Alec Baldwin

Biography

Early life

Baldwin was born in Massapequa, Long Island, New York, to Catholic parents Alexander Rae Baldwin II and Carol Newcomb Martineau. His brothers are Daniel, Stephen, and William Baldwin, all of whom are actors; he also has two sisters, Jane and Elizabeth. The Baldwin siblings attended Alfred G. Berner High School in Nassau County. Alec (Class of 1976) and Daniel (Class of 1979) played football there under Coach Bob Reifsnyder, who is in the College Football Hall of Fame.

Baldwin is frequently described as Irish American, though his background includes English and Irish ancestry on his father's side and distant French and Canadian ancestry on his mother's. His maternal grandmother was born in Nova Scotia; his Irish ancestry comes from his paternal great-grandmother, Helen Irene McNamara.

When Baldwin was young, he worked as a busboy at the famous New York City disco Studio 54. Baldwin attended George Washington University from 1976 to 1979, where he was known as "Alex." After losing a student body president election, he transferred to New York University to study acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute under Elaine Aiken and Geoffrey Horne. He then returned to NYU in 1994 and graduated with a BFA that year.

The other Baldwin brothers, Daniel Baldwin (Homicide: Life on the street), William Baldwin (Sliver), and Stephen Baldwin (The Genius Club) all followed him in becoming well-known actors.

Film and television career

Baldwin's first major role was as Billy Aldrich on the daytime soap The Doctors from 1980 to its cancellation in 1982. In the fall of 1983, he starred in the short lived series Cutter to Houston. He shot to stardom co-starring on Knots Landing as the preacher son of Julie Harris and spent most of the 1980s appearing in television series, before turning to film in 1986, making his film debut with a minor role in She's Having a Baby. In 1987, he appeared in Beetlejuice and, in 1988, Working Girl. Both of these films were box office successes that raised his profile.

After appearing in several other supporting roles, Baldwin starred as Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October, which grossed over $100 million after its release in March 1990. However, he turned down reprising the role in subsequent Tom Clancy movies. Instead, Harrison Ford took over the Jack Ryan character for Baldwin in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger.

Baldwin subsequently had several notable roles in early 1990s films. His role in the beginning of Glengarry Glen Ross is considered by many to be the best performance of an ensemble cast that included Jack Lemmon and Al Pacino. In 1991, he met his future wife Kim Basinger on the set of the critically panned The Marrying Man. He appeared opposite Basinger again in The Getaway, a 1994 remake of the 1972 film of the same name.

Baldwin's late 1990s roles varied in terms of critical and box office reception, and included several thrillers, such as The Edge, The Juror (opposite Demi Moore) and Heaven's Prisoners. He has shifted more toward roles as a character actor, including his Academy Award nominated turn in 2003's The Cooler and working with director Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio in both The Aviator and The Departed among other roles.

He is also a voice actor, working in the films Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends.

Baldwin has hosted Saturday Night Live 13 times as of November 2006. He is reportedly one of only two people (the other being Christopher Walken) who have standing invitations to host the show whenever they want. Baldwin's February 12, 1994 appearance on the show produced one of the most famous sketches in the history of the show, when he played a Scoutmaster who made sexual advances toward Adam Sandler's Canteen Boy character.

Baldwin has been nominated for an Emmy Award five times (see below) but has yet to have won any:

1996: Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Special, for Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire

2001: Outstanding Miniseries, for Nuremberg (as producer)

2002: Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Special, for Path to War

2005: Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series, for Will & Grace

2006: Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series, for Will & Grace

He wrote an episode of Law & Order entitled Tabloid, which aired in 1998.

Baldwin currently appears in the ensemble drama-comedy Running with Scissors, which was released in September 2006. He also stars in the NBC sitcom 30 Rock alongside Tina Fey; the show debuted in the fall of 2006.

