With elegantly aristocratic features and a career marked by versatility and critical acclaim, Glenn Close is one of Hollywood's most celebrated actresses. Her acclaim is not limited to the film world, as she has also found great success in various television and stage productions, most notably Andrew Lloyd Webber's Broadway musical version of Sunset Boulevard and in the acclaimed 1991 made-for-TV movie Sarah, Plain and Tall (which was successful enough to have two sequels, Skylark and Sarah, Plain and Tall: Winter's End.
Born in Greenwich, CT, on March 19, 1947, Close grew up in Africa and Switzerland while her father, a doctor, maintained a clinic in the Belgian Congo. As a high school student at Greenwich's Rosemary Hall, the actress organized a touring rep-theater group and performed a number of folk-singing gigs. After graduating from the College of William and Mary, where she studied anthropology and acting, Close appeared in regional theater and then made her New York stage bow in 1974's Love for Love. Her theater work led to her first film role, when director George Roy Hill, after seeing her in the Broadway musical Barnum, cast her in The World According to Garp (1982). Close won the role of the protagonist's political-activist mother, a portrayal made all the more interesting by the fact that the actress was only five years older than Robin Williams, the actor playing her son. Close earned an Oscar nomination for her work, thus catalyzing the acclaim that was to surround much of her subsequent career.
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