Diane Lane

Diane Lane
Lane at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival, 2011
Born	(1965-01-22) January 22, 1965 New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1979–present
Spouse(s)	Christopher Lambert (1988–1994: divorced) Josh Brolin (2004–2013: divorced)
Children	1
Parents	Colleen Farrington

Diane Lane (born January 22, 1965)^[1] is an American actress. Born and raised in New York City,^[1] Lane made her screen debut in George Roy Hill's 1979 film A Little Romance, starring opposite Sir Laurence Olivier. Soon after, she was featured on the cover of Time magazine and dubbed "the new Grace Kelly". She has since appeared in several notable films, including the 2002 film Unfaithful, which earned her Academy Award, Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations. Lane has also starred in The Outsiders, The Perfect Storm, Under the Tuscan Sun, Cinema Verite, and in 2013, Man of Steel.

Early life

Lane was born in New York City to Colleen Leigh Farrington, a nightclub singer and Playboy centerfold (Miss October 1957), who was also known as "Colleen Price" and Burton Eugene Lane, a Manhattan drama coach who ran an acting workshop with John Cassavetes, worked as a cab driver, and later taught humanities at City College.^[2] When Lane was thirteen days old, her parents separated. Lane's mother went to Mexico and obtained a divorce while retaining custody of Lane until she was six years old.^[2] Lane's father got custody of her after Lane's mother moved to Georgia. Lane and her father lived in a number of residential hotels in New York City and she would ride with him in his taxi.^[3]

When Lane was fifteen years old, she declared her independence from her father and flew to Los Angeles for a week with actor and friend Christopher Atkins. Lane later remarked, "It was reckless behavior that comes from having too much independence too young."^[3] She returned to New York and moved in with a friend's family, paying them rent. In 1981, she enrolled in high school after taking correspondence courses. However, Lane's mother kidnapped her and took her back to Georgia. Lane and her father challenged her mother in court and six weeks later she was back in New York. Lane did not speak to her mother for the subsequent three years, but they have since reconciled.^[3]

Career

Early work

Diane Lane as Ellen Aim in Streets of Fire

Lane's grandmother, Eleanor Scott was a Pentecostal preacher of the Apostolic denomination, and Lane was influenced theatrically by the demonstrative quality of her grandmother's sermons.^[4][5] Lane began acting professionally at the age of six at the La MaMa Experimental Theater Club in New York, where she appeared in a production of Medea. When Lane was twelve years old, she had a role in Joseph Papp's production of The Cherry Orchard with Meryl Streep.^[2] Also at this time, Lane was enrolled in an accelerated program at Hunter College High School and was put on notice when her grades suffered from her busy schedule.^[2] When Lane was thirteen years old, she turned down a role in Runaways on Broadway to make her feature film debut opposite Laurence Olivier in A Little Romance.^[3] Lane won high praise from Olivier who declared her 'The New Grace Kelly'.^[6] At the same time Lane was featured on the cover of Time, which declared her one of Hollywood's "Whiz Kids."^[7][8]

In the early 1980s, Lane made a successful transition from child actor to adult roles. She was cast as the teenaged female outlaw Little Britches in the 1981 Lamont Johnson film, Cattle Annie and Little Britches, with Amanda Plummer in her own debut role as Cattle Annie. Lane's breakout performances came with back-to-back adaptations of young adult novels by S. E. Hinton, adapted and directed by Francis Ford Coppola: The Outsiders and Rumble Fish, both in 1983. Both films also featured memorable performances from a number of young male actors who would go on to become leading men in the next decade (as well as members of the so-called "Brat Pack"), including Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, C. Thomas Howell, Emilio Estevez, Patrick Swayze, Mickey Rourke, Nicolas Cage, and Matt Dillon.^[2] Lane's distinction among these heavily male casts advanced her career while affiliating her with this young generation of male actors. Andy Warhol proclaimed her, "the undisputed female lead of Hollywood's new rat pack."^[9]

However, the two films that could have catapulted her to star status, Streets of Fire (she turned down Splash and Risky Business for this film)^[6][10] and The Cotton Club, were both commercial and critical failures, and her career languished as a result.^[2] After The Cotton Club, Lane dropped out of the movie business and lived with her mother in Georgia.^[11] According to the actress, "I hadn't been close to my mom for a long time, so we had a lot of homework to do. We had to repair our relationship because I wanted my mother back".^[12]

Lane at the 41st Emmy Awards in September 1989.

