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Alec Baldwin

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Alec Baldwin
File:30 Rock season 1 episode 3.png
Baldwin as Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock
Born
Alexander Rae Baldwin III
SpouseKim Basinger (1993-2002)
WebsiteAlecBaldwin.com

Alec Baldwin (born Alexander Rae Baldwin III on April 3, 1958 in Massapequa, New York) is an Academy Award-nominated, Screen Actors Guild Award-winning, and a Golden Globe Award-winning American actor. He is the eldest of the Baldwin brothers, has starred in many movies and TV shows such as 30 Rock, and has hosted Saturday Night Live 13 times.

Early life

Baldwin was born in Massapequa, New York, to parents Alexander Rae Baldwin II and Carol Newcomb Martineau. His brothers are Daniel, Stephen, and William Baldwin, all of whom are actors; he also has two sisters, Jane and Elizabeth. The Baldwin siblings attended Alfred G. Berner High School in Massapequa, Long Island. Alec (Class of 1976) and Daniel (Class of 1979) played football there under Coach Bob Reifsnyder, who is in the College Football Hall of Fame.

Baldwin is frequently described as Irish American, though his background includes English, Irish, and German ancestry on his father's side and distant French and Canadian ancestry on his mother's. His maternal grandmother was born in Nova Scotia; his Irish ancestry comes from his paternal great-grandmother, Helen Irene McNamara.[1]

When Baldwin was young, he worked as a busboy at the famous New York City disco Studio 54. Baldwin attended George Washington University from 1976 to 1979, where he was known as "Alex." After losing a student body president election, he transferred to New York University to study acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute under Elaine Aiken and Geoffrey Horne. He then returned to NYU in 1994 and graduated with a BFA that year.

The other Baldwin brothers, Daniel Baldwin (Homicide: Life on the street), William Baldwin (Backdraft), and Stephen Baldwin (The Usual Suspects) all followed him in becoming well-known actors.

Film and television career

Baldwin's first major role was as Billy Aldrich on the daytime soap The Doctors from 1980 to its cancellation in 1982. In the fall of 1983, he starred in the short lived series Cutter to Houston. He shot to stardom co-starring on Knots Landing as the preacher son of Julie Harris and spent most of the 1980s appearing in television series, before turning to film in 1986, making his film debut with a minor role in She's Having a Baby. In 1988, he appeared in Beetlejuice and Working Girl. Both of these films were box office successes that raised his profile.

After appearing in several other supporting roles, Baldwin starred as Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October, which grossed over $100 million after its release in March 1990. However, he turned down reprising the role in subsequent Tom Clancy movies. He went on to star as Grandma in the movie Man on Fire. Instead, the Jack Ryan character was portrayed by Harrison Ford in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger, and has since been played by Ben Affleck in The Sum of All Fears.

Baldwin subsequently had several notable roles in early 1990s films. In 1991, he met his future wife Kim Basinger on the set of the critically panned The Marrying Man. He appeared opposite Basinger again in The Getaway, a 1994 remake of the 1972 film of the same name. He also played the part of Lamont Cranston AKA The Shadow in the 1993 movie by the same name.

Baldwin's late 1990s roles varied in terms of critical and box office reception, and included several thrillers, such as The Edge, The Juror (opposite Demi Moore) and Heaven's Prisoners. He has shifted more toward roles as a character actor, including his Academy Award nominated turn in 2003's The Cooler and working with director Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio in both The Aviator and The Departed among other roles.

He is also a voice actor, working in the films Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends.

Baldwin has hosted Saturday Night Live 13 times as of November 2006. He is reportedly one of only two people (the other being Christopher Walken) who have standing invitations to host the show whenever they want.

Baldwin has been nominated for an Emmy Award five times (see below) but has yet to win:

He wrote an episode of Law & Order entitled Tabloid, which aired in 1998.

Baldwin also stars in the NBC sitcom 30 Rock alongside Tina Fey; the show debuted in the fall of 2006. He won a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild award for his work on this show.

