Alec Baldwin

Baldwin met actress Kim Basinger when they played romantic partners in the 1991 film The Marrying Man. The couple married in August 1993 and had a daughter, Ireland, born in October 1995. Following their separation in 2000 and divorce in 2002, they engaged in a contentious, highly publicized custody battle. Baldwin later detailed the financial and emotional toll of the custody dispute in his 2008 book A Promise to Ourselves: A Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorce.

In August 2011, Baldwin began dating yoga instructor Hilaria Thomas. They married in June 2012 at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral in New York City and have seven children together: Carmen, Rafael, Leonardo, Romeo, Eduardo, Lucia, and Ilaria. In 2024, the family filmed the TLC reality television series The Baldwins.

Baldwin has been open about his personal health, including his past struggles with substance abuse, achieving sobriety in 1985. He has also spoken publicly about dealing with chronic symptoms from Lyme disease. A longtime advocate for animal welfare, Baldwin adopted a pescatarian diet after giving up beef in 1991, and he has frequently collaborated with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and other conservation initiatives.

Alexander Rae Baldwin III was born on April 3, 1958, in Amityville, New York, and raised in Massapequa on Long Island. He was the eldest son of Carol Newcomb and Alexander Rae Baldwin Jr., a high school teacher and football coach. His three younger brothers, Daniel, William, and Stephen, all grew up to pursue careers as actors, and he has two sisters, Elizabeth and Jane.

Baldwin initially studied political science at George Washington University from 1976 to 1979 with aspirations of attending law school. During his time there, he ran for student body president and, after losing the election, received a personal letter of encouragement from former U.S. president Richard Nixon. He subsequently transferred to the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University to pursue acting, training at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and working as a busboy at Studio 54. He completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at NYU in 1994.

Baldwin began his professional acting career in television, landing the role of Billy Aldrich on the daytime soap opera The Doctors from 1980 to 1982. He went on to appear in the primetime series Cutter to Houston and played Joshua Rush on the drama Knots Landing from 1984 to 1985. In 1986, he made his Broadway debut in a revival of Joe Orton's play Loot.

Baldwin made his feature film debut in 1987 with Forever, Lulu, followed by a major breakthrough in 1988 when he appeared in five prominent films: Tim Burton's fantasy comedy Beetlejuice, Mike Nichols' Working Girl, Jonathan Demme's Married to the Mob, Oliver Stone's Talk Radio, and John Hughes' She's Having a Baby. In 1990, he cemented his status as a Hollywood leading man by starring as CIA analyst Jack Ryan alongside Sean Connery in the box-office hit The Hunt for Red October, as well as starring in the crime comedy Miami Blues.

Throughout the 1990s, Baldwin balanced stage and screen projects. He received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play for his 1992 Broadway performance as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, a role he reprised in a 1995 television adaptation. On screen, he delivered a famous performance as an aggressive real estate trainer in the 1992 film adaptation of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross. He also starred in Malice (1993), The Shadow (1994), The Getaway (1994), and Ghosts of Mississippi (1996).

In 2003, Baldwin earned critical acclaim and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role as casino manager Shelly Kaplow in The Cooler. He continued working with renowned directors in major films, portraying Juan Trippe in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator (2004) and Captain George Ellerby in Scorsese's Oscar-winning crime drama The Departed (2006). He also earned a BAFTA Award nomination for his supporting role alongside Meryl Streep and Steve Martin in the 2009 romantic comedy It's Complicated.

In 2006, Baldwin began starring as network executive Jack Donaghy on the NBC comedy series 30 Rock, created by and co-starring Tina Fey. Baldwin served as a producer on the series and received extensive critical acclaim throughout its seven-season run, winning two Primetime Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and seven individual Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series.

Baldwin became a central figure on Saturday Night Live, setting the series record by hosting the show 17 times. In 2016, he began portraying Donald Trump in political sketches on the show, a recurring performance that earned widespread national attention and won him a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 2017.

Beyond acting, Baldwin has worked extensively in broadcasting and voice roles. He narrated the American broadcasts of the children's series Thomas & Friends from 1998 to 2002, voiced the title character in DreamWorks Animation's The Boss Baby franchise, and served as the radio announcer for the New York Philharmonic's weekly broadcasts. In 2011, he launched the public radio interview podcast Here's the Thing, conducting long-form conversations with artists and public figures.

In October 2021, while rehearsing on the Bonanza Creek Ranch set of the Western film Rust in New Mexico, Baldwin discharged a prop revolver that was mistakenly loaded with live ammunition. The shot killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza. Hutchins' family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Baldwin and the production, which reached a settlement in October 2022.

In January 2023, New Mexico prosecutors formally charged Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter. Although those initial charges were dismissed in April 2023, a grand jury indicted him again on an involuntary manslaughter charge in January 2024. Baldwin pleaded not guilty and maintained that he did not pull the trigger.

Baldwin's criminal trial began in Santa Fe in July 2024. On the fourth day of proceedings, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissed the case with prejudice after finding that police and prosecutors had withheld critical ammunition evidence from the defense team, permanently barring any retrial on the criminal charges.