Frank Langella

Early life and education

Langella was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, to Angelina Barbito and Frank Alexander Langella Sr., a business executive. He attended Washington Elementary School and Bayonne High School before his family moved to South Orange, where he graduated from Columbia High School in 1955. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in drama from Syracuse University in 1959.

Career

Langella made his off-Broadway debut in The Immoralist in 1963 and first appeared on Broadway in Yerma in 1966. He won his first Tony Award for Seascape in 1975 and was nominated for his title role in the 1977 Broadway production of Dracula, which he later played in the 1979 film. He portrayed Sherlock Holmes in a 1981 adaptation and again on Broadway in 1987. Langella played Skeletor in Masters of the Universe in 1987 and co-starred in And God Created Woman in 1988.

He replaced Ian McKellen as Antonio Salieri in the Broadway production of Amadeus in 1982. His film roles include The Twelve Chairs, Diary of a Mad Housewife, Dave, The Ninth Gate, Good Night, and Good Luck, Starting Out in the Evening, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, All Good Things, Robot & Frank, Noah, Captain Fantastic, and The Trial of the Chicago 7. He received an Academy Award nomination for reprising his role as Richard Nixon in the film Frost/Nixon.

On television, he played Warren Burger in Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight, Richard Russell Jr. in All the Way, Gabriel in The Americans, and Sebastian Piccirillo in Kidding.

Personal life

Langella was married to Ruth Weil from 1977 until their divorce in 1995; they have two children, Frank III and Sara. He lived with Whoopi Goldberg from 1995 to 2000. He published a memoir, Dropped Names: Famous Men and Women As I Knew Them, in 2012.