Diane Lane

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Date of Birth : Jan 22nd 1965

Diane was acting from a very young age and had debuted on stage by the time she was only 6 years old. Acclaimed theatre productions like ‘The Cherry Orchard’ and ‘Medea’ led to her being discovered by Hollywood. She was 13 when she was cast by director George Roy Hill in his wonderful 1979 film Little Romance, A (1979), opposite Sir Laurence Olivier. The film only did so-so commercially, but Olivier praised his young co-star calling her the new Grace Kelly. After her acclaimed debut, Diane found herself on magazine covers all over the world including ‘Time’ magazine which declared her as the ‘new young acting sensation’. However, things were to go a little quiet as her next films Touched by Love (1980), Cattle Annie and Little Britches (1981), National Lampoon Goes to the Movies (1981), Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains (1981), and Six Pack (1982) all failed to make an impression.

Diane also made several TV movies during this period, but it was in 1983 that she finally began to make inroads again into being a top star. Acclaimed director Francis Ford Coppola noticed Diane’s appeal and cast her in two ‘youth’ oriented films based on S.E. Hinton novels. Indeed Rumble Fish (1983) and Outsiders, The (1983) have both become cult classics and gave her a loyal fan base. The industry was now taking notice and Diane Lane had secured lead roles in three big budget studio epics. She turned down the first, ‘Splash’, (which was a surprise hit for Daryl Hannah). And then sadly, the other two were both poorly received bombs. Walter Hill’s glossy ‘rock ‘n’ roll fable’ Streets of Fire (1984) was not the huge summer success that many had thought it would be and the hugely troubled Coppola epic Cotton Club, The (1984) co-starring Richard Gere was also a high-profile flop. In many ways the dual failure of these films could have ended her career there and then – but thankfully it didn’t. Diane (maybe or maybe not burned by the poor reception these films received) ‘retired’ for over 3 years and at only 19 years old and claimed that she had forgotten what she had started acting for. Diane’s performances in both films certainly wasn’t to blame and ironically, both have grown in popularity over the years, seeming to have found an audience.