actor to have most Golden Globe nominations till date with 29 nominations.

• Streep has more competitive victories, with a total of eight victories, than any other actor in the history of Golden Globe Awards.

• On 24 November 2014, She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.            

• By the Entertainment Weekly, she was ranked 37 in the list of Greatest Movie Star of all time.

• At the Age of 12, Streep took up opera lessons from Estelle Liebling after being selected to sing at a school recital.She quit her lessons after 4 years and remarked that “I was singing something I didn’t feel and understand. That was an important lesson—not to do that. To find the thing that I could feel through.”

• Her first professional debut was in a Joseph Papp production of “Trelawny of the Wells,” at the Public Theatre in 1975, the same year she moved to New York City.

• She met actor John Cazale during the production of “Measure for Measure,” and fell in love with him. She lived with Cazale until his death from lung cancer in March 1978.

• Streep married sculptor Don Gummer in the year 1978, around 6 months after Cazale’s death.

• Earlier in her career, she was profoundly impressed by Robert De Niro’s performance in the 1976 movie “Taxi Driver,” after which she decided she wanted to become that kind of actor.

• Former US President Bill Clinton later told Streep that her performance in the movie “The Deer Hunter,” was one of his favorite performances of her entire career.                                                                                                            
• On 14 May 2024, she was awarded an honorary Palme d’Or during the opening ceremony of Cannes 2024.