The great Meryl Streep, who celebrates her 75th birthday today, was born in Summit, New Jersey, on June 22, 1949, the daughter of a pharmaceutical executive and an artist. After graduating cum laude from Vassar College in 1971, and earning her MFA from the Yale School of Drama four years later, she made her Broadway debut in a 1975 production of Trelawny of the Wells at the Vivian Beaumont Theate. Her first film role, in Fred Zinnemann’s feminist melodrama Julia, starring Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave, would follow in 1977.
Now, nearly 50 years later, Streep is the most Oscar-nominated actor ever (she’s been up 21 times), and tied with Ingrid Bergman and Frances McDormand for the second-most wins (three each; Katharine Hepburn remains the only actor to win four). Here, to celebrate her birthday, we’ve gathered 10 things you might not have known about Meryl Streep, one of our greatest living actors.
Her real name
The name Meryl is an invention of her father’s. The actress, born Mary Louise Streep, takes her first name from her mother and grandmother, both named Mary. (Streep’s eldest daughter, Mamie, is another Mary, born Mary Willa Gummer.) Her middle name is derived from her mother’s best friend, Louise Buckman.
Her early aspirations as a soprano
The actress inherited a beautiful soprano voice from her mother. After singing in a school recital at the age of 12, Meryl began taking opera lessons from Estelle Liebling. She stopped after four years, however, later admitting that she was “singing something I didn’t feel and didn’t understand.”
She’s always been popular
While attending Bernards High School in Bernardsville, New Jersey, Streep became a cheerleader for the Mountaineers. She went on to be crowned homecoming queen as a senior.
Her great lost love
Meryl Streep dated John Cazale, her co-star in The Deer Hunter, for two years, until his death from lung cancer in 1978. Six months later, she married sculptor Don Gummer.
Her (largely invented) cold war with Madonna
Though Streep and Michelle Pfeiffer had also been on the table, in 1996 Alan Parker chose Madonna for the role of the iconic former first lady of Argentina in the musical Evita. Three years later, however, Streep got her revenge on the Queen of Pop when Wes Craven picked her over Miss Ciccone for the film Music of the Heart. Since the role required her to play the violin, Streep spent two months practicing for five to six hours a day.
That said, rumors that Streep had taken the Evita decision badly, snarling to the New York Times that she “could rip [Madonna’s] throat out. I can sing better than she can, if that counts for anything,” were pure fiction. “Why would I say that?” Streep told USA Today in 2008. “I was out of the running by the time they got the movie together. It’s a fabulous story, though. Oh, and I don’t think I can sing better than her. And I certainly can’t dance better.”
She was given Bette Davis’s blessing
At the beginning of her career, Streep received a letter from none other than Bette Davis. In it, the star of All About Eve said that Streep reminded her of herself, and hoped they would have the chance to work together one day. (Could you imagine?)
…but not Katharine Hepburn’s
On the contrary, Katherine Hepburn was not a big fan, suggesting to biographer A. Scott Berg that she could almost hear the gears turning in Streep’s head. (“Click, click, click,” as Hepburn put it.)
On the accents
Known for her ability to mimic any accent—just see her work in Sophie’s Choice, Out of Africa, A Cry in the Dark, The Iron Lady, or August: Osage County, among other great examples—she was asked one day in Belfast how she managed it. Streep replied, in a perfect Belfast accent, “I listen.”
On that speech from The Devil Wears Prada
The decision to use the color cerulean in her iconic speech in The Devil Wears Prada was made after screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna sent Streep a list of blue shades to choose from.
The roles she’s lost
Among the (rare) roles that Streep has lost during her extraordinary career? Dwan in King Kong (which went to Jessica Lange), Michelle Stratton in American Gigolo (Lauren Hutton), Patsy Cline in Sweet Dreams (Lange again), Miss Kenton in The Remains of the Day (Emma Thompson), and Elizabeth I in Elizabeth (Cate Blanchett).