It’s impossible to squeeze Meryl Streep’s biography into a few sentences. That’s why books have been written about her. It’s probably also why critics keep calling her the greatest actress of her time, because in the end that’s who Meryl Streep is. In a nutshell, Streep has reinvented herself over the course of the 40 years of her career time and again, going new directions and never doing the expected, to surprising or frustrating results. She remains a performer on the highest level and, quite deservingly, the icon that she has been always been. You can read about her in this year-by-year chronology with shortcuts to pictures, articles, quotes and projects.

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