Acclaimed actress Jessica Lange has had one of the most fascinating careers in Hollywood film history with a somewhat troubled beginning that quickly turned itself around into great triumph. In recent years she has also found success in television and theater winning Emmys for her work on “American Horror Story” and another for “Grey Gardens,” plus a Tony for her work on Broadway in “Long Days Journey into Night.”
Lange’s first film performance was as the star of the much talked about 1976 remake of “King Kong.” The unknown actress was stung by the reaction to the film and despite being awarded the Golden Globe for Best Acting Debut-Female she retreated from films and didn’t do another one for three years.
She would slowly rebuild her reputation in a series of films until she finally struck gold in 1982 with two prominent films, the biopic “Frances” and the comedy “Tootsie.” She would earn two Oscar nominations that year as Best Actress for “Frances” and Best Supporting Actress for “Tootsie” (for which she won). At that moment, it was the first time an actor had received double nominations in 40 years.
While all this acclaim was great for Lange it created problems for awards voters. Coinciding with the release of Lange’s films was the release of “Sophie’s Choice” in which Meryl Streep gave what some critics were describing as the greatest performance ever put on film. Lange seemed destined to be an also ran when the New York Film Critics Circle came up with an inventive solution. Streep came in first in the voting for Best Actress with Lange as a runner up for “Frances.” The group then decided to give Lange the Supporting Actress Award for “Tootsie” as a consolation prize. This idea caught on and Lange who some considered a lead performer in “Tootsie” began to be marketed as a supporting actress and quickly picked up the National Society of Film Critics Award, the Golden Globe and then the Oscar all as Supporting Actress for “Tootsie” while Streep won all the lead trophies.
Lange would rack up four more Academy Awards nominations: “Country” (1984), “Sweet Dreams” (1985), “Music Box” (1989) and “Blue Sky” (1994). It was that final bid that brought her a leading actress Oscar after the film had been sitting on shelves for a while. She said backstage that winning the second award was gratifying since her first Oscar always had a bit of a “caveat” around it since it was given for “Tootsie” but meant for “Frances.”
Lange has proven herself one of the most gifted actresses in her career, taking on the likes of Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill on stage and an even more varied career on film and television. Tour our photo gallery of her 15 greatest movie performances, ranked from worst to best.
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15. KING KONG (1976)
Image Credit: Snap/REX/Shutterstock Director: John Guillermin. Writer: Lorenzo Semple Jr. Starring Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin, John Randolph.
Lange (who was an early and vocal fan of Gold Derby) probably would not be happy having this film listed among her best. She was literally plucked from obscurity and sent to Hollywood for a screen test and then found herself the star of this remake of the classic original. The critical reception was not positive and Lange left moviemaking for three years to heal from the experience. The sting of the film’s reception probably came from the fact that Lange really invested herself in the performance and didn’t just play it as the girl who screams a lot when the gorilla picks her up. She had studied mime in Paris so she tried to create emotive poses and reactions to her character’s wordless dealings with the giant ape. Lange did receive a rave review from the famed critic Pauline Kael who praised her comic abilities and compared her to the late Carole Lombard.
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14. NIGHT AND THE CITY (1992)
Image Credit: Louis Goldman/Penta/Tribeca/Kobal/Shutterstock Director: Irwin Winkler. Writer: Richard Price. Starring Robert De Niro, Jack Warden, Eli Wallach.
In her second film with Robert De Niro in as many years Lange reteamed with her “Cape Fear” co-star for another remake of a classic film. De Niro and Lange didn’t have much to do together in “Cape Fear” other than action scenes so perhaps this more intimate film in which he plays a lawyer turned boxing promoter having an affair with Lange as an unhappy wife of a bar owner provided the two with the acting moments “Cape Fear” didn’t.
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13. A THOUSAND ACRES (1997)
Image Credit: Ron Batzdorff/Touchstone/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Jocelyn Moorhouse. Writer: Laura Jones. Starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jason Robards.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Jane Smiley this film takes the story of Shakespeare’s “King Lear” and sets it on an Iowa farm. Jason Robards plays the Lear like figure slowly descending into madness who leaves his three daughters to battle over the running of his farm he has given to them. Lange received a Golden Globe nomination as Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama for the film. That nomination remains her last one for a theatrical film to date and also the only time she didn’t parlay a Golden Globe nomination into a subsequent Oscar nomination.
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12. CAPE FEAR (1991)
Image Credit: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock Director: Martin Scorsese. Writer: Wesley Strick. Starring Robert De Niro, Nick Nolte, Juliette Lewis.
