Alec Baldwin Biography

NAME: Alexander Rae Baldwin III

OCCUPATION: Animal Rights Activist, Film Actor, Theater Actor, Television Actor

BIRTH DATE: April 03, 1958 (Age: 53)

EDUCATION: George Washington University, New York University

PLACE OF BIRTH: Amityville, New York

Actor. Born Alexander Rae Baldwin III, on April 3, 1958, in Amityville, New York, the second of six children of a football coach and a social studies teacher. He grew up in Massapequa a suburb of Long Island, New York. His brothers Daniel, William, and Stephen are also actors.

Baldwin majored in political science at George Washington University, intending to go to law school. However, his childhood love for acting resurfaced in college, resulting in a move to Manhattan. He then enrolled in New York University's drama department under the tutelage of the venerable acting coach Lee.

Alec burst onto the TV scene in the early 1980s with appearances in several series, including "The Doctors" (1963) and "Knots Landing" (1979), before scoring several decent feature film roles in Forever, Lulu (1987), Beetlejuice (1988), Married to the Mob (1988) and Talk Radio (1988). In 1990 Baldwin appeared in the first on-screen adaption of the Jack Ryan character created by mega-selling espionage author Tom Clancy. The film, The Hunt for Red October (1990), was a tremendous success, with Baldwin appearing alongside icy Sean Connery (the world's first Russian sub commander with a thick Scots accent!), Unfortunately, Baldwin fell out with Paramount Studios over future scripts for Jack Ryan, and subsequent Ryan roles went to Harrison Ford. It was a minor blip on Baldwin's horizon, and he then contributed interesting performances as a lowlife thief pursued by dogged cop Fred Ward in Miami Blues (1990), in the Neil Simon comedy The Marrying Man (1991) and an absolutely dynamite ten-minute cameo as a hard-nosed real estate executive laying down the law to Ed Harris, Jack Lemmon and Alan Arkin in the punishing Glengarry Glen Ross (1992).

Further demand for Baldwin's talents saw more strong scripts swiftly come his way, and he starred alongside his then wife Kim Basinger in a remake of the Steve McQueen action flick The Getaway (1994), brought to life the famous comic strip character The Shadow (1994) and was superb as an assistant district attorney in the civil rights drama Ghosts of Mississippi (1996). Baldwin's distinctive vocal talents then saw him voice US-aired episodes of the highly popular UK children's show "Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends" (1984), plus later voice-only contributions to other animated/children's shows including "Clerks" (2000), Cats & Dogs (2001), Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) and The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004).

Fresh off these continues successes, Baldwin returned to the New York stage for a well-received revival of the 1930s comedy "Twentieth Century" before performing "South Pacific" at Carnegie Hall. He only appeared in the first scene of Cameron Crowe's romantic comedy "Elizabethtown" (2005), but his performance as the flummoxed athletic sh tycoon Phil DeVoss, who would lose billions on the failed design of his golden boy designer (Orlando Bloom), was a deadpan comedic delight. In fact, even a Baldwin cameo was good for a guaranteed laugh and both filmmakers and fans began to look at Baldwin in a whole new light.

In 2006, Baldwin was again tapped by Scorsese to join Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg and Jack Nicholson in the ensemble mob thriller, "The Departed." The powerhouse actor gave an excited and often hilarious performance as a sweaty South Boston police captain whose department has one of its officers deep undercover inside a criminal syndicate. Baldwin gained further big screen kudos in "Running with Scissors" (2006), playing the alcoholic father of a young man who puts him into the care of a psychologist running a house full of loons. The same year he appeared in the Robert De Niro-helmed "The Good Shepherd" (2006), about an idealistic Yale student (Matt Damon) who joins a secretive spy agency during World War II, only to help form the CIA after the war.

Baldwin's hot streak continued when he was nominated for his seventh Golden Globe - this time receiving his award for Best Actor in the television comedy category - which he won in early 2009. Hot on the heels of his Globe win, Baldwin received a Screen Actors Guild award for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Comedy. Meanwhile, he sought to repeat his Emmy feat from the year before when he was again nominated for the coveted award in the lead actor category in mid-2009. Not surprisingly, he won. Just as prestigious, it was announced in November that he and Steve Martin would co-host the 82nd Academy Awards in 2010. After playing the redemptive ex-husband of a well-adjusted divorcee (Meryl Streep) in "It's Complicated" (2009), Baldwin found himself in contention for Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards once again when he was nominated that year for playing the humorously arrogant Jack Donaghy. As expected, the beloved actor took home yet another Golden Globe and SAG award in early 2010 and repeated the SAG win in 2011.