Editing Meryl Streep (section)

===1970s: Early work and breakthrough===
[[File:Public Theatre.jpg|thumb|left|Streep started her career acting in numerous productions with [[The Public Theater]]]]
One of Streep's first professional jobs in 1975 was at the [[Eugene O'Neill Theater Center]]'s National Playwrights Conference, during which she acted in five plays over six weeks. She moved to [[New York City]] in 1975, and was cast by [[Joseph Papp]] in a production of ''[[Trelawny of the Wells]]'' at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, opposite [[Mandy Patinkin]] and [[John Lithgow]].{{sfn|Longworth|2013|p=10}} She went on to appear in five more roles in her first year in New York, including in Papp's [[New York Shakespeare Festival]] productions of ''[[Henry V (play)|Henry V]]'', ''[[The Taming of the Shrew]]'' with [[Raul Julia]], and ''[[Measure for Measure]]'' opposite [[Sam Waterston]] and [[John Cazale]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Henry V Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival|url=http://www.lortel.org/LLA_archive/index.cfm?search_by=show&id=2928|publisher=[[Lortel Archives]]. Lucille Lortel Foundation|access-date=May 13, 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150410215814/http://www.lortel.org/lla_archive/index.cfm?search_by=show&id=2928|archive-date=April 10, 2015}}<br />- {{cite web|title=Measure for Measure Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival|url=http://www.lortel.org/LLA_archive/index.cfm?search_by=show&id=2929|publisher=[[Lortel Archives]]. Lucille Lortel Foundation|access-date=May 13, 2015|url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150410193821/http://www.lortel.org/lla_archive/index.cfm?search_by=show&id=2929|archive-date=April 10, 2015}}<br />- {{cite web|title=The Taming of the Shrew Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival|url=http://www.lortel.org/LLA_archive/index.cfm?search_by=show&id=2748|publisher=[[Lortel Archives]]. Lucille Lortel Foundation|access-date=May 13, 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150518094744/http://www.lortel.org/LLA_archive/index.cfm?search_by=show&id=2748|archive-date=May 18, 2015}}</ref> She entered into a relationship with Cazale at this time, and resided with him until his death three years later.{{sfn|Longworth|2013|p=10}} She starred in the musical ''[[Happy End (musical)|Happy End]]'' on Broadway, and won an [[Obie Award|Obie]] for her performance in the [[off-Broadway]] play ''Alice at the Palace''.<ref name=AFI>{{cite web|author1=Levy, Rochelle L.|title=2004 Meryl Streep tribute|url=http://www.afi.com/laa/laa04.aspx|publisher=American Film Institute|access-date=January 20, 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150221094149/http://www.afi.com/laa/laa04.aspx|archive-date=February 21, 2015}}</ref>

Although Streep had not aspired to become a film actor, [[Robert De Niro]]'s performance in ''[[Taxi Driver]]'' (1976) had a profound impact on her; she said to herself, 'That's the kind of actor I want to be when I grow up.'{{sfn|Longworth|2013|p=10}} Streep began auditioning for film roles, and underwent an unsuccessful audition for the lead role in [[Dino De Laurentiis]]'s remake of the action adventure ''[[King Kong (1976 film)|King Kong]]'' which was released in 1976. De Laurentiis, referring to Streep as she stood before him, said in Italian to his son: "This is so ugly. Why did you bring me this?"{{sfn|Longworth|2013|p=7}} Unknown to Laurentiis, Streep understood Italian, and she remarked, "I'm very sorry that I'm not as beautiful as I should be, but, you know – this is it. This is what you get."{{sfn|Longworth|2013|p=8}} She continued to work on [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]], appearing in the 1976 double bill of [[Tennessee Williams]]' ''[[One act plays by Tennessee Williams#27 Wagons Full of Cotton|27 Wagons Full of Cotton]]'' and [[Arthur Miller]]'s ''[[A Memory of Two Mondays]]''. She received a Tony Award nomination for [[Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play|Best Featured Actress in a Play]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Lowell, Katherine|title=Show Business|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TzymQOKwgYsC&pg=PA2001|publisher=Clinton Gilkie|page=2001|id=GGKEY:XQ5TU8D6L6X}}</ref> Streep's other Broadway credits include [[Anton Chekhov]]'s ''[[The Cherry Orchard]]'' and the [[Bertolt Brecht]]-[[Kurt Weill]] musical ''[[Happy End (musical)|Happy End]]'', in which she had originally appeared off-Broadway at the [[Chelsea Theater Center]]. She received [[Drama Desk Award]] nominations for both productions.{{Sfn|Fisher|2011|p=772}}

