Diane Lane played the cheating wife in the 2002 thriller Unfaithful (with Richard Gere), a role that cemented her position as a leading lady in Hollywood after more than two decades in the movies. Lane made an auspicious debut when she was 13 years old in A Little Romance (1979), and during the '80s starred in three films by Francis Ford Coppola: The Outsiders (1983), Rumble Fish (1984) and The Cotton Club (1984). In the next decade Lane appeared in several duds, but she stood out in the television mini-series Lonesome Dove (1989) and in a small role in Chaplin (1992, with Robert Downey, Jr.). Since then she has had a good run in solid Hollywood roles: The Perfect Storm (2000, with Mark Wahlberg); Hardball (2001, with Keanu Reeves); The Glass House (2001, with Lee Lee Sobieski); Under the Tuscan Sun (2003); Must Love Dogs (2005, with John Cusack); and Hollywoodland (2006, with Adrien Brody).
Lane's mother, Colleen Farrington, was a Playboy centerfold, Miss October of 1957.
Career Highlights: Rumble Fish, A Walk on the Moon, My New Gun
First Major Screen Credit: A Little Romance (1979)
Biography
With a smoldering sensuality that perfectly complements her remarkable subtlety as an actress, critics and journalists have frequently singled out Diane Lane for her memorable work in such films as Rumble Fish (1983), A Walk on the Moon (1999) and The Perfect Storm (2000). From her earliest stage appearances to her later status as a powerful star of feature films, Lane's uncanny ability to project her character's innermost emotions into the hearts of filmgoers has earned her a much-deserved rank among the Hollywood elite. Diane Lane was born in New York City in 1965, the daughter of drama coach Burt Lane and Playboy centrespread Colleen Farrington; her eyes seemed to sparkle with stars from the tender age of six. Cast in a La Mama Experimental Theatre production of Medea, Lane would subsequently appear on stage in numerous productions, both in her native New York and abroad. It wasn't long before the late-'70s found Lane reaching the apex of her early career, and in 1978 she made her film debut in director George Roy Hill's A Little Romance. Cast alongside no less than Sir Laurence Olivier, Lane held her own in the role of an American student who finds love while studying abroad, and as a result gained remarkable exposure on the cover of Time Magazine in August of the following year. Lane was touted as one of the most promising actors of her generation, and this success parlayed her into a series of neglected films. In a number of these instances, she could not be faulted for choosing substandard material; her appearance in Lamont Johnson's fresh and rousing female western Cattle Annie and Little Britches (1981), for example (alongside Amanda Plummer, Burt Lancaster and Rod Steiger) drew lavish critical praise even as the studio inexplicably threw the film into the wastecan. Lane fared better with twin roles in a pair of teen dramas from director Francis Ford Coppola in 1983 (The Outsiders and Rumble Fish) once again earned the burgeoning film actress the spotlight and reminded audiences of her immense talent; she became a Coppola favorite, but didn't fare as well with his Cotton Club, a massive critical and commercial flop that did little to boost her career, even as it introduced her to co-star Richard Gere (with whom she would reteam, professionally, years later).
After rounding out the decade with yet another memorable turn in the television miniseries Lonesome Dove (1989), Lane's career once again became a more low-key affair, though her performances frequently outshined the otherwise unremarkable series of films she appeared in.
Though roles in such efforts as Chaplin (1992), A Streetcar Named Desire (1995), and Jack (1996) kept her from falling off the radar, Lane didn't truly shine again until her role as a housewife who embarks on a fragile extramarital affair in A Walk on the Moon (1998). Following that film with a pair of memorable performances in My Dog Skip and The Perfect Storm (both in 2000), Lane's career seemed to have achieved some stability, but it wasn't before a pair of forgettable features (Hardball and The Glass House, both in 2001) that Lane scored with yet another tale of marital infidelity. Director Adrian Lyne's Unfaithful, a retooling of Claude Chabrol's La Femme Infidèle, once again found Lane in the throes of an alluring stranger. Unfaithful - the anticipated onscreen reunion of Lane with Richard Gere - pondered the crushing reverberations of extramarital carnality, and Lane provided an ample and intriguing center of gravity for the film.
