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Frank Langella

Frank LangellaAKA Frank A. Langella, Jr.

Born: 1-Jan-1938
Birthplace: Bayonne, NJ

Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Matter of Dispute
Occupation: Actor

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Dracula and Dave

Frank Langella's voice sounds almost European, but he was raised in New Jersey. He lost the accent as a teenager, by listening over and over again to records of John Gielgud performing Shakespeare. Before finding steady work as an actor, he was able to pay the rent by singing folk tunes in coffee shops. His first professional play was an Erie Playhouse production of The Pajama Game in 1960, and his other stage roles include Antonio Salieri in the Broadway production of Amadeus. He has won two Tonys, for Seascape with Deborah Kerr in 1975, and Fortune's Fool with Alan Bates in 2002.

Already an accomplished actor, in Langella's first film, Diary of a Mad Housewife in 1970, he played the roguish and illicit lover of Carrie Snodgress. In his second film, Mel Brooks' classic The Twelve Chairs, Langella was again a lothario, memorably telling a beautiful woman, "I am very much in lust with you." In John Badham's 1979 Dracula, Langella's portrayal avoided the overwrought campiness of Bela Lugosi. Langella had already played the Count in a Broadway production of Dracula, and some aficionados of horror consider Langella's film interpretation to be unsurpassed. He also dripped with evil as the coldhearted White House Chief of Staff in Dave with Kevin Kline. He has played Leonardo Da Vinci and Sherlock Holmes in TV movies, done song and dance in Those Lips, Those Eyes with Tom Hulce, and played Daily Planet editor Perry White in Superman Returns.

Langella generally eschews talk shows and publicity interviews, and rarely speaks publicly of his personal life.

Father: Frank Langella, Sr. (CEO of a barrel and drum company)
Wife: Ruth Weil (editor of House Beautiful, b. 1941, m. 14-Jun-1977, div. 1996, two children)
Son: (b. 1983, by Ruth)
Daughter: (b. 1985, by Ruth)
Girlfriend: Whoopi Goldberg (actress, cohabited Oct-1995 to Mar-2001)

    High School: Columbia High School, Maplewood, NJ
    University: BA Drama, Syracuse University (1959)

    Alpha Chi Rho Fraternity
    Tony 1975 for Seascape
    Tony 2002 for Fortune's Fool
    Italian Ancestry

    TELEVISION
    Kitchen Confidential Pino (2005-06)
    Unscripted Goddard Fulton (2005)
    The Beast Jackson Burns (2001)

    FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
    All the Way (21-May-2016)
    Captain Fantastic (23-Jan-2016)
    The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst (8-Feb-2015)
    Grace of Monaco (14-May-2014)
    5 to 7 (19-Apr-2014)
    Draft Day (11-Apr-2014)
    Parts Per Billion (25-Mar-2014)
    Muppets Most Wanted (19-Mar-2014)
    Noah (10-Mar-2014) [VOICE]
    The Time Being (11-Sep-2012)
    Genius on Hold (13-Apr-2012) · Narrator [VOICE]
    Robot & Frank (20-Jan-2012)
    Unknown (18-Feb-2011) · Rodney Cole
    All Good Things (5-Nov-2010) · Sanford Marks
    Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (14-May-2010) · Louis Zabel
    The Box (29-Oct-2009) · Arlington Steward
    The Tale of Despereaux (19-Dec-2008) · Mayor [VOICE]
    Frost/Nixon (15-Oct-2008)
    The Caller (26-Sep-2008) · Jimmy
    Starting Out in the Evening (Jan-2007) · Leonard Schiller
    Superman Returns (28-Jun-2006)
    10.5: Apocalypse (18-Mar-2006)
    The Water Is Wide (29-Jan-2006)
    Good Night, and Good Luck (1-Sep-2005)
    Now You See It... (14-Jan-2005)
    Back in the Day (15-May-2004)
    House of D (7-May-2004) · Rev. Duncan
    Broadway: The Golden Age (Apr-2003) · Himself
    Sweet November (12-Feb-2001) · Edgar Price
    Stardom (17-May-2000)
    Jason and the Argonauts (7-May-2000) · Aertes
    The Ninth Gate (25-Aug-1999) · Boris Balkan
    Dark Summer (17-May-1999) · Robert Denright
    I'm Losing You (17-Sep-1998) · Perry Krohn
    Small Soldiers (10-Jul-1998) · Archer [VOICE]
    Alegrķa (1998) · Fleur
    Lolita (27-Sep-1997)
    Eddie (31-May-1996) · Wild Bill Burgess
    Moses (7-Apr-1996)
    Cutthroat Island (22-Dec-1995) · Dawg
    Bad Company (20-Jan-1995)
    Junior (24-Nov-1994) · Noah Banes
    Doomsday Gun (23-Jul-1994)
    Brainscan (22-Apr-1994)
    Dave (7-May-1993)
    Body of Evidence (15-Jan-1993) · Jeffrey Roston
    1492: Conquest of Paradise (9-Oct-1992) · Santangel
    True Identity (23-Aug-1991)
    And God Created Woman (1-Jan-1988) · James Tiernan
    Masters of the Universe (7-Aug-1987)
    The Men's Club (Sep-1986) · Harold Canterbury
    Sphinx (11-Feb-1981)
    Those Lips, Those Eyes (15-Aug-1980) · Harry Crystal
    Dracula (20-Jul-1979) · Dracula
    The Mark of Zorro (29-Oct-1974) · Don Diego
    The Wrath of God (14-Jul-1972) · De La Plata
    The Deadly Trap (9-Jun-1971)
    The Twelve Chairs (28-Oct-1970)
    Diary of a Mad Housewife (10-Aug-1970)

Author of books:
Dropped Names: Famous Men and Women As I Knew Them (2012, memoir)


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