In her speech on Friday at the Princess of Asturias Awards, the most anticipated – with the permission of the one given by the King and that of his first-born daughter – of the evening, Meryl Streep uttered some words that were not without a certain reason. The three-time Oscar winner and 21-time nominee said that she had played so many “extraordinary people” during her life that, at times, she was taken for one of them. Beyond a certain confession of imposter syndrome, the actress also introduced a truth. Because she has been the owner of a farm in Africa, editor of a fashion magazine and a newspaper, separated young mother, talkative cook, long-suffering housewife, Holocaust survivor, frustrated lyrical singer, witch, nun, hotel owner in Greece and even British first lady, she, born in a town in New Jersey. But sometimes, many times, she is confused with all of them, of which so much literature exists, who we have seen so many times in her skin, but who are not her. Because Streep is as private as her characters are public, and little is known about her, barely anything. So little that it was unknown that she has been separated for more than six years from her husband of four decades, the sculptor Don Gummer, father of her four children.
The news hit the press just 12 hours after an applauded and emotional Streep collected her award in Oviedo, after three days of pageantry and praise. When she appeared in the city unexpectedly on Tuesday – her arrival was scheduled for Wednesday, when she was already formally received to the sound of bagpipes – she was surprised to find that she appeared with her brother Harry instead of her husband or one of her friends. four children. It was shortly after the awards ceremony, in a respectful game of timing that has allowed her honors not to be tarnished by news like this, when the New York media Page Six confirmed that the star, 74, and Gummer, 76, with whom this September she would have celebrated 45 years of marriage, as many as her career, had been separated for six years “and although they will always take care of each other, they have decided to live their lives separately,” confirmed a spokesperson.
The couple’s last public appearance was at the 2018 Oscars. By then she had just bought a house in Pasadena, next to Los Angeles, and shortly after she would put her New York penthouse up for sale. She asked for 25 million dollars and ended up getting rid of him for 16. Beyond that, not a word, not a speculation. Streep has been present in the media these years, as have her children. Henry, the eldest, is a musician; Mamie, Grace and Louisa, actresses. In these years they have gotten married, they have had children, they have taken on new roles. But there hasn’t been a single piece of news, not even in the rumor category, about Meryl and Don’s split.
It is precisely that privacy that helps further inflame the Streep myth. A simplicity—for some feigned, for the majority fully authentic; She is such a good actress that no one will ever know—that she has made her become the jackpot (especially for the organization and the city) of the Princess of Asturias. The city has devoted itself to her, to an actress who is not common to see on a daily basis, nor captured by the paparazzi, much less in a town like Oviedo. She has more than returned what she received, fueling her own myth. He has met with young people, he has been photographed with children, he has cried in his meetings, he has left headlines—“No one does anything in Hollywood unless they think they are going to make a lot of money”—and he has even eaten at Casa Fermín. She has not denied a photo, a smile, a signature. She has even fascinated the Royal Family. The images of Princess Leonor looking at her in ecstasy or the affectionate comment of Queen Letizia in a group with journalists (“she is so kind…”) are the latest representation of Streep’s no-fuss greatness.
The actress’s private life was relatively public in the beginning. And so painful that she, later, created an armor to protect her. Her first serious relationship was in the mid-seventies, with actor John Cazale, an intimate of Al Pacino and Robert de Niro. They fell deeply in love and soon began living together. But in 1977, when she was preparing what was her fifth and last film, The hunter, Cazale was diagnosed with a tumor in his lung that ended up turning into cancer. Streep, who was just starting her career, did not want to leave her side for a moment. She couldn’t pay the medical bills, so she decided to film a series in Austria, just for money, as she later admitted. Al Pacino, who took his friend to radiation therapy sessions, said in an interview in the early 2000s that Streep was always there: “I never saw someone so devoted to someone while John was going down. Seeing her in that act of love was overwhelming. She took care of him like there was no one else on earth.” Cazale died on March 12, 1978, at the age of 42. She was 28. She immediately fled her New York apartment, loaded with memories, and went to the house of a friend of her brother Harry. That friend was Don Gummer. Six months later they were married. And Streep decided, and managed, to make as few headlines as possible for her private life.
Since then, the Streep myth has continued to grow, unstoppable and eternal. Without haste, without noise, she has become the best actress of her generation, and probably of a few others. She has done it without personal scandals, without cameras at the door, without loud headlines. Something rare in this frenetic world where you need to be there, present, every minute, and that far from diminishing her legend has allowed the focus to focus more on those “extraordinary characters” than on her person. A perfect, almost impossible combination, which makes Meryl Streep deliciously fascinating.
#Meryl #Streep #fascination #star #bright #discreet