When February 2003 rolled around and the Academy announced its nominations for the previous year, Lane received her first-ever Oscar nod for her emotional turn in Unfaithful. It did not pay off with a win, but Lane's follow-ups with roles in substantial fare including Just Like Mona (2002) and the wildly-popular Under the Tuscan Sun (2003) suggested that Lane's career had finally found solid box-office ground. Time validated this assertion: 2005's Must Love Dogs, a romantic comedy vehicle co-starring Lane and John Cusack, drew positive responses from many moviegoers and did decent, if not spectacular, box office, despite the excoriation of some critics (Salon's Stephanie Zacharek moaned, "It's ostensibly about adults, but there's nothing remotely adult about it.") 2006's Hollywoodland casts Lane in a mystery about the enigmatic demise of Superman's George Reeves. The same year's Killshot boasts an inspirational pedigree, which includes director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love, Her Majesty Mrs. Brown), Wings of the Dove scenarist Hossein Amini, producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein and Quentin Tarantino, cinematographer Caleb Deschanel and co-starrers Thomas Jane and the gifted Mickey Rourke (who first pooled his talents with Lane in 1983's Rumble Fish). The film, an adaptation of Elmore Leonard's novel, tells the story of a married couple who wind up in the Federal Witness Protection Program - and on a hit man's X list - when their extortion scheme falls apart.
Married to HighlanderChristopher Lambert from 1988 to 1994 (with a single daughter from that marriage), Lane wed actor Josh Brolin in late 2004. In addition to her high-profile movie career, she is also an avid photographer; the January 2005 issue of InStyle Magazine prominently published a series of landscapes that Lane shot during one of her road trips into the American west.
Timothy Hutton, Christopher Atkins, Matt Dillon were among the actors Lane dated during the 1980s, and later rock star Jon Bon Jovi. She was married to Christopher Lambert, and they had a daughter, Eleanor Jasmine Lambert. The couple were divorced following a prolonged separation in 1994, and she married actor Josh Brolin on August 15, 2004.
Lane was born in New York City. Her mother, Colleen Farrington, was a night club singer and Playboy centerfold (Miss October 1957), who was also known as "Colleen Price." Her father, Burton Eugene Lane, was a Manhattan drama coach who ran an acting workshop with John Cassavetes, worked as a cab driver, and later taught humanities at City College.[1] When Lane was 13 months old, her parents split up. Her mother went to Mexico and obtained a divorce while retaining custody of her daughter until age 6.[1] Her father got custody of his daughter after Farrington moved to Georgia. Lane and her father lived in a number of residential hotels in New York City and she would ride with him in his taxi.[2]
When Lane was 15 years old, she declared her independence from her father and ran away to Los Angeles for a week with actor and friend Christopher Atkins. Lane later remarked, "It was reckless behavior that comes from having too much independence too young."[2] She came back and moved in with a friend's family, paying them rent. In 1981, she enrolled in high school after having taken correspondence courses. However, Lane's mother kidnapped her and took the young girl back to Georgia. Lane and her father challenged her mother in court and six weeks later she was back in New York. Lane did not speak to her mother for three years but they have since reconciled.[2]
Career
Lane's maternal grandmother, Eleanor Scott, was a three-times married Pentecostalpreacher of the Apostolic denomination, and Lane was influenced by the theatricality of her grandmother's sermons.[3][4] Lane began acting professionally at the age of six at the La MaMa Experimental Theater Club in New York, where she appeared in an acclaimed production of Medea. At 12 she had a role in Joseph Papp's production of The Cherry Orchard with Meryl Streep.[1] Also at this time, Lane was enrolled in an accelerated program at Hunter College High School and was put on notice when her grades suffered from her busy schedule.[1] At 13 years old, she turned down a role in Runaways on Broadway to make her feature film debut opposite Laurence Olivier in A Little Romance.[2] At 14 years old, Lane was featured on the cover of Time, which declared her one of Hollywood's "Whiz Kids."[5][6]
