Diane Lane

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Diane Lane

Diane Lane, April 2008

Born

January 22, 1965 (age 43)
New York City, New York, USA

Occupation

Film actor

Years active

1979 - Present

Spouse(s)

Christopher Lambert (1988-1994)
Josh Brolin (2004-)

Official website

Awards won
Other Awards
Best Actress for Unfaithful from National Society of Film Critics and New York Film Critics in 2002

Diane Lane (born January 22, 1965) is an American film actress. She has been nominated for an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Emmy Award.

1 Early life
2 Early work, 1979-1984
3 1987-present
4 Awards
5 Personal life
6 Filmography
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Early life

Lane was born in New York City and is the daughter of Colleen Farrington, a night club 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, who also worked as a cab driver, and later taught humanities at City College.^[1] When Lane was 13 days old, her parents split up and her mother went to Mexico and obtained a divorce while retaining custody of her daughter until age 6.^[1] Her father got custody of his daughter after Farrington 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.^[2]

When Lane was 15, she declared her independence from her father and ran away to Los Angeles for a week with actor and friend Christopher Atkins. Lane remembers, "It was reckless behavior that comes from having too much independence too young".^[2] She came back and moved in with a friend's family, paying them rent. In 1981, she enrolled in high school after having taken correspondence courses. However, Lane's mother kidnapped her and took the young girl 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 three years but they have since reconciled.^[2]

[edit] Early work, 1979-1984

Lane's maternal grandmother, Agnes Scott, was a three-times married Pentecostal preacher, and Lane was influenced by the theatricality of her grandmother's sermons.^[3] Lane began acting professionally at the age of six at the La MaMa Experimental Theater Club in New York, where she appeared in an acclaimed production of Medea and at 12 she had a role in Joseph Papp's production of The Cherry Orchard with Meryl Streep.^[1] 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.^[1] At thirteen, she turned down a role in Runaways on Broadway to make her feature film debut opposite Sir Laurence Olivier in A Little Romance.^[2] At fourteen, Lane was featured on the cover of Time declaring her one of Hollywood's "Whiz Kids".^[4]^[5]

One of few child actors to make a successful transition into adult roles, Lane made a hit with audiences in the back-to-back cult films The Outsiders, starring with future movie stars Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, and Patrick Swayze, and Rumble Fish, starring Dillon, Mickey Rourke, and Nicolas Cage.^[1] However, the two films that could have catapulted her to star status, Streets of Fire (she turned down Splash for this film)^[6] and The Cotton Club, were both commercial and critical failures and her career languished as a result.^[1]

[edit] 1987-present

She returned to the business to make The Big Town and Lady Beware but did not garner serious acclaim until 1989's popular and critically acclaimed TV mini-series Lonesome Dove that Lane made another big impression on a sizable audience.^[7] She was nominated for an Emmy Award for the role. Lane won further praise for her role in 1999's A Walk on the Moon, opposite Viggo Mortensen.

[edit] Awards

In 2002, Lane was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Unfaithful, and was honored for her work in that film by The New York and The National Society of Film Critics. She followed that film up with Under the Tuscan Sun (2003), based on the best-selling book by Frances Mayes. In 2003, she was named ShoWest's 2003 Female Star of the Year.^[8]

She 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,^[9] #85 in 2006^[10] and #98 in 2007.^[11]

[edit] Personal life

In the early 1980s, Lane dated actors Timothy Hutton, Christopher Atkins, Matt Dillon, and later rock star Jon Bon Jovi.^[1] After the commercial and critical failure of The Cotton Club, Lane dropped out of the movie business and lived with her mother in Georgia.^[7] Lane met actor Christopher Lambert in Paris while promoting Coppola's film.^[2] They had a brief affair and split up. They met again two years later in Rome to make a film together and in two weeks they were a couple again. Lane and Lambert married in October 1988 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.^[2] They had a daughter, Eleanor Jasmine Lambert (born September 5, 1993), and were divorced following a prolonged separation in 1994.^[12]

Lane became engaged to actor Josh Brolin in July 2003^[13] and they were married on August 15, 2004.^[14] 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 characterized the incident as a "misunderstanding".^[15]