Alec Baldwin’s career began in 1980 with a role in the daytime soap opera The Doctors, which was followed by a stint in the primetime soap Knot’s Landing from 1984 to 1985. He made his Broadway debut in Joe Orton’s Loot in 1986, and a year later he made his film debut in Forever Lulu. Baldwin has demonstrated his flexibility as an actor in films such as Beetlejuice, Working Girl, The Hunt for Red October, The Cooler, The Departed, and Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. He won two Emmys and three Golden Globes for his portrayal as TV executive Jack Donaghy in the sitcom 30 Rock, and he holds the record for presenting Saturday Night Live the most times.
Early Life and Famous Brothers
Baldwin, the second of six children, was born Alexander Rae Baldwin III on April 3, 1958, in Amityville, New York. He grew up in Massapequa, a Long Island, New York neighborhood. Daniel, William, and Stephen, his brothers, were also actors.
Baldwin studied political science at George Washington University with the intention of attending law school. However, his childhood passion for acting resurfaced in college, prompting him to relocate to Manhattan to study drama at New York University’s Lee Strasberg Institute.
One of Baldwin’s first jobs was as a bus boy at New York City’s famed nightclub Studio 54.
Movies and TV Shows
‘The Doctors,’ ‘Knots Landing’
Baldwin’s television career began in 1980, when he got the part of Billy Aldrich on the NBC soap opera The Doctors (1980-1982). He quickly transitioned to primetime television, co-starring in Cutter to Houston and as Joshua Rush in the nighttime soap opera Knots Landing (1984-85). In 1988, he took over as narrator of the popular animated children’s show Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends from George Carlin.
He also pursued a theatre career, debuting on Broadway in Joe Orton’s black comedy Loot (1986), for which he received a Theatre World Award. Caryl Churchill’s successful comedy Serious Money (1987) was his next stage role. He also appeared off-Broadway in a sold-out run of Prelude to a Kiss, for which he received an Obie Award for Best Actor in 1991. In 1992, he would reprise this role on cinema.
Baldwin later played Stanley Kowalski in a revival of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire (1992), for which he received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor. He later performed in a CBS production of the play in 1995, alongside Jessica Lange, John Goodman, and Diane Lane. Baldwin returned to the stage in 1998, co-starring with Angela Bassett in Shakespeare’s Hamlet at New York City’s Joseph Papp Public Theater.
‘Beetlejuice,’ The Hunt for Red October’ and ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’
Baldwin made his cinematic debut in Forever Lulu (1987), alongside Deborah Harry and Dr. Ruth Westheimer. Tim Burton’s offbeat comedy Beetlejuice (1988), Jonathan Demme’s Married to the Mob (1988) with Michelle Pfeiffer, Oliver Stone’s Talk Radio (1988), Mike Nichols’ Working Girl (1988), playing Jimmy Swaggart in Great Balls of Fire (1989), and starring in Miami Blues (1990) and The Hunt For Red October (1990) were among his subsequent film highlights. He was also a member of David Mamet’s all-star ensemble cast in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), and he appeared in the film adaptations of Prelude to a Kiss (1992) and The Shadow (1994).
‘The Cooler,’ ‘The Aviator’ and ‘The Departed’
Baldwin continued his cinematic career, appearing in the 1998 drama Mercury Rising and the 1999 comedy Outside Providence before making an uncredited cameo in 1999’s Notting Hill, starring Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. In 2003, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the romantic thriller The Cooler. In 2004, he participated in The Aviator, Martin Scorsese’s Howard Hughes biopic starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and Along Came Polly, a quirky comedy starring Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston. In 2005, he collaborated with Scorsese once more on The Departed.
’30 Rock’
Baldwin secured a prominent role as TV producer Jack Donaghy in Tina Fey’s hit television series 30 Rock in 2006. He won three Golden Globes, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and two Emmy Awards for his performance in the sitcom. Baldwin also worked behind the scenes on 30 Rock as a producer.
‘Mission Impossible,’ Boss Baby’ and ‘The Public’
Baldwin returned to the big screen in 2009, co-starring with Meryl Streep and Steve Martin in the romantic comedy It’s Complicated, and in 2012, co-starring with Tom Cruise and Catherine Zeta-Jones in Rock of Ages. He then co-starred in Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation in 2015, and three years later in Mission Impossible — Fallout.
Baldwin’s unusual, deep voice has been used in documentaries and animated pictures such as Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008) and Rise of the Guardians (2012). He also played the title character in the animated film Boss Baby (2017) and a polar bear in Arctic Dogs (2019).
Around that time, he appeared in the ensemble drama The Public, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2018, before moving on to the crime film Motherless Brooklyn and the comedies Before You Know It and Drunk Parents in 2019.
Talk Show Host and ‘Saturday Night Live’
Baldwin tried his hand at hosting a talk show in the fall of 2013, but it was a brief venture.Up Late with Alec Baldwin only aired a few times before its host got into trouble. The show was canceled after Baldwin made homophobic slurs to a New York photojournalist, and he quickly left MSNBC. In 2018, he returned to hosting with The Alec Baldwin Show.
Baldwin, a classical music enthusiast, hosts the New York Philharmonic’s radio broadcast. He has also hosted Saturday Night Live 17 times and delivered a popular impersonation of President Donald Trump on the show, for which he was nominated for another Emmy in 2017.
Marriages and Children
In 1993, Baldwin married actress Kim Basinger, with whom he has one daughter, Ireland Eliesse. Basinger filed for divorce in January 2001, following seven years of marriage. Following their divorce, there were allegations of domestic violence and alcoholism, as well as a bitter custody battle over the couple’s daughter.
Baldwin was awarded joint legal custody of his daughter after their divorce proceedings in 2004. However, in May 2007, the courts temporarily revoked his visitation rights after his 11-year-old daughter made public an expletive-laden phone message he left her in April of that year.
In August 2011, Baldwin began dating yoga instructor Hilaria Thomas. The pair got engaged in April of the following year and married on July 1, 2012, at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral in New York City. Among their guests were Jimmy Fallon, Lorne Michaels, Tina Fey, and Woody Allen. Carmen, the couple’s first child, was born in August of 2013. They had four sons: Rafael (born in June 2015), Leonardo (born in September 2016), Romeo (born in May 2018), and Eduardo (born in September 2020). Thomas announced the birth of their daughter, Lucia, on Instagram in February 2021.
Books and Other Endeavors
Baldwin wrote A Promise to Ourselves in 2008, which detailed his battle to keep custody and visitation rights for his daughter. In the book, he claimed that he had spent millions on trips, purchased a property near Basinger, and taken a career pause to be closer to his daughter. As a result, he said, his frustration spilled over into a court-ordered phone call to his daughter, which she did not answer. He told Playboy magazine in 2009 that he had considered suicide as a result of the voicemail event.
Baldwin gave an interview to Good Morning America anchor George Stephanopoulos in 2017, before to the release of his memoir Nevertheless, in which he detailed his difficulties with alcoholism, a drug overdose that he kept quiet for many years, and becoming sober in 1985. “I got sober when I was just about to turn 27,” Baldwin explained in the interview. “And those two years I lived in that white, hot period, as a daily drug abuser, as a daily drinker… to my misery, boy, that was a tough time.”
Baldwin is a vocal advocate for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and has supported community theater organizations such as the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, New York, and the now-defunct Circle Repertory Theatre in New York City. Baldwin also serves on the boards of The Creative Coalition, People for the American Way, The New York City Center, and The Drama League of New York.