Lane returned to acting to appear in The Big Town and Lady Beware, but it was not until 1989's popular and critically acclaimed TV miniseries Lonesome Dove that Lane made another big impression on a sizable audience,^[11] and was nominated for an Emmy Award^[13] for her role. She was given positive reviews for her performance in the independent film My New Gun, which was well received at the Cannes Film Festival. She went on to appear as actress Paulette Goddard in Sir Richard Attenborough's big-budget biopic of Charles Chaplin, 1992's Chaplin.^[9] Lane won further praise for her role in 1999's A Walk on the Moon, opposite Viggo Mortensen. One reviewer wrote, "Lane, after years in post-teenaged-career limbo, is meltingly effective."^[14] The film's director, Tony Goldwyn, described Lane as having "...this potentially volcanic sexuality that is in no way self-conscious or opportunistic."^[15] Lane earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Female Lead. At this time, she was interested in making a film about actress Jean Seberg in which she would play Seberg.^[16]

Recent work

In 2000, Lane had a supporting role as Mark Wahlberg's love interest in The Perfect Storm. In 2002, she starred in Unfaithful, a drama film directed by Adrian Lyne and adapted from the French film The Unfaithful Wife. Lane played a housewife who indulges in an adulterous fling with a mysterious book dealer. The film featured several sex scenes. Lyne's repeated takes for these scenes were very demanding for the actors involved, especially for Lane, who had to be emotionally and physically fit for the duration.^[17] Unfaithful received mostly mixed to negative reviews, though Lane earned widespread praise for her performance. Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman stated that "Lane, in the most urgent performance of her career, is a revelation. The play of lust, romance, degradation, and guilt on her face is the movie's real story."^[18] She followed that film up with Under the Tuscan Sun, based on the best-selling book by Frances Mayes.

In 2008, Lane reunited with Richard Gere for the romantic drama Nights in Rodanthe. It is the third film Gere and Lane filmed together. The film was based on the novel of the same title by Nicholas Sparks. Lane also co-starred in Jumper, and Untraceable in the same year. She then appeared in Killshot with Mickey Rourke, which was given a limited theatrical release before being released on DVD in 2009. While promoting Nights in Rodanthe, she expressed frustration with being typecast and stated that she was "gunning for something that's not so sympathetic. I need to be a bitch, and I need to be in a comedy. I've decided. No more Miss Nice Guy."^[19] The actress has even contemplated quitting acting and spending more time with her family if she is unable to get these kinds of roles. She said in an interview, "I can't do anything official. My agents won't let me. Between you and me, I don't have anything else coming out."^[19]

In 2010, Lane starred in Secretariat, a Disney film about the relationship between the 1973 Triple Crown-winning racehorse and his owner, Penny Chenery, whom Lane portrayed.^[20]

Following Secretariat, Lane starred in Cinema Verite, an HBO movie about the making of the first reality television show An American Family. Lane earned Emmy, Screen Actors Guild, Satellite, and Golden Globe award nominations for her portrayal of Pat Loud.

In 2012, Lane returned to her theater roots and headlined a production of Sweet Bird of Youth, the Tennessee Williams play, at the Goodman Theatre. She played Princess Kosmonopolis, a fading Hollywood movie star, opposite Finn Wittrock, who portrayed Chance, her attractive gigolo. This was the first time she had done a stage play since 1989, when she played Olivia in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts.^[21] That same year Lane was featured in the documentary Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, premiering on PBS October 1 and 2.^[22] The series introduces women and girls living under very difficult circumstances and bravely fighting to challenge them. The Half the Sky PBS TV series is produced by Show of Force along with Fugitive Films.

