Birthday Beauty Break: Charlotte & Jennifer & Barbara & Laura
Friday, February 5, 2016 at 12:24AM February 5th is a big day for Actress birthdays. Two of this year's Oscar nominees are celebrating birthdays today! How about that? Charlotte Rampling, Best Actress nominee, is 70 today and Jennifer Jason Leigh, Best Supporting Actress nominee, is 54. And to round out the 1-time nominee party, it's also Barbara Hershey's special day. She's 67. Finally, since The Lovely Laura Linney, turning 52, is one of our most beloved actresses we can't leave her out if we're talking Oscar love.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY OSCAR BEAUTIES!
After the jump, I've selected 7 of their most important performances each (excluding current roles) and, to make it more fun, they're in chronological order so you can see how the careers overlap. Sound off on these beauties in the comments.
Georgy Girl (1966)
The Damned (1969)
The Babymaker (1970)
The Night Porter (1974)
The Stuntman (1980)
Stardust Memories (1980) 
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) 
The Verdict (1982)
The Entity (1982)
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
A World Apart (1988)
Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989)
Single White Female (1992)
Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994)
Georgia (1995) 
Primal Fear (1996)
Portrait of a Lady (1997)
The Wings of the Dove (1997)
The Truman Show (1998)
EXistenZ (1999)
You Can Count On Me (2000)
The House of Mirth (2000)
Under the Sand (2000)
Kinsey (2004)
The Squid and the Whale (2005)
Margot at the Wedding (2007)
The Savages (2007)
Black Swan (2010)
Reader Comments (32)
How fun to imagine them all going out for drinks together to celebrate.
Does anyone think Barbara Hershey looks like Sigourney Weaver in the Hannah poster?
Beautiful post, but I wish Swimming Pool had been included -- my first Rampling!
What a fascinating look at four very different careers. I know that you can't post everything, but Andrew Bovell gave both Hershey and Linney great roles, in Lantana and Jindabyne respectively.
/3rtful - Did you mean the still from A World Apart? Because she reminds me of Sigourney in Working Girl in that one (both are 1988 movies, too).
I want Laura Linney to complete her great sibling trilogy.
James -- yeah i felt bad for leaving that one out but there are a lot of choices with Rampling because she made good films in every decade.
ben1283 -- i considered Jindabyne but feared no one would know it so it seemed strange as a highlight.
SanFran -- YES. but what would they each order?
Everyone -- I think the strangest thing about looking at this chronologically is that you can see how enduring Rampling is... how Hershey pops up every once in a blue moon with something brilliant but never seems to catch a significant career wave... and you realize how much of Linney's fame is actually from TV and how likeable she is over all because there are way too few good films.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY GIRLS!
And it's just shocking that none of them has an Oscar.
I just so love The Savages, Linney is breathtaking and that would have been me and my sister is our parents are abnormal too.
Rampling: one of a kind beauty.
THE SAVAGES needs a blu-ray release or some Netflix play. I hate how unavailable that film has become and it's not even a decade old!
I absolutely love this! Please do it again! Do it in June with all those marvelous Gemini actresses.
You're so right about Hershey. I recently saw again Portrait of a Lady and she's on fire.
What a fantastic post. Thank you so much!
I see the similarities in Weaver & Hershey but they are totally different actresses,Hershey is sheer perfection in TPOAL but I would have loved to see Weaver in that Black Swan role.
Ray Lawrence, I think, not Andrew Bovell?
Was thinking about watching The Night Porter tonight. I've never seen it!
Barbara Hershey in Shy People. Fierce.
Nick -- i don't remember it well but it's crazy
Peggy Sue -- i love her in that one, too. such an underrated actress.
@Nick Davis You're right, of course. Andrew Bovell is the Lantana screenwriter and I'm confusing the two. Speaking of, Kerry Armstrong is one of my absolutely favourite debut performances in that film.
oh how i love margot at the wedding.
also: am i the only one who think barbara hershey was flat out robbed of an oscar nom for black swan?! that's a seriously terrifying performance.
Did you mean the still from A World Apart?
No the poster for Hannah and Her Sisters with Hershey in the middle smiling giving me Sigourney Weaver familiar/similar.
Knowing all the actresses featured are Oscar-less makes the Oscars seem irrelevant to anything substantial.
Love this post and love these actresses!! :) I think you picked the perfect Rampling movies- Under The Sand is essential viewing
Terrific post about a wonderful group of actresses. It's a shame that Barbara Hershey has had such an up and down career but like Charlotte Rampling she just keeps plugging away having a far more enduring run than many actresses that hit it big for a few years and then sort of fade away.
It is quite a day for celebrity birthdays aside from these four ladies it's also Michael Sheen, Tom Wilkinson, John Carradine and Red Buttons birth date as well.
I still cannot believe AMPAS didn't recognize Charlotte in Stardust Memories. What a haunting performance.
@NATHANIEL: Birthday drinks...
JJL -- a Manhattan, in honor of Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle
Charlotte -- a glass of Burgundy wine or a pint of ale, depending on if she's feeling more French or British
Barbara -- a Black Magic (it contains charcoal...look it up) in honor of Black Swan, her last really chewy role
Lovely Laura -- an Irish Coffee, just like her character from Tales of the City drinks (yes, it's a TV reference, sigh)
brookesboy: The biggest surprise "Rampling wasn't nominated for that?" is, and will always be, The Verdict.
Volvagia, I love The Verdict and I love La Rampling in it. However, that Oscar lineup for Supporting Actress is perfection--Lange, Garr, Close, Stanley and Warren. I can't get rid of any of those ladies. Who would you take out?
Aaahhh Under the Sand is such a great and powerful movie! My first Charlotte Rampling experience back in the days with Swimming pool as well. And Rampling was incredible beautiful. And those EYES!
brookesboy -- well according to Garr you should take Lange right out and put her in lead! Stealing her Oscar. But I think Warren should've won that year.
You should include pictures of Ms Hershey from the TV show Once Upon a Time. I know you stopped watching it, but she was just wonderful on it. And they knew how to dress her. Her costumes were gorgeous!
Dakota Johnson kind of resembles a young Charlotte Rampling. Anyone else see it?
All 4 beautiful women. Charlotte Rampling still has it going on. I will confess that seeing her naked in Swimming Pool was fucking sexy and yes, I jacked off to that scene.
ben1283, Kerry Armstrong had actually been working for several decades before LANTANA. She got an "and introducing..." credit in the American trailer for some reason. Maybe they thought she'd break out from it as the only one of the major four to not be known internationally.
Just re-watched Hoosiers and was reminded of how wonderful Barbara Hershey was in it. They don't make sincere, humanistic movies with that kind of honesty and restraint of acting and filmmaking very often anymore.