Martin Scorsese’s remake of the classic film earned Oscar nominations for Robert De Niro as Best Actor and Juliette Lewis as Best Supporting Actress. The film tells the story of an ex-convict who terrorizes the family of the lawyer (Nick Nolte) who put him in prison. Lange plays the lawyer’s wife. She isn’t given an awful lot of meaty material in the film and likely agreed to the role to work with Scorsese and the strong cast.
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11. CRIMES OF THE HEART (1986)
Image Credit: Keith Hamshere/De Laurentiis/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Bruce Beresford. Writer: Beth Henley. Starring Diane Keaton, Sissy Spacek, Sam Shepard.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize winning play by Beth Henley, “Crimes of the Heart” offered the rare chance for three of the era’s top female stars to appear in the same film as sisters. Lange plays the rebellious sister who has left their small town but returns when her younger sibling (Sissy Spacek) is arrested for murdering her husband. Despite all that the film is actually a comedy and gave all three women great roles. Spacek was nominated for an Oscar as Best Actress and Tess Harper received a Supporting Actress nomination as antagonistic cousin of the sisters.
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10. MEN DON’T LEAVE (1990)
Image Credit: Moviestore/Shutterstock Director: Paul Brickman. Writer: Barbara Benedick, Paul Brickman. Starring Kathy Bates, Chris O’Donnell, Joan Cusack.
Lange plays a young widow trying to get her life back on track after her husband’s death. She struggles with two resentful sons and financial issues. The film was generally well received though some people felt the title was a bit confusing. Lange was a runner up at the National Society of Film Critics awards as Best Actress.
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9. TITUS (1999)
Image Credit: Fox Searchlight/Kobal/Shutterstock Director and writer: Julie Taymor. Starring Anthony Hopkins, Matthew Rhys, Jonathan Rhys Meyers.
Lange really is one of the bravest actresses working today. She has continuously taken on classic demanding roles on the stage even despite early critical pans for her lack of stage technique. She grew tremendously though over the years and became an acclaimed stage actress as well. For her first foray into Shakespeare Lange joined an impressive British cast of Shakespearean actors and held her own as Tamora, Queen of the Goths who seeks revenge against the title character.
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8. THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE (1981)
Image Credit: Paramount/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Bob Rafelson. Writer: David Mamet. Starring Jack Nicholson, John Colicos, Angelica Huston.
The original version of “The Postman Always Rings Twice” is a classic of 1940’s film noir starring Lana Turner and John Garfield. It is the story of a married woman who falls in love with a drifter and they then plot to kill her husband. The original was considered quite sexually provocative for its time and this version took the sexuality even further. While the remake received mixed reviews on its release, it is really a pivotal moment in Lange’s career. It was the first time she was seen to have strong potential as an actress and this film released in 1981 led directly to her work in 1982 a year that would cement her reputation as a major talent.
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7. ALL THAT JAZZ (1979)
Image Credit: 20th Century Fox/Columbia/Kobal/Shutterstock Director: Bob Fosse. Writer: Robert Alan Authur, Bob Fosse. Starring Roy Scheider, Leland Palmer, Ann Reinking.
After her troubled experience on “King Kong” Lange retreated from the film world and returned to New York where she quietly continued studying acting, did regional theater and pondered whether the movie business was really for her. She had had a brief relationship with Bob Fosse during this time. They had stopped dating but remained friends so Lange trusted the director and excepted his offer to appear in this autobiographical film. It was the first time in three years that she appeared on film. Fosse cast her in an unusual role as the angel of death who haunts Fosse and acts as almost a Greek chorus commenting on and provoking the lead character. Costumed in elaborated veils and mysterious lighting Lange made quite a visual and acting impact. Fosse said that he wrote the role for Lange because he felt her all knowing intelligence and wit resembled death in his mind—meaning something that you can’t escape and has the upper hand on us all.
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6. COUNTRY (1984)
Image Credit: Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock Director: Richard Pearce. Writer: William D. Wittliff. Starring Sam Shepard, Wiford Brimley, Matt Clark.
When discussing the Oscars people always say it is unfair to compare performances and chose the best since people are playing different roles. Some hypothesize the only way to really chose the best would be if everyone played the same role and then were judged. Well that almost happened in 1984 when three of the five Best Actress nominees played women who were fighting to save the family farm. Sissy Spacek (“The River”) and Lange in this film both played contemporary women dealing with the hard eighties economics that were affecting farms while Sally Field played a depression era farm widow fighting similar odds in “Places in the Heart.” Ultimately it was Field that the Academy decided they “liked” the best.
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5. MUSIC BOX (1989)
Image Credit: SNAP/REX/Shutterstock Director: Costa-Gavras. Writer: Joe Ezterhas. Starring Armin Mueller-Stahl, Frederic Forrest, Lukas Haas.
