Annette Carol Bening (born May 29, 1958) is an American actress. She began her career on the stage and in 1987 she was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her performance in Coastal Disturbances. Her first film credits were The Great Outdoors in 1988 and Valmont in 1989. Bening is a four-time Academy Award-nominee for films, such as The Grifters (1990), American Beauty (1999), Being Julia (2004) and The Kids Are All Right (2010). She also was nominated for Golden Globe awards for her performances in The American President, Bugsy and Running with Scissors. Bening was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2005 for her performance as Jean Harris in Mrs. Harris.
Early life
Bening was born in Topeka, Kansas, the daughter of Shirley Katherine (née Ashley b.1929), and Arnett Grant Bening. Her mother was a church singer and soloist, and her father was a sales training consultant and insurance salesman. Her parents, natives of Iowa, were practicing Episcopalians of mostly German and English descent, and conservative Republicans. Her sister and two brothers are Jane, Bradley and Byron. The family moved to Wichita, Kansas, in 1959, where she spent her early childhood. In 1965, her father took a job with a company in San Diego, California, and they moved there. She began acting in junior high school, playing the lead in The Sound of Music. She graduated in 1975, from Patrick Henry High School where she studied drama. She then spent a year working as a cook on a charter boat taking fishing parties out on the Pacific Ocean, and scuba diving for recreation. She attended San Diego Mesa College, then completed an academic degree in theatre arts at San Francisco State University.
Career
Prior to becoming a film actress, Bening was a member of the acting company at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco while studying acting as part of the Advanced Theatre Training Program. There, she starred in such productions as Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth. Bening also starred in productions of Pygmalion and The Cherry Orchard at the Denver Center Theatre Company during 1985-86. She made her Broadway debut in 1987, garnering a Tony Award nomination as Best Featured Actress in a Play for her performance in Coastal Disturbances. In 2009, Bening starred in a new interpretation of the Euripides classic Medea at UCLA's Freud Playhouse. In 2010, she starred in Joanna Murray-Smith’s comedy The Female of the Species at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. It was announced in May 2014 that she will join fellow Academy Award Nominee John Lithgow as Goneril in Shakespeare's King Lear at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park as part of the Public Theatre's Free Shakespeare in the Park. It will mark her first New York stage appearance in 20 years.
Bening made her film debut in The Great Outdoors (1988). Her second film appearance was as the Marquise de Merteuil in Valmont (1989), opposite Colin Firth. Her breakthrough role was in The Grifters (1990), which starred John Cusack and Anjelica Huston, and earned Bening an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress. In 1991, she portrayed Virginia Hill in the Barry Levinson-directed biopic of Bugsy, starring Warren Beatty. Also in 1991, she appeared in Regarding Henry with Harrison Ford. In 1994, Bening and Beatty starred in Love Affair, which also featured Katharine Hepburn. In 1995, Bening appeared in The American President, followed by Tim Burton's sci-fi spoof Mars Attacks! (1996). In 1998, she co-starred with Denzel Washington and Bruce Willis in The Siege. The biggest critical and commercial success of her career thus far was the 1999 film American Beauty, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture and was directed by Sam Mendes. For this performance, Bening was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress and won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress. Bening also starred in the films In Dreams (1999) and What Planet Are You From? (2000). Bening played Sue Barlow, Charley Waite's love interest in Open Range. In 2004, she played the title role in Being Julia, which earned her a Golden Globe Award and an Oscar nomination as Best Actress. She was nominated for an Emmy Award for her portrayal of Jean Harris the 2005 HBO film Mrs. Harris. In 2006, she replaced Julianne Moore to star in the film adaptation of Running with Scissors. In December of that year, Bening hosted Saturday Night Live with musical guests Gwen Stefani and Akon. In 2008, Bening starred in The Women. The following year she received strong reviews for her performance in the independent film Mother and Child (2009). In 2010, Bening received strong critical acclaim for her performance in The Kids Are All Right, with several reviewers noting that she "deserves an Oscar" for her "sublime" performance. For that role, Bening won a second Golden Globe, as well as Academy Award and Screen Actors Guild nominations. In 2012, Bening's audiobook recording of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway was released at Audible.com.
Personal life
Bening met and married choreographer J. Steven White in 1984, but they were separated in 1986 and divorced in 1991. Bening married Warren Beatty on March 12, 1992, just over a year after being cast to co-star in Bugsy. They have four children: Stephen (born January 8, 1992), Benjamin (born August 23, 1994), Isabel (born January 11, 1997) and Ella (born April 8, 2000).
Filmography
Awards and recognitions
Other awards
- 2006: Ibsen Centennial Commemoration Award
References
External links
- Annette Bening at the Internet Movie Database
- Annette Bening at the Internet Broadway Database
- Annette Bening at AllMovie
- People in Film: Annette Bening â€" Focus Features
- Annette Bening at Emmys.com
