Who knew? Meryl Streep’s mother was born in Brooklyn
Brooklyn BookBeat: An Interview With New Streep Biographer Michael Schulman
When HarperCollins sent me a review copy of Michael Schulman’s “Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep” my initial reaction was “Is there really anything new to learn about Meryl Streep?” Even the cover photograph of a young, pensive Streep, chin resting on her hand, annoyed me. It’s now been 40 years since she made her first screen appearance opposite Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave in Fred Zinnemann’s “Julia” and 45 years since she made her Broadway theater debut in “Trelawny of the Wells,” produced by Joe Papp (resilient survivor of a destitute Brooklyn childhood and legendary New York theater impresario.) Is there really anything we don’t already know about the “world’s greatest actress”?
It turns out the answer is yes. For example, who knew that Streep’s mother was born in Brooklyn and later studied at the Art Student League? Or that Streep’s father, the son of a traveling salesman, would one day sob while watching his grandson in a high school production of “Death of a Salesman”? The book’s author, Michael Schulman, has pulled off a Sherlock Holmes-worthy act of dogged and determined sleuthing and has written a compulsively readable biography. Schulman, who is a contributor and arts editor at The New Yorker and a frequent contributor to The New York Times and Vanity Fair, has unearthed people and episodes from Streep’s past that clarify and illuminate why she is who she is. The biography avoids both hagiography and slander. Schulman is neither Mr. Bernstein from “Citizen Kane” nor the reporter from “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence” (“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”) Instead, although he’s an admitted fan, he is fair and balanced, and unlike Fox News, has no agenda.
Below are edited excerpts from our recent conversation.