Costa-Gavras is a brilliant Greek director known for his powerful political dramas “Z” which won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language film in 1969 and “Missing” which won him a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar in 1982. This film casts Lange as an attorney who chooses to defend her father when he is charged with war crimes in his native Hungary. Lange must determine if her father is really the man she thinks he is or not. She earned her fifth Oscar nomination for this film but lost the prize to another Jessica, Jessica Tandy for “Driving Miss Daisy.”
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4. SWEET DREAMS (1985)
Image Credit: SNAP/REX/Shutterstock Director: Karel Reisz. Writer: Robert Getchell. Starring Ed Harris, Ann Wedgeworth, David Clennon.
Lange’s fourth Oscar nomination came for this biopic of legendary country singer Patsy Cline. Lange is simply luminous in the role as Cline rises to fame all the while dealing with a complicated relationship with her husband played by Ed Harris. Meryl Streep had initially been promised the lead in this film by Karel Reisz who had directed her in “The French Lieutenant’s Woman.” Streep has said she was somewhat hurt when Reisz suddenly changed his mind and gave the role to Lange but when she saw the film, she felt that Reisz had made the right decision by casting Lange. Streep (“Out of Africa”) and Lange would both lose the Oscar that year to Geraldine Page for “The Trip to Bountiful.” As presenter F. Murray Abraham opens the envelope and proclaims of Page “I consider this woman the greatest actress in the English language” Lange can be seen happily saying to her partner Sam Shepard “Geraldine Page” who had just finished a run in one of Shepard’s plays off-Broadway.
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3. BLUE SKY (1994)
Image Credit: Orion/REX/Shutterstock Director: Tony Richardson. Writers: Rama Laurie Stagner, Arlene Sarner, Jerry Leichtling. Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Powers Boothe, Carrie Snodgress.
Lange received her sixth Oscar nomination and won her first Best Actress prize and second Oscar for this small film that almost never was seen. Lange plays the troubled wife of a military officer played by Tommy Lee Jones who is prone to erratic behavior and rage due to their nomadic military existence. It is a juicy part for Lange and she makes the most of it. The film was caught up in the demise of Orion Pictures and Lange says in her Oscar acceptance speech that the film sat in a bank vault for years with seemingly no future.
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2. TOOTSIE (1982)
Image Credit: Columbia/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Sydney Pollack. Writers: Larry Gelbart, Murray Schisgal. Starring Dustin Hoffman, Teri Garr, Bill Murray.
Lange won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for this film about an out of work actor who can’t get work as a man so he decides to dress up as a woman and becomes a huge soap opera star in the process. Lange plays an actress on the soap who is drawn to the woman (who is really a man) played by Dustin Hoffman. Lange’s win remains one of the greatly debated victories that Oscar fans love to rehash. The award was clearly a consolation prize since people had voted for Meryl Streep for Best Actress in “Sophie’s Choice” over Lange who had also been nominated for Best Actress for “Frances.” The award bothers some people since this was a particularly strong year for the category including Lange’s costars Kim Stanley (“Frances”) and Teri Garr (“Tootsie”) as well as Glenn Close in her film debut (“The World According to Garp”) and Lesly Ann Warren in an image breaking role in “Victor/Victoria.” While not as showy a performance as any of her fellow nominees Lange does bring a sensitive sadness to her role in “Tootsie” and her quiet understatement brings a pathos to the film that would be missing with a lesser actress in the part. Her final scene on the street where she is happily signing autographs and sees Hoffman waiting for her is a wonderful moment since Lange’s face goes so quickly from carefree happiness to hurt and anger at the sight of Hoffman.
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1. FRANCES (1982)
Image Credit: Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock Director: Graeme Clifford. Writers: Eric Bergren, Christopher De Vore, Nicholas Kazan. Starring Sam Shepard, Kim Stanley, Jeffrey de Munn.
Jessica Lange as the doomed actress Frances Farmer was one of those rare times that an actor seemed to connect to such an extent with the role they were playing that it is hard to determine where one ends and the other begins. Farmer was a B-List actress suffering from mental problems who ran afoul of the Hollywood studio system and was in and out of mental institutions for a good part of her life. Lange’s performance here electrified critics as she suffers the indignities Farmer was subjected to. The performance was even more shocking since Lange had never before displayed this level of pure emotion and depth of character on screen before. This was only six years after “King Kong” had made her somewhat of a laughing stock as an actress so it is possible that some of the anger Lange displays as Farmer came from her own treatment over the “King Kong” release. She also gained tremendous amounts of publicity by becoming the first actor in 40 years to be Oscar nominated in both the lead and supporting categories. Seen in retrospect “Frances” is an amazing piece of film history where Lange completely reinvented her image and in the course of one year cemented her place as one of the greatest actresses in film history. Even more remarkable is that she has continued to work at the high level she did in “Frances” to this very day.
