WHILE GROWING up with her three siblings in Greenwich, Conn., Glenn Close remembers “pretending a lot. We had a trunk full of puppets, and we were always making up stories.” But things became all too real when she
turned 7 and her parents joined “a cult-like group where everybody is supposed to say the same thing and act in the same way.” It took 15 years
for her to break away. “We all try to survive, right? And I think what actually saved me more than anything was my desire to be an actress.” As a three-time winner of Tony and Emmy awards, she became that and more. And while she’s yet to win an Oscar after eight nominations, a record she shares with Peter O’Toole, Glenn, who turns 75 on March 19,
hasn’t seen that desire diminish. “There are so many things I’m interested in doing,” she says. “It’s one of those ironies, I suppose, that we sometimes start feeling comfortable in our own skin only late in our
lives, but hopefully with enough time to benefit from it.”
“We have to follow our dreams. We have to say, ‘I can do that, and I should be allowed to do that.’ ”