Streep's first feature film role came opposite [[Jane Fonda]] in the 1977 film ''[[Julia (1977 film)|Julia]]'', in which she had a small role during a flashback sequence. Most of her scenes were edited out, but the brief time on screen horrified the actress, "I had a bad wig and they took the words from the scene I shot with Jane and put them in my mouth in a different scene. I thought, I've made a terrible mistake, no more movies. I hate this business."{{sfn|Longworth|2013|p=10}} However, Streep stated in 2015 that Fonda had a lasting influence on her as an actress, and credited her with opening "probably more doors than I probably even know about".<ref name="VF"/> Robert De Niro, who had spotted Streep in her stage production of ''The Cherry Orchard'', suggested that she play the role of his girlfriend in the war film ''[[The Deer Hunter]]'' (1978).{{sfn|Longworth|2013|p=21}} Cazale, who had been diagnosed with [[lung cancer]],<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.avclub.com/article/on-the-anniversary-of-his-death-revisit-john-cazal-93634|title=On the anniversary of his death, revisit John Cazale's tragically short film career in I Knew It Was You|newspaper=[[The A.V. Club]]|access-date=September 22, 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923230616/http://www.avclub.com/article/on-the-anniversary-of-his-death-revisit-john-cazal-93634|archive-date=September 23, 2015}}</ref> was also cast in the film, and Streep took on the role of a "vague, stock girlfriend" to remain with Cazale for the duration of filming.{{sfn|Longworth|2013|pp=19–21}}<ref>{{cite news |first=Paul |last=Gray |title=Cinema: A Mother Finds Herself |url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,948649-3,00.html |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |page=3 |date=December 3, 1979 |access-date=February 16, 2011 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150121031102/http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,948649-3,00.html |archive-date=January 21, 2015 }}</ref>{{sfn|Hollinger|2006|p=81}} Longworth notes that Streep, "Made a case for female empowerment by playing a woman to whom empowerment was a foreign concept{{ndash}}a normal lady from an average American small town, for whom subservience was the only thing she knew".{{sfn|Longworth|2013|p=19}} [[Pauline Kael]], who later became a strong critic of Streep, remarked that she was a "real beauty" who brought much freshness to the film with her performance.{{sfn|Longworth|2013|p=32}} The film's success exposed Streep to a wider audience and earned her a nomination for the [[Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress]].<ref>{{cite web|title=The 51st Academy Awards (1979) Nominees and Winners|date=October 5, 2014 |url=http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1979|publisher=[[Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]] (AMPAS)|access-date=July 4, 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402004111/http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1979|archive-date=April 2, 2015}}</ref>

[[File:Meryl_Streep_by_Jack_Mitchell.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Streep in 1977]]
In the 1978 miniseries ''[[Holocaust (miniseries)|Holocaust]]'', Streep played the leading role of a German woman married to a Jewish artist played by [[James Woods]] in [[Nazi era]] Germany. She found the material to be "unrelentingly noble" and professed to have taken on the role for financial gain.<ref name="SimplyStreepHorizonMagazine1978">{{cite web|title=Magazines Archive |website=SimplyStreep |url=http://www.simplystreep.com/articles/197808horizonmagazine/ |access-date=December 10, 2020 }} citing {{cite journal |journal=Horizon Magazine |date=August 1978 |title=Star Treks}}</ref> Streep travelled to Germany and Austria for filming while Cazale remained in New York. Upon her return, Streep found that Cazale's illness had progressed, and she nursed him until his death on March 12, 1978.{{sfn|Longworth|2013|p=26}}{{Sfn|Hollinger|2006|p=81}} With an estimated audience of 109 million, ''Holocaust'' brought a wider degree of public recognition to Streep, who found herself "on the verge of national visibility". She won the [[Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie]] for her performance.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.emmys.com/bios/meryl-streep |title=Meryl Streep Emmy Award Winner |publisher=[[Emmy Award]] |access-date=April 20, 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140905063934/http://www.emmys.com/bios/meryl-streep |archive-date=September 5, 2014 }}</ref> Despite the awards success, Streep was still not enthusiastic towards her film career and preferred acting on stage.{{sfn|Longworth|2013|p=44}}

She played the supporting role of Leilah in [[Wendy Wasserstein]]'s ''[[Uncommon Women and Others (film)|Uncommon Women and Others]]'' in a May 1978 "Theater in America" television production for [[PBS]]'s [[Great Performances]].<ref>{{Citation|title=Meryl Streep & Others singing in 'Uncommon Women & Others'| date=April 9, 2009 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOCs2QW2gJ8| archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211027/FOCs2QW2gJ8| archive-date=October 27, 2021|language=en|access-date=July 20, 2021}}{{cbignore}}</ref> She replaced [[Glenn Close]], who played the role in the [[Off-Broadway]] production at the [[Phoenix Theatre (New York City)|Phoenix Theatre]].<ref>{{Cite news|last=Eder|first=Richard|date=November 22, 1977|title=Dramatic Wit and Wisdom Unite In 'Uncommon Women and Others'|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/11/22/archives/dramatic-wit-and-wisdom-unite-in-uncommon-women-and-others.html|access-date=July 20, 2021|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Hoping to divert herself from the grief of Cazale's death, Streep accepted a role in ''[[The Seduction of Joe Tynan]]'' (1979) as the chirpy love interest of [[Alan Alda]], later commenting that she played it on "automatic pilot". She performed the role of [[Kate (The Taming of the Shrew)|Katherine]] in ''[[The Taming of the Shrew]]'' for [[Shakespeare in the Park]]. That same year she played a supporting role as the former girlfriend turned lesbian in ''[[Manhattan (1979 film)|Manhattan]]'' (1979) for [[Woody Allen]]. Streep later said that Allen did not provide her with a complete script, giving her only the six pages of her own scenes,<ref>{{cite web|title=Magazines Archive |website=SimplyStreep|url=http://www.simplystreep.com/magazines/197903lookmagazine.htm |access-date=June 7, 2009 }}{{Dead link|date=May 2016|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref> and did not permit her to improvise a word of her dialogue.{{sfn|Hollinger|2006|p=71}} [[Vincent Canby]] of ''[[The New York Times]]'' described her performance as being "beautifully played".<ref>{{cite news|url= https://www.nytimes.com/1979/04/25/archives/the-screen-woody-allens-manhattan.html|title= The Screen: Woody Allen's 'Manhattan'|work= The New York Times|date= April 25, 1979|accessdate= July 17, 2024|last1= Canby|first1= Vincent}}</ref> 