In 2001, Baldwin directed and starred in an all-star version of The Devil and Daniel Webster with Anthony Hopkins, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Dan Aykroyd. This film has yet to be released, however. The film became an asset of a federal bank fraud trial in 2003, where financial investor Jed Barron, of Las Vegas, was convicted of bank fraud while financing the movie. The film's producer, David Glasser, was also under investigation. The film was reported to have been sold by the bank to a DVD distributor. In 2007 Starz acquired exclusive pay TV rights for the film, now titled Shortcut to Happiness.

Stage career

Baldwin made his Broadway debut in 1986, in a revival of Joe Orton's Loot alongside theatre veterans Zoe Wanamaker, Zeljko Ivanek, Joseph Maher and Charles Keating. This production closed after three months.

His other Broadway credits include Caryl Churchill's Serious Money with Kate Nelligan and a highly acclaimed revival of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire which garnered him a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor. This production also featured Jessica Lange, Amy Madigan, Timothy Carhart, James Gandolfini, and Aida Turturro. Baldwin would receive an Emmy Award nomination for the television version of the production, in which both he and Lange reprise their roles. That version featured John Goodman and Diane Lane.

In 1998 Baldwin starred in the title role of "Macbeth" at the Public theater alongside Angela Bassett and Liev Schreiber. The production was directed by George C. Wolfe.

In 2004, Baldwin starred in a revival of the play Twentieth Century with Anne Heche.

On June 9, 2005, he appeared in a concert version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific at Carnegie Hall. He starred as Luther Billis, alongside Reba McEntire as Nellie and Brian Stokes Mitchell as Emile. The production was taped and telecast by PBS on April 26, 2006.

In 2006, Baldwin made theatre news in Roundabout Theatre Company's Off-Broadway revival of Joe Orton's Entertaining Mr. Sloane. He locked horns with co-star Jan Maxwell who quit the show early because of Baldwin's admitted outbursts due to the temperature in the theatre.

Criticisms

He was criticized by Jack Valenti, Rush Limbaugh, and Brit Hume for his appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien on December 11, 1998, eight days before President Bill Clinton was impeached. In an outburst that Baldwin later referred to as a "parody", he said that "if we were in another country... we would stone Henry Hyde to death and we would go to their homes and kill their wives and their children. We would kill their families". Baldwin later apologized to Hyde for his remarks and NBC has promised never to re-air the show. (A video of the outburst can be seen here )

In 2000, an interview with Basinger appeared in the German magazine Focus, in which the actress allegedly said that Baldwin promised to leave the United States if George W. Bush beat Al Gore for the presidency. This statement provoked a great deal of controversy for both Baldwin and Basinger. He was chastised by Florida governor Jeb Bush and had to temporarily shut down his website due to what he described as hundreds of "hideous and graphic" writings from "political extremists whose only goal is to harass and disrupt." Baldwin claimed he never heard of Focus and that Basinger was never interviewed, although subsequently he did admit the interview took place. He has stated that he never threatened to leave the United States and believed he might be confused with director Robert Altman, who did indeed make a vow to leave the United States if Bush was reelected. As Snopes.com has shown, no actual quote has ever been published showing that Baldwin in fact made the controversial promise. Baldwin said; "I think my exact comment was that if Bush won it would be a good time to leave the United States. I'm not necessarily going to leave the United States."

Baldwin is often painted in the press as having a temper. After an October 11, 2006 New York City plane crash, it was reported in the tabloid paper the NY Post that Baldwin was seen arguing with NYPD Officer for not letting him cross at a cordoned off area of the crash site. A publicist later corrected the report, saying that Baldwin was on his way to a taping of the Howard Stern radio program, and was simply asking the officer for directions. A later report of Baldwin loudly berating a hostess in a nearby lounge for not speaking English. Baldwin later stated that the story was "ridiculous."

