Alec Baldwin

Guide Note: Actor Alec Baldwin started his career on the television dramas Doctors and Knots Landing, and went on to a successful film career. He can currently be seen in the Tina Fey sitcom 30 Rock as the confident, and ultra-conservative, GE executive Jack Donaghy.

Fast Facts

1. Born April 3, 1958 in Massapequa, New York
2. Birth name: Alexander Rae Baldwin III
3. First major role: Billy Aldrich on daytime soap The Doctors
4. Nominated for 5 Emmy Awards
5. Has hosted Saturday Night Live 13 times
6. Worked as a busboy at Studio 54
7. Oldest of the acting Baldwin brothers
8. Wrote a 1998 episode of Law & Order

Career Overview

Baldwin studied acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in New York City. After making his name on Knots Landing in the mid-1980s, he starred in a string of successful films: Beetlejuice, Working Girl and The Hunt for Red October. In 1992, Baldwin joined an all-star cast in the film adaptation of the David Mamet play Glengarry Glen Ross, performing a monologue written specifically for the film.

Other notable Baldwin films include the effects-heavy reimagining of The Shadow, the medical thriller Malice, The Cooler (a role for which Baldwin was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar) and back-to-back collaborations with director Martin Scorsese: The Aviator and The Departed.

He was nominated for an Emmy in 2007 for his role on 30 Rock, currently in its second season.

Personal Life

Baldwin met his ex-wife, actress Kim Basinger, in 1991 on the set of the film The Marrying Man. The two divorced in 2000 and have had a contentious relationship ever since.

On April 19, 2007, the website TMZ published an angry, ranting phone message left by Baldwin for his 12-year-old daughter with Basinger, Ireland Eliesse. Basinger denied that she had any involvement with leaking the tape, and Baldwin publicly apologized for losing his temper, claiming that he's suffering from parental alienation.

Know Your Baldwins!

1. Eldest: Alec, 30 Rock
2. Second: Daniel, Homicide: Life on the Street
3. Third: William, Backdraft
4. Youngest: Stephen, The Usual Suspects

• Adam Baldwin of Firefly is not a relation