Born May 29, 1958 in Topeka, Kansas, the youngest of four children of a church soloist and an insurance salesman, Annette Bening grew up in San Diego, California. She began acting in junior high school where she played the lead in The Sound of Music. She began her professional career with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival in 1980. By 1984 she was starring as Lady Macbeth at San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theatre where she met first husband J. Steven White (1984-1991). She made her Broadway debut in 1987’s Coastal Disturbances for which she was nominated for a Tony.

In small parts in TV movies from 1986 and the 1988 film, The Great Outdoors, Bening had her first high profile role in 1989’s Valmont, Milos Forman’s film of Les Liaisons Dangereuse, filmed at the same time as Stephen Frears’ 1988 version, Dangerous Liaisons for which Glenn Close earned an Oscar nomination in the same role.

Bening’s role in Frears’ The Grifters earned her an Oscar nomination of her own. Starring opposite Warren Beatty in 1991’s Bugsy, she became pregnant by Hollywood’s most notorious playboy, 21 years her senior, and married him in 1992, providing him with four children early in their now 34-year marriage.

Bening next starred opposite Beatty in 1994’s Love Affair, a poorly received remake of 1939’s Love Affair and 1957’s An Affair to Remember. She rebounded with Richard Loncraine’s Richard III updated to a modern fascist England and Rob Reiner’s The American President opposite Michael Douglas, both in 1995.

Nominated for a second time for an Oscar in 1999’s Best Picture winner, American Beauty, Bening was nominated for a third time for 2004’s Being Julia and for a fourth time for 2010’s The Kids Are All Right.

Even after her four Oscar nominations, Bening continued to do what she has always done, that is take on interesting characters despite the size of the role. Subsequent roles in such films as 2016’s 20th Century Women, 2017’s Film Stars Don’t Live in Liverpool, 2019’s The Report, and 2020’s Hope Gap, all of which generated Oscar talk.

Bening finally received a fifth Oscar nomination for playing the title role of swimmer Diana Nyad in 2023’s Nyad for which Jodie Foster received a nomination for Best Supporting Actress as her best friend and coach.

Currently on screen in The Bride, Bening has four projects in various stages of production including a 9-episode TV series, Dutton Ranch.

Annette Bening remains a formidable screen presence at 67 going on 68..

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT (1995), directed by Rob Reiner

What a different world we lived in thirty-one years ago with a liberal president in the White House and a movie about politics that reflected liberal values without being the least bit controversial. Michael Douglas had one of his best roles as the widowed Clintonesque president and Bening was even better as the environmental lobbyist who becomes his girlfriend. With strong support from Martin Sheen as Douglas’ chief of staff, Michael J. Fox as his domestic advisor, and Richard Dreyfuss as his nasty, mud-slinging conservative opponent in his bid for re-election, this was as smart a comedy-drama as any at the time.

AMERICAN BEAUTY (1999), directed by Sam Mendes

The emphasis in Mendes’ one-of-a-kind comedy-drama of modern suburban American life was on Kevin Spacey in an Oscar-winning performance as the Oscar-winning film’s narrator, a bored middle-aged husband and father who lusts after his 16-year-old daughter’s best friend. Thora Birch is the daughter, Mena Suvari the friend, Wes Bentley the film-obsessed boy-next-door and Chris Cooper is Bentley’s army colonel dad. The film’s most brilliant concoction is Bening’s ambitious wife, a real-estate agent who loves her house more than her husband, a throwback to Rosalind Russell in Craig’s Wife.

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT (2010), directed by Lisa Cholodenko

Nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actress, Bening had her best role to date as half of a lesbian couple with Julianne Moore with whom she is raising their 18-year-old daughter Mia Wasikowska and fifteen-year-old Josh Hutcherson. Bening, Wasikowa’s mother, is a doctor. Moore, Hutchinson’s mother, is a landscaper. The comedy-drama goes into full throttle when the kids track down their biological sperm donor father (Mark Ruffalo) and invite him over for dinner. Things become even more complicated when Moore and Ruffalo begin an affair which brings out the tiger in Bening.

FILM STARS DON’T DIE IN LIVERPOOL (2017), directed by Paul McGuigan

Small-time British actor Peter Turner (Jamie Bell) was in his mid-twenties when he met screen legend Gloria Grahame (Bening) in a rooming house in London where they were both staying. Grahame was in her early fifties. Despite their age differences, they fell in love and Turner took her home to Liverpool to meet his family where she greatly enjoyed their company. Two years later, after they have broken up, the dying Grahame returns to the family’s Liverpool home where she hopes to spend her last days. Both stars are excellent, richly deserving of their BAFA nominations which sadly did not translate into Oscar nominations.

HOPE GAP (2020), directed by William Nicholson

In one of her most unusual roles, Bening flawlessly plays a middle-aged British woman whose husband of 29 years (Bill Nighy) tells her one Sunday morning that he is leaving her for another woman which leaves her grown son the one who must pick up the pieces.  It’s based on writer-director’s Nicholson’s own life story as the son played in the film by Josh O’Connor.  The early scenes of this three-person family is highly reminiscent of the three-person family of Patricia Neal, Jack Albertson, and Martin Sheen in 1968’s The Subject Was Roses but heads off in a different direction as the film goes on.  All three stars are terrific.

ANNETTE BENING AND OSCAR

The Grifters (1990) – nominated – Best Supporting Actress

American Beauty (1999) – nominated – Best Actress

Being Julia (2004) – nominated – Best Actress

The Kids Are All Right (2010) – nominated – Best Actress

Nyad (2023) – nominated – Best Actress