Politics

Baldwin, a liberal Democrat, has always had an active interest in politics and is frequently rumored to be a candidate for public office. He recently revealed in a British magazine interview that he plans to leave acting in a few years to pursue a career in politics. He has recently called Vice President Dick Cheney a terrorist, and claimed that "he terrorizes our enemies abroad and innocent citizens here at home indiscriminately.". He later recanted this statement, saying that Cheney was not a terrorist but rather "a lying, thieving oil whore and a murderer of the U.S. Constitution". Baldwin has continued to level strong criticisms at the Bush Administration on his blog labeling Bush a "trust fund puppet" and Cheney a "constitution hating sociopath" and a "hate-filled maniac". Baldwin talked about the harm he believes Bush did to democracy by comparing the presidential election of 2000 to the September 11, 2001 attacks; "I know that's a harsh thing to say, perhaps, but I believe that what happened in 2000 did as much damage to the pillars of democracy as terrorists did to the pillars of commerce in New York City," Baldwin and commentator Bill O'Reilly have been in a number of conflicts. Despite their political differences, however, Baldwin stated on his blog after an interview with O'Reilly, that he "was aggressive, but was a gentleman throughout", and also called O'Reilly a "talented broadcaster." Baldwin, however, also referred to O'Reilly's employer, Fox News Channel, in the same blog post as "Roger Ailes' Luftwaffe/Looney Bin news operation."

On March 26, 2006, Baldwin guest-hosted Brian Whitman's talk show on WABC radio in New York. During the show, conservative talk show hosts Sean Hannity and Mark Levin called the show and were heard on air. Both Hannity and Levin confronted Baldwin about his previous comments about Vice-President Cheney and Rep. Hyde. During the conversation, Hannity accused Baldwin of not appearing on his show as agreed, and Baldwin replied that he would never do Hannity's show. After Hannity accused him of attacking the president in a time of war, Baldwin attempted to move on to the next caller. Hannity interrupted, saying "you don't tell the truth." Baldwin responded by calling Hannity "a no-talent whore." The conversation turned into a series of verbal taunts between Hannity, Levin and Baldwin. According to the actor, Whitman made no attempt to assist Baldwin or curtail the call, so Baldwin walked out of the studio. On March 28, according to Baldwin, WABC President and General Manager Tim McCarthy telephoned him to "apologize for Sean's attacks."

When asked in an interview with the New York Times what his ideal office would be to run for Baldwin replied:

"If I ever ran for anything, the thing I would like to be is governor of New York... That's what I hate about Arnold Schwarzenegger. His only credentials are that he ran a fitness program under some bygone president...I'm Tocqueville compared to Schwarzenegger. When asked why not be govenor of California, Baldwin replied; "Then I would have to live in California. And who wants to live in California?"

Baldwin serves on the board of People for the American Way.

Relationship with Kim Basinger

Alec Baldwin's marriage to Kim Basinger came to end in 2000, when they officially separated. A year later, Basinger filed for divorce in Los Angeles Superior Court. The ensuing divorce proceedings and custody battle have been a source of fodder for tabloid reporters, who have republished unsubstantiated claims by Basinger that she was physically and emotionally abused during the course of their marriage, and counter-claims by Baldwin's attorneys denying Basinger's charges and stating that Basinger had any number of untreated mental problems, including alcoholism. In their 2004 trial, he was awarded ongoing custody of his daughter Ireland and joint legal custody of her as well.

Since his break up with Basinger, he has dated Janine Turner, Kristin Davis, Ally Sheedy, and attorney Nicole Seidel.

Trivia

He was a huge fan of the nationally synicated radio show Loveline hosted by Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew. Baldwin revealed on Too Late with Adam Carolla that his driver recorded episodes of Loveline so the two of them could listen to Loveline while commuting too and from movie productions.

Baldwin is a frequent guest on The Howard Stern Show and also a close friend to Stern.

He claims he is a vegan, and mentioned on Craig Ferguson's Late Late Show that he became one to impress his wife.

While he has never been medically diagnosed, Baldwin has said that he suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder.

