Dianne Wiest (born March 28, 1948) is a double
Academy Award-winning, Golden Globe
Award-winning, Emmy Award-winning and BAFTA-nominated American
actress. She has enjoyed a successful career on stage, television, and film, and has received
several awards in her career.
Biography
Early life
Wiest was born in Kansas City, Missouri to a father who was a college dean and
former psychiatric social worker for the U.S. Army, and a mother who worked as a
nurse.[1] She had two brothers: Greg and Don Wiest. Wiest's
original ambition was to be a ballerina, but in late high school she switched her sights to
acting in theatre. She made her film debut in 1980, but did not make a name for herself as a film
actress until teaming up with Woody Allen during the 1980s.
Stage career
Wiest's early career was in theatre. She studied theatre at the University of Maryland but left after her third term, in order
to tour with a Shakespeare troupe. She worked at the Long Wharf theatre, understudied off-Broadway in Kurt Vonnegut's "Happy
Birthday, Wanda June." And then made her Broadway debut in Robert Anderson's "Solitaire/Double Solitaire," taking over in the
role of the daughter. She then went to work at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., and
became one of their most prized leading actresses, appearing in many plays including a memorable Emily in "Our Town," Honey in
"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," and leading roles in "The Dybbuk," "The Lower Depths," and "Heartbreak House." She also toured
the USSR with the Arena Stage Company.
In 1976, Wiest went to the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and played
leading roles in Amlin Gray's "Pirates" and Christopher Durang's "A History of the American Film." Shortly after that, she left
Arena Stage, and performed more in New York City. At Joe Papp's Public Theatre she took over the lead in "Ashes," and played
Cassandra in "Agamemnon," directed by Andrei Şerban. She was in two plays by Tina Howe,
"Museum" and then "The Art of Dining." In the latter play Wiest was deeply hilarious as the shy and awkward authoress Elizabeth
Barrow Colt, and she won every off-Broadway theatre award for her performance: an Obie Award, a Theatre World Award, and the
Clarence Derwent Award, given yearly for the most promising performance in New York theatre. In early 1980, she appeared on
Broadway in Frankenstein, directed by Tom Moore, portrayed
Desdemona in Othello opposite
James Earl Jones and Christopher Plummer,
and co-starred with John Lithgow in Christopher
Durang's romantic screwball comedy Beyond Therapy, directed by
John Madden. (A few years later she played opposite Lithgow again in the
Herbert Ross film Footloose). Also in the 80s she
was acclaimed for her performances in Hedda Gabbler, directed by Lloyd Richards at Yale Repertory Theatre, and in
Harold Pinter's Another Kind of Alaska, Janusz
Glowacki's Hunting Cockroaches, and Lanford Wilson's Serenading
Louie.
Films
Once her film career took off with her work in Woody Allen's films, Wiest was available
to the stage less frequently, though she performed in the 1990s in "In the Summer House,"
"Square One," Cynthia Ozick's
"The Shawl," and Naomi Wallace's "One Flea Spare." In 2003 she acted on Broadway with
Al Pacino and Marisa Tomei in Oscar Wilde's "Salome." And in 2005 she starred in Kathleen Tolan's "Memory House," and then at Lincoln Center in the late Wendy
Wasserstein's final play "Third," directed by Daniel
Sullivan.
Under Allen's direction, Wiest won an Academy Award for Best
Supporting Actress, in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986). She followed her Academy Award success with performances in The Lost
Boys (1987) and Bright Lights, Big
City (1988) before starring with Steve Martin,
Mary Steenburgen, Jason Robards,
Keanu Reeves and Martha Plimpton in
Ron Howard's Parenthood, for which she received
her second Oscar nomination.
In 1990, Wiest starred in Edward Scissorhands. She returned to Woody Allen
in 1994 for Bullets Over Broadway, a comedy
set in 1920s New York City, winning her second Best
Supporting Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Helen Sinclair, a boozy, glamorous, and neurotic
star of the stage. She appeared in the film Practical Magic (1998) and the television mini-series
The 10th Kingdom (2000). From 2000 to 2002, Wiest portrayed Nora Lewin in the
long-running NBC crime drama Law & Order.
Personal Life
Dianne Wiest has never married yet has two adopted children born 1987 and 1991. Graduated from the University of Maryland in 1969 with a degree in Arts and Sciences. She is Brad Pitt's favourite actress.
Filmography
References
External links
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