Alec Baldwin

Alexander Rae Baldwin III (born April 3, 1958) is an American actor and film producer. He is known for his leading and supporting roles in a variety of genres, from comedy to drama. He has received numerous accolades including three Primetime Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards and eight Screen Actors Guild Awards as well as nominations for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and Tony Award.

A member of the Baldwin family, Baldwin's film career began with a string of roles in 1988 in films such as Beetlejuice, Working Girl and Married to the Mob before playing Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October (1990). He was Oscar-nominated for playing a casino manager in The Cooler (2003) and BAFTA-nominated for playing a charming ex-husband in It's Complicated (2010). He has acted in films such as Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), Along Came Polly (2004), The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006), and Blue Jasmine (2013) as well as two Mission: Impossible films: Rogue Nation (2015) and Fallout (2018). From 2017 to 2021, he voiced the titular role in The Boss Baby film franchise. From 1999 to 2003, he narrated the American dubbed stories for seasons 5 and 6 of Thomas & Friends.

From 2006 to 2013, Baldwin received critical acclaim starring alongside Tina Fey as Jack Donaghy on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, winning two Primetime Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and seven Screen Actors Guild Awards for Best Actor in a comedy series. Baldwin has hosted the NBC sketch series Saturday Night Live a record 17 times since 1990. There he earned critical acclaim for his portrayal of Donald Trump on the show, a role that won him his third Primetime Emmy in 2017 and nominations in 2018 and 2021.

In 2024, he starred in the Western film Rust, which gained media attention for a shooting incident in 2021, wherein cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was shot and killed when Baldwin accidentally discharged a live round from a revolver that he was using as a prop. Baldwin, his wife Hilaria, and their seven children are the focus of the related TLC reality series The Baldwins.

Baldwin made his Broadway debut in Loot (1986) and was later nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his portrayal of Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire (1992). He returned to Broadway in Twentieth Century (2004) and Orphans (2013). He hosted the Academy Awards in 2010 and the game show Match Game from 2016 to 2021. He was also a columnist for The Huffington Post.

Early life and education

Alexander Rae Baldwin III was born on April 3, 1958, in Amityville, New York, and raised in the Nassau Shores neighborhood of nearby Massapequa, the eldest son of Carol Newcomb (née Martineau; December 15, 1929 – May 26, 2022) from Syracuse, New York and Alexander Rae Baldwin Jr. (October 26, 1927 – April 15, 1983), a high school history/social studies teacher and football coach from Brooklyn. His maternal grandfather, Daniel Roy Martineau, played football at Syracuse and later played professionally in the National Football League for the Buffalo All-Americans and the Rochester Jeffersons. He has three younger brothers, Daniel (b. 1960), William (b. 1963), and Stephen (b. 1966), who also became actors. He also has two sisters, Elizabeth "Beth" Keuchler (née Baldwin; born 1955) and Jane Ann Sasso (née Baldwin; born 1965).

Alec and his siblings were raised as Catholics. They are of Irish, French, and English ancestry. Through his father, Baldwin is descended from Mayflower passenger John Howland, and through this line, is the 13th generation of his family born in North America and the 14th generation to live in North America.

Baldwin attended Alfred G. Berner High School in Massapequa and played football there under Coach Bob Reifsnyder. From 1976 to 1979, he attended George Washington University. In 1979, he lost the election for student body president and received a personal letter from former U.S. president Richard Nixon encouraging him to use the loss as a learning experience.

Afterward, he transferred to the Tisch School of the Arts of New York University (NYU) where he studied with, among others, Geoffrey Horne and Mira Rostova at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. Later, he was accepted as a member of the Actors Studio. In New York City, Baldwin also worked as a busboy at the famed discotheque, Studio 54. In 1994, he completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at NYU.