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. This film has yet to be released, however. The film became an asset of a federal bank fraud trial in 2003, where financial investor Jed Barron, of Las Vegas, was convicted of bank fraud while financing the movie. The film's producer, David Glasser, was also under investigation. The film eventually was acquried by producer Bob Yari and his company. In 2007 the Yari Film Group announced it would give the film, now titled Shortcut to Happiness a theatrical release in the spring. Starz also announced they had acquired pay TV rights for the film.

Slated for 2007, Alec Baldwin will star opposite Sarah Michelle Gellar in the romantic comedy, Suburban Girl.

Big Line scenes

Baldwin has had several bits of monologue immortalized for their impact. Popular among his more remembered quotes:

Stage career

Baldwin made his Broadway debut in 1986, in a revival of Joe Orton's Loot alongside theatre veterans Zoe Wanamaker, Zeljko 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 which 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 Award 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 starred in the title role of "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 the play Twentieth Century with Anne Heche.

On June 9, 2005, he appeared in a concert version of the Rodgers 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 theatre news in Roundabout Theatre Company's Off-Broadway revival of Joe Orton's Entertaining Mr. Sloane. He locked horns with co-star Jan Maxwell who quit the show early because of Baldwin's admitted outbursts due to the temperature in the theatre.

Criticism

He was criticized by Jack Valenti, Rush Limbaugh, and Brit Hume for his appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien on December 11, 1998, eight days before President Bill Clinton was to be impeached. In an outburst that Baldwin later referred to as a "parody," a claim supported by the supplemental oxygen prop that Conan administers at the end of the clip, Baldwin said that "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".[2] Baldwin later apologized to Hyde for his remarks and NBC has promised never to re-air the show.[3] (A video of the outburst can be seen here [1])

In 2000, an interview with Basinger appeared in the German magazine Focus, in which the actress allegedly said that Baldwin promised to leave the United States if George W. Bush beat Al Gore for the presidency. This statement provoked a great deal of controversy for both Baldwin and Basinger. He was chastised by Florida governor Jeb Bush and had to temporarily shut down his website due to what he described as hundreds of "hideous and graphic" writings from "political extremists whose only goal is to harass and disrupt." Baldwin claimed he never heard of Focus and that Basinger was never interviewed, although subsequently he did admit the interview took place. He has stated that he never threatened to leave the United States and believed he might be confused with director Robert Altman, who did indeed make a vow to leave the United States if Bush was reelected. As Snopes.com has shown, no actual quote has ever been published showing that Baldwin in fact made the controversial promise.[4] Baldwin said, "I think my exact comment was that if Bush won it would be a good time to leave the United States. I'm not necessarily going to leave the United States."[2][3]

After an October 11, 2006 New York City plane crash, it was reported in the tabloid paper the New York Post that Baldwin was seen arguing with an NYPD officer for not letting him cross at a cordoned off area of the crash site. The report went on to say Baldwin was later seen in a nearby lounge loudly berating a hostess for not speaking English. Baldwin's publicist offered an explanation, saying that Baldwin was on his way to a taping of the Howard Stern Show, and was simply asking the officer for directions, and would never ever make fun of someone's English. Baldwin later stated that the story was "ridiculous." [4][5]

Baldwin, a political liberal, has always had an active interest in politics and is frequently rumored to be a candidate for public office. He recently revealed in a British magazine interview that he plans to leave acting in a few years to pursue a career in politics. He has recently called Vice President Dick Cheney a terrorist, and claimed that "he terrorizes our enemies abroad and innocent citizens here at home indiscriminately.".[5] He later recanted this statement, saying that Cheney was not a terrorist but rather "a lying, thieving oil whore and a murderer of the U.S. Constitution".[6]

Baldwin has continued to level strong criticisms at the Bush Administration on his blog labeling Bush a "trust fund puppet" and Cheney a "constitution hating sociopath" and a "hate-filled maniac".[7] Baldwin talked about the harm he believes Bush did to democracy by comparing the presidential election of 2000 to the September 11, 2001 attacks: "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." [6]

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."[8] 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."

