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Now five decades into her career, Meryl Streep has more than cemented her status as one of the greatest actress of all time. The three-time Oscar winner has more total Academy Award nominations (21) than any other actor in history, while her resume is stacked with one iconic performance after another. There’s a Meryl for every mood, whether you prefer your Streep spiky (as in The Devil Wears Prada), buoyant and carefree (Mamma Mia!), understated and vulnerable (The Hours), or glamorously wacky (Death Becomes Her).
To celebrate her birthday today, Vogue dug through the archives to assemble a photographic tribute to a singular performer. And so, without further ado: 25 striking vintage pictures of the great Meryl Streep.
Photo: Getty Images1/25Photographed for a studio session in August 1976.
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Streep as Inga Helms Weiss on the set of the 1978 miniseries Holocaust.
Photo: Getty Images3/25Rehearsing for Shakespeare in the Park’s 1978 production of The Taming of the Shrew, which she starred in with Raul Julia.
Photo: Getty Images4/25Arriving to the 51st Annual Academy Awards, where she received her first Oscar nomination, for 1978’s The Deer Hunter.
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With Justin Henry on the set of 1979’s Kramer vs. Kramer.
Photo: Getty Images6/25Streep—pregnant with her first child, Henry Wolfe Gummer—at the New York premiere of 1979’s The Seduction of Joe Tynan.
Photo: Getty Images7/25En route to a New Year’s Eve Party at Harkness House in 1979.
Photo: Getty Images8/25Outside the Public Theater in 1979.
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Backstage at the Public Theater during her run in Alice in Concert, c. 1980.
Photo: Getty Images10/25Streep won her first Academy Award (for best supporting actress) for 1979’s Kramer vs. Kramer.
Photo: Getty Images11/25Streep and Diane Keaton at a benefit in support of nuclear disarmament in 1982.
Photo: Getty Images12/25With Kevin Kline and Peter MacNichol on the New York set of Sophie’s Choice in 1982.
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On the set of 1983’s Silkwood.
Photo: Getty Images14/25Streep at the 55th Annual Academy Awards in 1983, where she won her second Academy Award, for Sophie Choice.
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With Robert Redford on the set of Sydney Pollack’s Out of Africa (1985).
Photo: Getty Images16/25Streep at the 46th Annual Golden Globe Awards, where she was nominated for best actress in a motion picture, drama, for A Cry in the Dark (1989).
Photo: Getty Images17/25At the Governor’s Ball after the 1989 Academy Awards, where Streep had been nominated for her performance in A Cry in the Dark.
Photo: Getty Images18/25Streep at the wrap party for her 1989 film She-Devil at Caroline's Comedy Club in New York City.
Photo: Getty Images19/25With Carrie Fisher at the Los Angeles premiere of 1990’s Postcards From the Edge, based on Fisher’s semi-autobiographical novel of the same name. The two remained close friends until Fisher’s death in 2016.
Photo: Getty Images20/25Streep with Clint Eastwood on the set of his 1995 film The Bridges of Madison County.
Photo: Getty Images21/25Streep wielding a bouquet of flowers while shooting The Hours in New York in 2001.
Photo: Getty Images22/25Julianne Moore, Streep, and Nicole Kidman at the world premiere of The Hours in Westwood.
Photo: Getty Images23/25With Nicole Kidman, Mary J. Blige, and Oprah Winfrey at the 2007 Vanity Fair Oscar Party.
Photo: Getty Images24/25Hugging ABBA’s Agnetha Faltskog and Annifrid Reuss at the Swedish premiere of Mamma Mia! in 2008.
Photo: Getty Images25/25With Kate Winslet (and Winslet’s best-actress prize for The Reader) at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in 2009.