One of few child actors to make a successful transition into adult roles, Lane made a hit with audiences in the back-to-back cult films The Outsiders, starring with future movie stars Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, and Patrick Swayze, and Rumble Fish, starring Dillon, Mickey Rourke, and Nicolas Cage.[1] Subsequently, Andy Warhol proclaimed Lane, "the undisputed female lead of Hollywood's new rat pack."[7] However, the two films that could have catapulted her to star status, Streets of Fire (she turned down Splash and Risky Business for this film)[8][9] and The Cotton Club, were both commercial and critical failures, and her career languished as a result.[1] After The Cotton Club, Lane dropped out of the movie business and lived with her mother in Georgia.[10]
Lane returned to the business to make The Big Town and Lady Beware, but it was not until 1989's popular and critically acclaimed TV mini-seriesLonesome Dove that Lane made another big impression on a sizable audience.[10] She was nominated for an Emmy Award for the role. She also enjoyed positive reviews for her performance in the independent film My New Gun, which was well received at the Cannes Film Festival. She went on to appear as actress Paulette Goddard in Sir Richard Attenborough's big-budget biopic of Charles Chaplin, Chaplin.[7]
Lane won further praise for her role in 1999's A Walk on the Moon, opposite Viggo Mortensen. One reviewer wrote, "Lane, after years in post-teenaged-career limbo, is meltingly effective."[11] The film's director Tony Goldwyn and producer Dustin Hoffman wanted Lane for the role of housewife Pearl even though she did not look or sound Jewish. Goldwyn said of the actress, "There's also this potentially volcanic sexuality that is in no way self-conscious or opportunistic. I thought all those things mattered more than her looking Jewish."[12] Lane earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Female Lead. At this time, she was interested in making a film about actress Jean Seberg in which she would play Seberg.[13]
In 2002, Lane starred in Unfaithful, a drama film directed by Adrian Lyne adapted from the French film The Unfaithful Wife. Lane played a housewife who indulges in an adulterous fling with a mysterious book dealer. The film featured several sex scenes. Lyne's repeated takes for these scenes were very demanding for the actors involved, especially for Lane, who had to be emotionally and physically fit for the duration.[14]Unfaithful received mostly mixed to negative reviews, though Lane earned widespread praise for her performance. Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman said, "Lane, in the most urgent performance of her career, is a revelation. The play of lust, romance, degradation, and guilt on her face is the movie's real story".[15] She followed that film up with Under the Tuscan Sun, based on the best-selling book by Frances Mayes.
Lane, in 2008, reunited with Richard Gere for the movie Nights in Rodanthe. It is the third movie Gere and Lane filmed together. The film is based on the novel of the same title by Nicholas Sparks. Lane also starred in Jumper_(film), and Untraceable in the same year. Her latest film is Killshot with Mickey Rourke, which was given a limited theatrical release before being released on DVD in 2009.
In 2008, Lane expressed frustration with being typecast and is "gunning for something that's not so sympathetic. I need to be a bitch, and I need to be in a comedy. I've decided. No more Miss Nice Guy".[16] The actress has even contemplated quitting acting and spending more time with her family if she is unable to get these kinds of roles. She said in an interview, "I can't do anything official. My agents won't let me. Between you and me, I don't have anything else coming out".[16]
Lane ranked at #79 on VH1's 100 Greatest Kid Stars. She was ranked #45 on AskMen.com's Top 99 Most Desirable Women in 2005,[20] #85 in 2006[21] and #98 in 2007.[22]
Personal life
In the early 1980s, Lane dated actors Timothy Hutton, Christopher Atkins, Matt Dillon, and later rock star Jon Bon Jovi.[1] Lane met actor Christopher Lambert in Paris while promoting The Cotton Club in 1984.[2] They had a brief affair and split up. They met again two years later in Rome to make a film together, entitled After the Rain, and in two weeks they were a couple again. Lane and Lambert married in October 1988 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.[2] They had a daughter, Eleanor Jasmine Lambert (born September 5, 1993), and were divorced following a prolonged separation in 1994.[23] While making Judge Dredd in 1995, Lane began dating the film's director, Danny Cannon.[24]
Lane became engaged to actor Josh Brolin in July 2003[25] and they were married on August 15, 2004.[26] On December 20 of that year, she called police after an altercation with him, and he was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of domestic battery. Lane declined to press charges, however, and the couple's spokesperson described the incident as a "misunderstanding".[27]