On March 26, 2006, Baldwin guest-hosted Brian Whitman's talk show on WABC radio in New York. During the show, conservative talk show hosts Sean Hannity and Mark Levin called the show and were heard on air. Both Hannity and Levin confronted Baldwin about his previous comments about Vice-President Cheney and Rep. Hyde. During the conversation, Hannity accused Baldwin of not appearing on his show as agreed, and Baldwin replied that he would never do Hannity's show.

After Hannity accused him of attacking the president in a time of war, Baldwin attempted to move on to the next caller. Hannity interrupted, saying "you don't tell the truth." Baldwin responded by calling Hannity "a no-talent whore." The conversation turned into a series of verbal taunts among Hannity, Levin and Baldwin. According to the actor, Whitman made no attempt to assist Baldwin or curtail the call, so Baldwin walked out of the studio. On March 28, according to Baldwin, WABC President and General Manager Tim McCarthy telephoned him to "apologize for Sean's attacks."[9] [10]

When a New York Times interviewer asked Baldwin 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... That's what I hate about Arnold Schwarzenegger. His only credentials are that he ran a fitness program under some bygone president...I'm Tocqueville compared to Schwarzenegger." When asked why not be governor of California, Baldwin replied: "Then I would have to live in California. And who wants to live in California?"[7][8]

Baldwin serves on the board of People for the American Way.

Relationship with Kim Basinger and daughter Ireland

Alec Baldwin's marriage to Kim Basinger came to end in 2000, when they officially separated. A year later, Basinger filed for divorce in Los Angeles Superior Court. The ensuing divorce proceedings and custody battle have been a source of fodder for tabloid reporters, who have republished allegations by Basinger that she was physically and emotionally abused during the course of their marriage, and counter-claims by Baldwin's attorneys denying Basinger's charges and stating that Basinger had any number of untreated mental problems, including alcoholism.

In March 2004, Baldwin and Basinger agreed to share custody of their daughter Ireland. The judge presiding over the case issued a gag order, requiring Baldwin and Basinger to avoid commenting publicly about the case.

On April 11, 2007, Baldwin's 11-year-old daughter failed to answer a pre-arranged phone call from him. Baldwin proceeded to leave a hostile 2 and a half minute voicemail message for her in which he said:

"I'm going to let you know just how I feel about what a rude little pig you are. You are a rude thoughtless little pig. I don't give a damn that you're 12 or 11 years old, or that you're a child, or that your mother is a thoughtless pain in the ass who doesn't care about what you do."

He further told his daughter, "You don't have the brains or the decency as a human being" and that he was "going to fly out for the day just to straighten your ass out." [9]

The voicemail was posted on the celebrity website TMZ.com on April 19, 2007, and widely reported throughout the world. Basinger denied that she leaked the tape to the press.[11] Baldwin subsequently apologized for losing his temper, stating, "I have been driven to the edge by parental alienation for many years." [10]

TV appearances

References

  1. ^ http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=tdowling&id=I36475
  2. ^ http://secure.mediaresearch.org/news/mediawatch/1999/mw19990111p4b.html
  3. ^ http://www.mrc.org/cyberalerts/1998/cyb19981222.asp#5
  4. ^ http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/outrage/leave.htm
  5. ^ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alec-baldwin/will-they-go-to-court_b_15875.html
  6. ^ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alec-baldwin/republicans-married-into-_b_16131.html
  7. ^ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alec-baldwin/delay-is-the-new-republic_b_18785.html
  8. ^ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alec-baldwin/hannity-makes-political-p_b_18009.html
  9. ^ http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/3/26/221245.shtml
  10. ^ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alec-baldwin/hannity-makes-political-p_b_18009.html
  11. ^ http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20036514,00.html

Template:Baldwin brothers

Template:S-awards
Preceded by Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actor - Comedy Series
2006
for 30 Rock 		Succeeded by
TBD
Preceded by List of Golden Globe Awards: Television, Best Actor, Comedy or Musical
2007
for 30 Rock 		Succeeded by
TBD
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