Alexander Rae Baldwin III, born in
Massapequa,
Long Island,
New York on April 3
1958. The eldest of the first of seemingly endless
Baldwin brothers, all actors who are, it seems, bred in
pods or assembled in a
factory. Alec gave a nuanced performance of
Jack Ryan in
The Hunt For Red October (
1990), but did not do
Patriot Games because he was in some
Broadway show. He played the father in
Outside Providence (
1999), the new husband in
Prelude to a Kiss with
Meg Ryan (
1992), Blake in
Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), Adam in
Beetlejuice (1988), and who can forget
Knot's Landing in
1979 (I know
I can). Those were the ones that I've seen; he's had many more roles, of course, in movies, theater, and TV.
Alec was the host for SNL's 25th anniversary (1999), and was quite good, actually. Janeane Garofalo met him on the set when she was a player, and said that he was very suave and "Johnny-on-the-spot." She had a headache or something, and he had aspirin right there. "Tic-Tac?" "Light?" You name it. She couldn't say enough good things about him in her HBO stand-up run. He also played himself on The Simpsons, in When You Dish Upon A Star (1998).