Actress Jessica Lange

When onetime fashion model Jessica Lange debuted as an actress, it was in the 1976 remake of King Kong. Critics wrote her off as a "former and future model."

These same critics have since had to eat crow.



Jessica Lange soon established herself as one of Hollywood's most accomplished actresses. Ironically, it was another remake - the 1981 version of The Postman Always Rings Twice, co-starring Jack Nicholson - that did it.

Since then, she has bowled over audiences in Frances (playing actress Frances Farmer), Sweet Dreams (as country singer Patsy Cline), Men Don't Leave, Blue Sky, and Big Fish, to name a few.

Perhaps her most memorable role, however, was in Tootsie as soap opera actress Julie Nichols, the love interest of Dustin Hoffman's cross-dressing character.

She plays Jacqueline Kennedy's eccentric Aunt Edie in the HBO adaptation of the biographical documentary Grey Gardens, premiering this weekend.