Jessica Phyllis Lange was born on April 20, 1949 to Al and Dorothy Lange in Cloquet, Minnesota. She was the third of four children (having two older sisters, Ann and Jane, and a younger brother, George). As a child, she led a transient life because her father changed jobs often and moved the family constantly. Lange would note later that her family "lived like gypsies" and she herself would inherit this innate desire to travel far and wide into the world when she left Minnesota. Later in life, she would have a powerful connection to her home state but by the time she was out of high school, her only thoughts were to escape. In the fall of 1967, Jessica enrolled at the University of Minnesota and concentrated her studies in art. She wanted to be a painter but her restless nature and natural curiosity stifled her in the university environment. In the spring of 1968, before her freshman year was completed, Jessica was smitten by a guest photography professor named Paco Grande. Grande was a 24 year old Spaniard and had traveled extensively and he provided Jessica with her ticket out of Minnesota.
Grande and Lange embarked on a trek that would take them to New York, Paris, and New Mexico. They lived out of Grande's van and traveled extensively across Europe where Grande introduced Jessica to many of his underground film community friends. They returned to Minnesota briefly in July of 1970 and were married at the home of Jessica's parents.
The two eventually settled in Soho where Grande continued to work on experimental film projects while Jessica pondered what she wanted to do. She had decided that she didn't have the commitment to paint and thought about dancing instead. One night, however, she attended a screening of the classic 1945 French film "Les Enfants du Paradis" ("The Children of Paradise") and it changed her life. It was Jean-Louis Berrault's performance as the mime who completely captivated Jessica and she made the decision to study the art of mime. She discovered that the greatest mime teacher was Etienne Decroux, who taught in Paris. So, she left for Paris in March of 1971 with three hundred dollars in her pocket to study mime in Paris.
She spent two years there studying mime and the experience eventually perked an interest in acting. Her lessons in mime would greatly influence her acting technique later on. She returned to New York to pursue acting lessons in 1973. By this time, her marriage to Paco Grande had deteriorated. Although Grande did visit Jessica occasionally in Paris, their time together was brief and they began to grow apart. Grande left New York to work on independent films in Jamaica but Jessica remained there to take acting classes. To pay the rent, she worked as a waitress at the Lion's Head Tavern in Greenwich Village and signed with the Wilhelmina Agency as a model.
Although she did not like modeling and did it just to pay the rent, the Wilhelmina Agency would provide an unexpected connection to Hollywood.