In 2013, Lane played Martha Kent in Zack Snyder's Superman film Man of Steel, released in theaters on June 14, 2013. Snyder said of her casting, "We are thrilled to have Diane in the role because she can convey the wisdom and the wonder of a woman whose son has powers beyond her imagination."^[23] Lane will reprise her role in the confirmed sequel.^[24] She will also be seen in upcoming drama Every Secret Thing.

Awards

Four days before the New York Film Critics Circle's vote in 2002, Lane was given a career tribute by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. A day before that, Lyne held a dinner for the actress at the Four Seasons Hotel. Critics and award voters were invited to both.^[25] She went on to win the National Society of Film Critics, the New York Film Critics Circle awards and was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Actress. In 2003, she was named ShoWest's 2003 Female Star of the Year,^[26] and was also a co-recipient of the Women in Film Crystal Award honoring outstanding women in entertainment.^[27]

Diane Lane has also won and been nominated for many other awards for her movie and TV work on such films as The Outsiders, A Walk on the Moon, Under the Tuscan Sun, Cinema Verite, Lonesome Dove, and, of course, Unfaithful.

Lane ranked at #79 on VH1's 100 Greatest Kid Stars. She was ranked #45 on AskMen.com's Top 99 Most Desirable Women in 2005,^[28] #85 in 2006^[29] and #98 in 2007.^[30]

Personal life

Marriages and family

Lane with then-husband Josh Brolin in December 2009

Lane met actor Christopher Lambert in Paris while promoting The Cotton Club in 1984.^[3] They had a brief affair and split up. They met again two years later in Rome to make a film together, entitled After the Rain, and in two weeks they were a couple again. Lane and Lambert married in October 1988 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.^[3] They have a daughter, Eleanor Jasmine,^[1] and were divorced following a prolonged separation in 1994.^[31]

Lane became engaged to actor Josh Brolin in July 2003^[32] and they were married on August 15, 2004.^[33] On December 20 of that year, she called police after an altercation with him, and he was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of domestic battery. Lane declined to press charges, however, and the couple's spokesperson described the incident as a "misunderstanding."^[34] Lane and Brolin filed for divorce in February 2013.^[35] Their divorce was finalized on December 2, 2013.^[36]

Charity work

Lane is also involved in several charities, including Heifer International, which focuses on world hunger, and Artists for Peace and Justice, a Hollywood organization that supports Haiti relief. However, she tries not to draw attention to her humanitarian efforts: "Sometimes I give with my heart. Sometimes I give financially, but there's something about [helping others] that I think ought to be anonymous. I don't want it to be a boastful thing."^[37]

Lane was featured heavily in the documentary Half The Sky, based on the book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. The documentary saw Lane and several other A-list actresses/celebrities visit Africa and other areas where women are oppressed. Lane has become very much an ambassador for this kind of work and charity work in general.

Filmography

References

Further reading

• Ascher-Walsh, Rebecca. Confidence: The Ultimate Seducer. Men's Health. Accessed March 25, 2010.
• Radziwill, Carole. Gorgeous At Any Age: Diane Lane. Glamour magazine. September 1, 2008. Accessed March 25, 2010.
• Saroyan, Strawberry. Diane Lane: a fortysomething sex symbol. Daily Telegraph. October 5, 2008. Accessed March 25, 2010.
• Robinson, Tasha. Interview: Diane Lane. The Onion A.V. Club. October 7, 2010. Accessed October 8, 2010.
• Diane Lane: Her Best Roles - Empire magazine
• Kaplan, Michael. Diane Lane: A Career with a View . Movieline. April 1, 1996. Accessed June 30, 2011.
• Rebello, Stephen. Diane Lane: Sudden Lane Changes. Movieline. October 1, 2003. Accessed June 30, 2011.
• Hensley, Dennis. Diane Lane: Lane Changes. Movieline. June 1, 2000. Accessed June 30, 2011.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Diane Lane.

• Diane Lane at the Internet Movie Database
• Diane Lane at AllRovi
• Diane Lane at Film Reference
• Diane Lane at Emmys.com