Meryl Streep Turns 75: Inside Her 'Crowded Life' as a Mother, Grandmother and Oscar-Winning Actress

The ‘Only Murders in the Building’ star has offered rare but insightful glimpses into her personal life

Meryl Streep is celebrating a major milestone.

The three-time Oscar winner, turning 75 on Saturday, June 22, continues to thrive as a Hollywood star — and, as she’s revealed in occasional glimpses, as a mother and grandmother.

Streep is mother to four grown kids who she shares with sculptor Don Gummer, 77: Henry, 44, Mamie, 40, Grace, 38, and Louisa, 33.

Married in 1978, Streep and Gummer announced in October of 2023 that they had been separated “for more than 6 years,” according to a representative of the Devil Wears Prada star. “While they will always care for each other, they have chosen lives apart.”

Related: Meryl Streep and Don Gummer: Look Back at Their Relationship Through the Years

Within those six years, Streep became a grandmother of five. Henry and his wife Tamnryn have a son and daughter, Mamie and her husband Mehar Sethi also share a son and daughter, while Grace and her husband — music producer Mark Ronson — had a daughter as recently as 2023. 

Although she has kept her personal life private ever since earning her first of 21 Oscar nominations (a record for actors) for breaking out in 1978’s The Deer Hunter, Streep has commented on enjoying her status as a grandmother. She joked with the late Glenda Jackson in a 2019 Interview magazine conversation about anticipating the arrival of Mamie’s son. “I'm going to go out and ruin her life. I specialize in unsolicited advice,” she quipped at the time.

More recently at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival in May, Streep offered more insight during a "Rendez-Vous with Meryl Streep" event opposite journalist Didier Allouch. Keeping up with movies "never ends," said the honorary Palme d'or recipient. “I haven't seen enough films, and I have four children who are grown… also I have five grandchildren, so I don't sit and watch enough movies.”

She has said, however, which movies the extended Gummer clan does play. "Mean Girls and Romy and Michele's High School Reunion are pretty much religious texts in my house," Streep told Vogue in September of 2023, celebrating the 15th anniversary of her hit film Mamma Mia!

Her family, she made clear while speaking in Cannes, remains a top priority. “It’s a crowded life. But I signed up for that and that's what I have.” Shouting out her Big Little Lies producer-costars Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman, she added, “Everybody has their own production company. And I had a production company: babies! And that's what I chose.”

Related: Meryl Streep Delivers Stealth Wealth Style at Its Finest with 2 French-Inspired Looks in Cannes

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It’s not the first time Streep has indicated that while she’s worked hard to keep her heralded screen career going, family comes first. "Motherhood, marriage, it's a balancing act," she told Good Housekeeping in 2008. "Especially when you have a job that you consider rewarding. It's a challenge but the best kind of challenge."

It was her costar in 1985’s hit Out of Africa, Robert Redford, who advised Streep to keep her family life private. "Robert Redford taught me that when they were babies. 'They are not your props.' I really admired the way he protected his family. It's something I consciously emulated." ​​

Related: Meryl Streep Recalls 'Intimate' Out of Africa Shampoo Scene with Robert Redford: 'Didn't Want It to End'

In the years since Streep has been enjoying that “crowded life” as a mother and grandmother, her work in Hollywood has continued — although, it seems, less and less on the big screen. Last Oscar-nominated for 2017's The Post, she has since dabbled in more television roles than ever before: from Big Little Lies in 2019 to an episode of Extrapolations last year to a role in murder-mystery-comedy Only Murders in the Building. 

In the Hulu hit’s fourth season (premiering Aug. 27), the superstar will reprise her role as actress Loretta Durkin opposite her pal Martin Short, Selena Gomez, and her old It’s Complicated costar Steve Martin. And Streep, as talented as ever, may receive a belated birthday present for her work on the show’s third season come July 17 — Emmy Award nominations day.

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