Frank Langella
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Frank Langella (born January 1, 1940) is an American stage and film actor. He has twice won the Tony Award for Best Featured (Supporting) Actor in a Play, in 1975 for Edward Albee's Seascape and in 2002 for Fortune's Fool, and been twice nominated for Best Leading Actor in a Play, in 1978 for the Edward Gorey-designed revival of Dracula and 2004 for Match.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Langella, an Italian American,[1] was born in Bayonne, New Jersey to Frank Langella, Sr. He is a brother of the Alpha Chi Rho fraternity.
[edit] Career
A versatile and overwhelmingly charismatic actor -- and, in his youth, a strikingly handsome one-- early in Langella's career he was best known for his success in the title role of Dracula in the Broadway production designed by Edward Gorey. In a recent interview Langella commented that people (in fact, mostly men) always complimented him on the sexual energy of his stage performance as the Count, telling him, "Boy, did my wife make love to me that night!" after seeing him onstage. Despite his initial misgivings about continuing to play the role, he was persuaded to star opposite Laurence Olivier in the subsequent film version directed by John Badham. On his last day of shooting, Langella reports that he hung the cloak on costume rack firmly knowing he could never pick it up again for fear of being typecast.
He went on to play Sherlock Holmes in an HBO adaptation (1981) of William Gillette's famous stage play.
For decades afterward, he largely stayed away from film in order to pursue serious theatre; however, later years have seen more film and television work having found a niche; he made a memorable three-episode appearance on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as the devious Jaro Essa, and also appeared in a 2003 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and as a villainous pirate in the summer release 'Cutthroat Island'. He more recently appeared in Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005) as network honcho William S. Paley. He recently appeared as Daily Planet editor Perry White in Superman Returns (2006). He is also an accomplished stage actor, most recently appearing in Peter Morgan's Frost/Nixon at the Donmar Warehouse in London.
[edit] Selected filmography
- Starting Out in the Evening (2007) (Post-production)
- Superman Returns (2006) ... as Perry White
- Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005) ...as William S. Paley
- Sweet William (2005) ... as Professor Driskoll
- Now You See It... (2005) ... as Max
- Back in the Day (2004)
- The Novice (2004) ... as Father Tew
- House of D (2004)
- Red Dragon (2002) (scenes deleted) ... as Voice of the Dragon
- The Beast (2001) ... as Jackson Burns
- Sweet November (2001 film) ... as Edgar Price
- The Ninth Gate (1999) ... as Boris Balkan
- Lolita (1997) ... as Clare Quilty
- The Greatest Pharaohs (1996)... himself
- Cutthroat Island (1995) ... as Dawg Brown
- Brainscan (1994) ... as Detective Hayden
- Dave (1993) ... as White House Chief of Staff Bob Alexander
- Body of Evidence (1993) ... as Jeffrey Roston
- 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) ... as Santangel
- Masters of the Universe (1987) ... as Skeletor
- Dracula (1979) ... as Count Dracula
- The Twelve Chairs (1970) ... as Ostap Bender
- Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970) ... as George Prager
[edit] External links
- Frank Langella at the Internet Movie Database
- Frank Langella at the Notable Names Database
- Frank Langella article at Memory Alpha, the Star Trek wiki.
