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50 facts about actor, producer and comedian Alec Baldwin.
1. Baldwin was born in Amityville, New York.
2. He is the eldest son of Carol Newcomb and Alexander Rae Baldwin, Jr..
3. His father was a high school history/social studies teacher and football coach.
4. He has three younger brothers, Daniel, William, and Stephen.
5. All of his brothers are also actors.
6. He also has two sisters, Beth and Jane.
7. Alec and his siblings were raised as Roman Catholics.
8. They are of English, Irish, Scottish, French, and German ancestry.
9. Through his father, Alec Baldwin is descended from Mayflower passenger John Howland and through this line is the 13th generation of his family born in North America and the 14th generation to live in North America.
10. Baldwin attended Alfred G. Berner High School in Massapequa and played football there under Coach Bob Reifsnyder.
11. In New York City, Baldwin worked as a busboy at the disco Studio 54.
12. From 1976 to 1979, he attended George Washington University, afterward transferring to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.
13. He studied with, among others, Geoffrey Horne and Mira Rostova at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute.
14. He was accepted as a member of the Actors Studio.
15. Baldwin eventually returned to NYU in 1994, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.
16. His full name is Alexander Rae "Alec" Baldwin III.
17. He is also a producer, and comedian.
18. Baldwin first gained recognition appearing on seasons 6 and 7 of the CBS television drama Knots Landing, in the role of Joshua Rush.
19. He has since played both leading and supporting roles in films such as the horror comedy fantasy film Beetlejuice, as Jack Ryan in the action thriller The Hunt for Red October, the romantic comedy The Marrying Man, the superhero film The Shadow, and two films directed by Martin Scorsese: the Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator and the neo-noir crime drama The Departed.
20. His performance in the 2003 romantic drama The Cooler garnered him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
21. From 2006 to 2013, Baldwin starred as Jack Donaghy on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, winning two Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and seven Screen Actors Guild Awards for his work on the show, making him the male performer with the most SAG Awards.
22. Baldwin co-starred in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, the fifth installment of the Mission: Impossible series, released on July 31, 2015.
23. He is also a columnist for The Huffington Post.
24. Baldwin made his Broadway debut in 1986 in a revival of Joe Orton's Loot alongside Zoë Wanamaker, Željko Ivanek, Joseph Maher and Charles Keating.
25. His other Broadway credits include Caryl Churchill's Serious Money with Kate Nelligan and a revival of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, for which his performance as Stanley Kowalski garnered a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor.
26. Baldwin also received an Emmy nomination for the 1995 television version of the production, in which both he and Jessica Lange reprised their roles, alongside John Goodman and Diane Lane.
27. In 1998, Baldwin played the title role in Macbeth at The Public Theater alongside Angela Bassett and Liev Schreiber in a production directed by George C. Wolfe.
28. In 2004, Baldwin starred in a revival of Twentieth Century with Anne Heche.
29. On June 9, 2005, he appeared in a concert version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific at Carnegie Hall. He starred as Luther Billis, alongside Reba McEntire as Nellie and Brian Stokes Mitchell as Emile.
30. In 2006, Baldwin made theater news in Roundabout Theatre Company's Off-Broadway revival of Joe Orton's Entertaining Mr. Sloane.
31. Baldwin has returned to Broadway as Harold in Orphans. The show, which opened April 18, 2013, was also to have starred Shia LaBeouf as Treat, but LaBoeuf left the production in rehearsals and was replaced by Ben Foster.
32. On January 12, 2009, Baldwin became the host of The New York Philharmonic This Week, the nationally broadcast radio series of the New York Philharmonic. He has recorded two nationally-distributed public service radio announcements on behalf of the Save the Manatee Club.
33. On October 24, 2011, WNYC public radio released the first episode of Baldwin's new podcast Here's the Thing, a series of interviews with public figures including artists, policy-makers and performers. The first two episodes featured actor Michael Douglas and political consultant Ed Rollins.
34. Baldwin made his film debut with a minor role in the 1987 film Forever, Lulu.
35. In 1988, he appeared in Beetlejuice and Working Girl.
36. He gained further recognition as a leading man with his role as Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October.
37. He starred in Prelude to a Kiss with Meg Ryan, which was based on the Broadway play.
38. Also in 1994, Baldwin made a foray into pulp fiction-based movies with the role of the title character in The Shadow. The film made $48 million.
39. In 1996 and 1997, he continued to work in several thrillers, including The Edge, The Juror and Heaven's Prisoners.
40. Baldwin shifted towards character acting, beginning with Pearl Harbor in 2001. He played Lt. Col. James Doolittle in the film.
41. Baldwin was nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for his performance in the 2003 gambling drama The Cooler.
42. In 1990, Baldwin met his future wife, actress Kim Basinger, when they played lovers in the film The Marrying Man.
43. In 1998, he became the third narrator and George Carlin's replacement for the fifth and sixth seasons of Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. He left the series in 2002 on winning the role of Lawrence Quinn in The Cat in the Hat and was replaced by Michael Brandon.
44. In 2002, Baldwin appeared in two episodes of Friends as Phoebe Buffay's overly enthusiastic love interest, Parker. He also portrayed a recurring character in a number of episodes in seasons 7 and 8 of Will & Grace, in which he played Malcolm, a "top secret agent" and the lover of Karen Walker (Megan Mullally).
45. Baldwin and Basinger married in 1993.
46. The couple has a daughter, Ireland.
47. On January 12, 2001, Basinger filed for a divorce, which was finalized in 2002.
48. By August 2011, Baldwin began dating Hilaria Thomas, a yoga instructor with Yoga Vida in Manhattan.
49. The couple became engaged in April 2012 and married on June 30, 2012, at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral in New York City.
50. They have two children together, a daughter Carmen and a son on Twitter - Rafael Thomas Baldwin.