Career

1980–1992: Rise to prominence

Baldwin's first acting role was as Billy Aldrich in the NBC daytime soap opera The Doctors from August 20, 1980, to 1982. In the fall of 1983, he starred in the short-lived television series Cutter to Houston. Baldwin made his television movie debut playing the titular Sheriff Ed Cassaday in The Sheriff and the Astronaut (1984). He went on to appear as the brother of Valene Ewing and son of Lilimae Clements (played by Joan Van Ark and Julie Harris, respectively) in Knots Landing from 1984 to 1985. In 1986, Baldwin starred in Dress Gray, a four-hour made-for-television miniseries, as an honest cadet sergeant who tries to solve the mystery of a murdered gay classmate. Baldwin made his Broadway debut in 1986 in a revival of Joe Orton's Loot alongside Zoë Wanamaker, Željko Ivanek, Joseph Maher, and Charles Keating. This production closed after three months.

Baldwin made his feature film debut with a minor role in the 1987 comedy-mystery Forever, Lulu. In 1988, he rose to prominence acting in five major films. He starred in Tim Burton fantasy horror comedy Beetlejuice (1988) opposite Michael Keaton and Geena Davis. He had supporting roles in the Mike Nichols romantic comedy Working Girl and Jonathan Demme's crime comedy Married to the Mob. He also co-starred in Oliver Stone's drama Talk Radio opposite Eric Bogosian and in the John Hughes romantic drama She's Having a Baby with Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth McGovern.

He gained further recognition as a leading man with his role as Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October (1990). That same year, he also starred in the black comedy crime film Miami Blues alongside Jennifer Jason Leigh and Fred Ward. Baldwin met his future wife Kim Basinger when they played lovers in the 1991 film The Marrying Man. Next, Baldwin played a ferocious sales executive in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), a part added to the film version of David Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play (including the monologue "Coffee's for closers"). Later that same year, he starred in Prelude to a Kiss with Meg Ryan, which was based on the Broadway play. The film received a lukewarm reception by critics and grossed only $22 million worldwide.

1993–2005: Established actor

He appeared with Basinger again in The Getaway, a 1994 remake of the 1972 Steve McQueen film of the same name. Also, in 1994, Baldwin made a foray into pulp fiction-based movies with the role of the title character in The Shadow. The film made $48 million. In 1996 and 1997, he starred in several more thrillers, including The Edge, The Juror, and Ghosts of Mississippi. His other Broadway credits include Caryl Churchill's Serious Money with Kate Nelligan and a revival of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, for which his performance as Stanley Kowalski garnered a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor. Baldwin also received an Emmy nomination for the 1995 television version of the production, in which both he and Jessica Lange reprised their roles, alongside John Goodman and Diane Lane. In 1998, Baldwin played the title role in Macbeth at The Public Theater alongside Angela Bassett and Liev Schreiber in a production directed by George C. Wolfe. From 1998 to 2002, he became the third American narrator and George Carlin's replacement for the fifth and sixth seasons of Thomas & Friends. Baldwin wrote an episode of Law & Order entitled "Tabloid", which aired in 1998. In 2000, he played Mr. Conductor in the Thomas & Friends film Thomas and the Magic Railroad. In 2002, he acted in The Cat in the Hat.

In 2002, Baldwin appeared in two episodes of Friends as Phoebe's overly enthusiastic love interest, Parker. He also portrayed a recurring character in several seasons 7 and 8 episodes of Will & Grace, in which he played Malcolm, a "top secret agent" and the lover of Karen Walker (Megan Mullally). He also guest-starred in the first live episode of the series. He played Dr. Barrett Moore, a retired plastic surgeon, in the series Nip/Tuck. Baldwin shifted towards character acting, beginning with 2001's Pearl Harbor, in which he played Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle. With a worldwide box office of $449,220,945, this film remains the highest-grossing film Baldwin has appeared in during his acting career. Baldwin directed and starred in The Devil and Daniel Webster with Anthony Hopkins, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Dan Aykroyd in 2001. The then-unreleased film became an asset in a federal bank fraud trial when investor Jed Barron was convicted of bank fraud while the movie was in production. The film was eventually acquired by The Yari Group without Baldwin's involvement.