In the drama ''[[Kramer vs. Kramer]]'', Streep was cast opposite [[Dustin Hoffman]] as an unhappily married woman who abandons her husband and child. Streep thought that the script portrayed the female character as "too evil" and insisted that it was not representative of real women who faced marriage breakdown and child custody battles. The makers agreed with her, and the script was revised.{{sfn|Longworth|2013|p=41}} In preparing for the part, Streep spoke to her own mother about her life as a wife with a career,{{Sfn|Hollinger|2006|p=75}} and frequented the [[Upper East Side]] neighborhood in which the film was set, watching the interactions between parents and children.{{sfn|Longworth|2013|p=41}} The director [[Robert Benton]] allowed Streep to write her own dialogue in two key scenes, despite some objection from Hoffman, who "hated her guts" at first.{{Sfn|Hollinger|2006|p=77}}{{Efn|Streep's initial impression of Hoffman had been a negative one, thinking him to have been an "obnoxious pig" when she had first met him on stage several years earlier, and Hoffman had admitted that he initially "hated her guts", but respected her as an actress.{{sfn|Longworth|2013|p=41}}}} Hoffman and producer [[Stanley R. Jaffe]] later spoke of Streep's tirelessness, with Hoffman commenting: "She's extraordinarily hard-working, to the extent that she's obsessive. I think that she thinks about nothing else, but what she's doing."<ref>{{cite web|title=The Freshest Face in Hollywood|work=[[Playgirl]]|date=November 1979|author=Dean Cohen|url=http://www.simplystreep.com/articles/197911playgirlmagazine/|via=SimplyStreep.com|access-date=February 26, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200226130630/http://www.simplystreep.com/articles/197911playgirlmagazine/|archive-date=February 26, 2020|url-status=dead}}</ref> The film was controversial among feminists, but it was a role which film critic Stephen Farber believed displayed Streep's "own emotional intensity", writing that she was one of the "rare performers who can imbue the most routine moments with a hint of mystery".{{sfn|Longworth|2013|p=46}} 

For the film, Streep won both the [[Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture|Golden Globe Award]] and the [[Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress]], which she famously left in the ladies' room after giving her speech.<ref>{{cite web|title=The 52nd Academy Awards {{!}} 1980|url=http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1980|publisher= Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences|access-date=May 13, 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402002939/http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1980|archive-date=April 2, 2015}}</ref><ref name="GoldenGlobes">{{cite web|title=Meryl Streep {{!}} 29 Nominations {{!}} 8 Wins| work=OFFICIAL WEBSITE OF THE GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS |url=http://www.hfpa.org/browse/?param=/member/29717|publisher= Hollywood Foreign Press Association|access-date=May 13, 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150702091300/http://www.hfpa.org/browse/?param=%2Fmember%2F29717|archive-date=July 2, 2015}}</ref> She received awards from the [[Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress|Los Angeles Film Critics Association]],{{Sfn|Lenburg|2001|p=167}} [[National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress|National Board of Review]] and [[National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress|National Society of Film Critics]] for her collective work in her three film releases of 1979.<ref>{{cite book|title=Current Biography Yearbook|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BAdaAAAAYAAJ|year=1980|publisher=H. W. Wilson Co.|volume=41|page=391|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160507064117/https://books.google.com/books?id=BAdaAAAAYAAJ|archive-date=May 7, 2016}}</ref>{{Sfn|Sterling|1997|p=444}} Both ''The Deer Hunter'' and ''Kramer vs. Kramer'' were major commercial successes and were consecutive winners of the [[Academy Award for Best Picture]].{{sfn|Devine|1999|p=171}}<ref>{{cite news|last1=Chivers|first1=Tom|title=Oscars 2010: the 10 worst injustices in Academy Award history|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/oscars/7360378/Oscars-2010-the-10-worst-injustices-in-Academy-Award-history.html|access-date=July 4, 2015|work=The Daily Telegraph|date=March 3, 2010|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150712104251/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/oscars/7360378/Oscars-2010-the-10-worst-injustices-in-Academy-Award-history.html|archive-date=July 12, 2015}}</ref>