Meryl Streep on screen and stage Deer Hunter" (1978) proved to be a breakthrough for Streep and she received her first Academy Award nomination for it. She won the award the following year for playing a troubled wife in the top-grossing drama "Kramer vs. Kramer" (1979). Also in 1978, Streep played a German married to a Jew in Nazi Germany in the television miniseries "Holocaust", which earned her the Emmy Award for Best Actress. Streep established herself as a leading Hollywood actress in the 1980s. She played dual roles in the period drama "The French Lieutenant's Woman" (1981), and starred as a Polish Holocaust survivor in
Meryl Streep on June 22, 1949, in Summit, New Jersey. She is the daughter of Mary Wilkinson Streep (née Mary Wolf Wilkinson, 1915-2001), a commercial artist and art editor; and Harry William Streep, Jr. (1910-2003), a pharmaceutical executive. She has two younger brothers: Harry William Streep III (born 1951) and Dana David Streep (born 1953), who are also actors. Streep's father Harry was of German and Swiss ancestry. Her father's lineage traces back to Loffenau, Germany, from where her second great-grandfather, Gottfried Streeb, immigrated to the United States, and where one of her ancestors served as mayor (the surname was later changed