During filming of The Aviator (2004), Baldwin could not keep his eyes off Leonardo DiCaprio's forehead. He says, "Leo DiCaprio has this thing where when he really is concerned about something... he screws up his forehead and it looks like some kind of Chinese or Japanese character on his forehead. You feel like they're gonna put ink on it and stamp it on a piece of paper (make it) the symbol for anger or something."

Baldwin and George W. Bush share a common ancestor in John Howland.

Is often seen at New York Knicks games.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
	2007	The Forbidden City		(Pre-Production)
	Lymelife	Mickey Bartlett	(In Production)
	The Girls' Guide to Hunting & Fishing	Archie Knox	(Post-Production)
	2006	The Good Shepherd	Sam Murach
	Brooklyn Rules	Caesar
	The Departed	Ellerby
	Running with Scissors	Norman Burroughs
	Mini's First Time	Martin
	2005	Fun with Dick and Jane	Jack McCallister
	Elizabethtown	Phil DeVoss
	2004	The Aviator	Juan Trippe
	The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie	Dennis	(Voice Only)
	Along Came Polly	Stan Indursky
	The Last Shot	Joe Devine
	2003	The Cat in the Hat	Lawrence "Larry" Quinn
	The Cooler	Shelly Kaplow
2002	The Adventures of Pluto Nash	M.Z.M	(uncredited)
	2001	The Royal Tenenbaums	Narrator	(voice only)
	Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within	Capt. Gray Edwards	(voice only)
	Cats & Dogs	Butch	(voice only)
	Pearl Harbor	Lt. Col. James Doolittle
	2000	State and Main	Bob Barrenger
	Thomas and the Magic Railroad	Mr. Conductor
	1999	Outside Providence	Old Man Dunphy
	Notting Hill	Jeff King	(uncredited)
1998	Mercury Rising	Lt. Col. Nicholas Kudrow
1997	The Edge	Robert Green
	1996	Ghosts of Mississippi	Bobby DeLaughter
	Heaven's Prisoners	Dave Robicheaux
	The Juror	Teacher
	1994	The Shadow	Lamont Cranston/The Shadow
	The Getaway	Carter 'Doc' McCoy
1993	Malice	Dr. Jed Hill
	1992	Glengarry Glen Ross	Blake
	Prelude to a Kiss	Peter Hoskins
1991	The Marrying Man	Charley Pearl
	1990	Alice	Ed
	Miami Blues	Frederick J. Frenger Jr.
	The Hunt for Red October	Jack Ryan
1989	Great Balls of Fire!	Jimmy Swaggart
	1988	Talk Radio	Dan
	Working Girl	Mick Dugan
	Married to the Mob	'Cucumber' Frank de Marco
	Beetlejuice	Adam
	She's Having a Baby	Davis McDonald

TV appearances

Clerks: The Animated Series - Voiced Leonardo Leonardo

30 Rock - debuted in the fall of 2006 on NBC

Las Vegas - Jack Keller, fictional character who is an ex-CIA employee, episodes 12 and 32.

Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends - Narrator/Voices. He narrated the American Thomas episodes in 1998 and 2003, after George Carlin left and Baldwin was replaced by Michael Angelis in 2003.

Storytime with Thomas - Along with Ringo Starr in 1998.

The Simpsons - Guest appearance in two episodes (1998: 13.17) - Himself.

Friends (8.17, 8.18) - Phoebe's annoyingly optimistic boyfriend Parker.

Nip/Tuck (2004: 2.16) - Dr. Barrett Moore (plastic surgeon), husband of Ava Moore, a male-to-female transsexual who formerly went by Avery Tanner.

Will & Grace (2005: 7.23, 7.24, 8.01, 8.03, 8.04, 8.05) - Malcolm

Saturday Night Live - hosted 13 times as of November 2006; cameoed three times (in the monologue of the Ben Affleck/Nelly episode from season 30; in two sketches of the Steve Martin/Prince episode from season 31; and in the monologue of Annette Bening/Gwen Stefani/Akon episode December 9, 2006).

Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom - Regular narrator of the present incarnation of the series (2002 - present)

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