Born April 3, 1958, Alec grew up in Massapequa, Long Island where his father was a high school teacher for twenty-eight years and his mother raised six children, including his sisters, Beth and Jane. Alec is the eldest of his brothers, Daniel, William, and Stephen Baldwin, all of whom are actors in film and television.
Alec attended George Washington University and planned to attend law school, when he auditioned for the New York University Undergraduate Drama Program on a dare. He was accepted, and in 1979 began what would become his professional training. In 1980, he was cast in the daytime TV series "The Doctors" on NBC and has worked in nearly every venue as a professional actor ever since.
Whether in regional theater or on Saturday Night Live, blockbuster movies or Broadway, literary festivals or television mini-series, Alec has always attempted to balance his love of communicating with an audience with the demands of a motion picture and television career.
On Broadway, Baldwin appeared in The Roundabout Theatre Company's 2006 revival of Joe Orton's Entertaining Mr. Sloane directed by Scott Ellis. His previous work with The Roundabout Theatre Company was with their 2004 revival of Hecht and MacArthur's The Twentieth Century, directed by Walter Bobbie, co-starring Anne Heche. He was nominated for a Tony Award for his performance in the 1992 revival of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, was nominated for an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award for the television movie of that same production, won an Obie Award for the 1991 off-Broadway production of Craig Lucas' Prelude to a Kiss and a Theatre World Award in 1986 for his turn in Joe Orton's Loot on Broadway. He has also performed on Broadway in Caryl Churchill's Serious Money. Other stage work includes David Mamet's Life in the Theatre (directed by the late AJ Antoon) at the Williamstown Theatre Festival and Ira Lewis's Gross Points at the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, New York.
Alec has starred in several films, including Beetlejuice, Miami Blues, The Hunt for Red October, Malice, The Shadow, Glengarry Glen Ross, Heaven's Prisoners, Ghosts of Mississippi, The Edge, The Cat in the Hat, The Aviator, The Departed, Running with Scissors, The Good Shepherd, It’s Complicated, and many others. He received the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor for The Cooler, directed by Wayne Kramer (2003) and was nominated for an Oscar for the same film.
On television, Baldwin is currently starring in NBC's Emmy award winning comedy series, 30 ROCK, for which he received several Golden Globe, SAG and Television Critics Association awards as Best Actor in a comedy. Baldwin has starred on Knot's Landing for CBS and numerous other TV shows, including Dress Grey (a miniseries for NBC), Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial (for TNT) and appearances on Saturday Night Live (too many to count).
His production company, El Dorado Pictures, has produced such films as The Confession (for Showtime) which won the Writer's Guild Award for Best original screenplay and David Mamet's State and Main, among others.
Alec is an out-spoken supporter of various causes related to public policy, including environmentalism, the government's support of the arts, campaign finance reform, animal rights and gun control. He serves on the board of directors of the East Hampton Daycare Center, People For American Way and NYU Tisch School of the Arts Dean's Council. He is on the advisory board of the NYU/Brennan Center for Justice and the Carol M. Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund. He is a vigorous supporter of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), just to name a couple.
Baldwin is a graduate of New York University (BFA, Tisch School of the Arts), 1994.
Alec has a daughter, Ireland Eliesse.
About his career,, Alec has said, "Acting has provided me with some of the highest highs in my life. I hope that I will have the opportunity to make more films and appear in shows that people want to see. To be able to do this for a living is a tremendous gift."
Alec's book, A Promise to Ourselves, published by St. Martin's Press, was published in 2008.
![[Alec Baldwin]](/images/_images/pops/AlecBaldwinx95.jpg)
