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Alec Baldwin, was born in April 3, 1958, in Massapequa, Long Island into the home of Alexander and Carol Baldwin. Alec was the second of six children and grew up on Long Island with his two sisters and three brothers in a working-class family. He worked as a waiter, a driver and a shirt salesman, and he did voice-overs for women's makeup. In 1979, after three years of study in political science at George Washington University in D.C., he decided to try acting. He opted for the stage and enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in New York. Early in his career, Baldwin simultaneously starred in the TV daytime drama The Doctors and performed in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream on stage in the evenings. After two and a half years, he left the show and moved to L.A., where he promptly won a starring role in TV's short-lived Cutter to Houston. That helped him land on Knots in 1984, on which he played the evangelist Joshua Rush. In 1989, Baldwin achieved big-budget success playing ace CIA agent Jack Ryan in the undersea thriller The Hunt for Red October. The film's popularity won him acclaim. His 1991 film, The Marrying Man proved to be an all-out flop and the critical success of his next two films, Prelude to a Kiss and Glengarry Glen Ross was overshadowed by a subsequent string of flops, including Malice (1993), The Getaway (1994), and The Juror (1996). The actor rebounded a bit with his role in Al Pacino's acclaimed documentary Looking for Richard but then had the unfortunate luck of starring in the 1998 Bruce Willis disaster Mercury Rising. However, the following year proved more fortuitous for Baldwin, as he starred in the coming-of-age comedy Outside Providence, as well as in the crime drama Thick as Thieves and the ethical drama The Confession, appearing alongside Amy Irving and Ben Kingsley. In addition, the actor made an uncredited appearance in Notting Hill, sending up his macho Hollywood persona as Julia Roberts' piggish actor boyfriend. Subsequent appearances included the blockbuster Pearl Harbor - a box office smash but a critical flop - and he also provided voiceover work for Cats & Dogs, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and The Royal Tenenbaums. In 2003, he put his career firmly back on track with the Las Vegas-set comedy drama The Cooler with William H Macy. Baldwin was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar for the role, which he claims he based on Ben Kingsley's psycho in Sexy Beast. He went on to play supporting roles in the comedy Along Came Polly alongside Ben Stiller and the Dr Seuss adaptation Cat in the Hat with Mike Myers.
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