 
Equally at home playing leads and character roles, actor Alec
Baldwin is known for his work in just about every genre,
from action thrillers to comedies to dramas. Born April 3,
1958 on Massapequa, Long Island, he was the second of six
children (brothers William, Daniel, and Stephen would also
become actors). Baldwin was a political science major at
George Washington University before he decided to become an
actor; following his change in vocation, he studied drama at
NYU and the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute.
Early in his career, Baldwin was a busy man, simultaneously
playing a role on the TV daytime drama The Doctors and
performing in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
on stage in the evenings. A few years after making his 1980
Broadway debut, the actor moved to Los Angeles, where he
landed a role in the television series Knots Landing.
He made his film debut in 1986 with a starring role in Forever
Lulu, which led to work in a number of major films. From
1988 to 1989 alone, Baldwin appeared in no less than seven
films, including Tim
Burton's black comedy Beetlejuice, Mike
Nichols' Working Girl, Jonathan
Demme's Married to the Mob, and Oliver
Stone's Talk Radio.
In 1989, Baldwin achieved big-budget success playing ace
CIA agent Jack Ryan in the undersea thriller The Hunt for
Red October. The film's popularity won him acclaim, so
Baldwin surprised many by foregoing the opportunity to reprise
his role in the sequel Patriot Games (he was replaced
by Harrison
Ford) in favor of returning to Broadway to star as
Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. Although
his decision paid off--he received a Tony nomination for his
performance--it also marked the point at which Baldwin's star
wattage began to flicker. His 1991 film, The Marrying Man
proved to be an all-out flop (although it did provide him an
introduction to co-star Kim
Basinger, whom he would marry in 1993), and the
critical success of his next two films, Prelude to a Kiss
and Glengarry Glen Ross was overshadowed by a
subsequent string of flops, including Malice
(1993), The
Getaway (1994), and The
Juror (1996).
The actor rebounded a bit with his role in Al
Pacino's acclaimed documentary Looking for Richard
but then had the unfortunate luck of starring in the 1998 Bruce
Willis disaster Mercury
Rising. However, the following year proved more
fortuitous for Baldwin, as he starred in the coming-of-age
comedy Outside
Providence, as well as in the crime drama Thick
as Thieves and the ethical drama The
Confession, appearing alongside Amy
Irving and Ben
Kingsley. In addition, the actor made an uncredited
appearance in Notting
Hill, sending up his macho Hollywood persona as Julia
Roberts' piggish actor boyfriend. -- Rebecca Flint,
All Movie Guide
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