Oscar Nominated Actress Diane Lane to be Honored at Beyond Hunger

By Heifer International

October 3, 2019

Last Updated: August 15, 2014

Oscar Nominated Actress Diane Lane to be Honored at Beyond Hunger

Diane Lane first became a fan of Heifer International’s mission when Mary Steenburgen and Ted Danson invited her to a Heifer fundraising dinner party in their home. It was an informative and heartwarming evening that included filmed messages, beneficiaries’ testimonies and even several livestock animal guests. Not long after that, Diane signed up with her teenaged daughter to take a Heifer International Study Tour to Rwanda offered on their website. Together mother and daughter witnessed firsthand the impact of Heifer’s exponential model of ending poverty and improving lives around the world.

Lane, who recently returned from another trip with Heifer to visit female farmers in Guatemala, will be honored with a Noble Globe award at the third annual Beyond Hunger: A Place at the Table gala next week. The event, which will take place August 22, seeks to raise awareness and resources for marginalized women and their families worldwide.

Having garnered SAG, Golden Globe, and an Oscar® nominations for work, Diane Lane recently earned excellent reviews for her performance in Tennessee Williams’ “Sweet Bird of Youth” at the Goodman Theater in Chicago. Previously she received an Emmy nomination for her leading role in HBO’s well reviewed and prestigious movie “Cinema Verite”, co-starring James Gandolfini and Tim Robbins. Before that Lane starred opposite John Malkovich in “Secretariat” directed by Randall Wallace for Disney.

Lane was hailed as “Best Actress” in 2002 by the New York Film Critics and National Society of Film Critics and received an Academy Award nomination for her turn as an adulterous wife in the critically-acclaimed Adrian Lyne film "Unfaithful." Lane's lengthy filmography includes four films with Francis Ford Coppola, George C. Wolfe’s “Nights in Rodanthe” opposite Richard Gere, Allen Coulter's 1950’ era, “Hollywoodland,” with Ben Affleck and Adrian Brody; the comedy "Must Love Dogs," with John Cusack and Christopher Plummer; the drama "A Walk on the Moon," which landed Lane an Independent Spirit Award nomination; the Audrey Wells romantic comedy "Under the Tuscan Sun," earning her a Golden Globe nomination; Wolfgang Peterson's action film “The Perfect Storm,” opposite Mark Wahlberg and George Clooney;” the highly successful adaptation of Willie Morris' childhood memoir, "My Dog Skip;" her portrayal of actress Paulette Goddard in "Chaplin," for director Sir Richard Attenborough and Zack Snyder’s Superman film “Man of Steel”. She is currently in production for the Zac Snyder sequel “Batman V Superman: The Dawn of Justice”.

On television, Lane has appeared in a wide range of roles including A Streetcar Named Desire" opposite Alec Baldwin and Jessica Lange; and her Emmy-nominated role "Lorena" in the CBS series "Lonesome Dove," opposite Robert Duvall and TNT's "The Virginian" with Bill Pullman;. She also starred opposite Gena Rowlands in the Hallmark Hall of Fame drama, "Grace & Glorie", also in the CBS epic miniseries "The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All"  alongside Donald Sutherland and Cicely Tyson sharing her character with the venerable  Miss Anne Bancroft -based on the best-selling novel by Allan Gurganus, Lane portrayed the title character from her early teens into her sixties.

The daughter of drama coach Burt Lane and singer Colleen Farrington, Lane answered a call for child actors at La Mama Experimental Theater at the age of six. She won a role in Andrei Serbian's famously primal, Eurepidis’ Greek version of "Medea" and subsequently appeared over the next five years in his productions of "Electra," "The Trojan Women," "The Good Woman of Szechuan," and "As You Like It," both in New York and touring theater festivals around the world with LaMama ETC. After performing in Joseph Papp's productions of "The Cherry Orchard," and "Agamemnon" at Lincoln Center in 1976-77, Lane starred at The Public Theater in "Runaways,” and made her film debut opposite Sir Laurence Olivier, in George Roy Hill's "A Little Romance” in 1978.

In an article featured in People Magazine, Lane said that the impact of Heifer's work is obvious. "You can see the impact on children who have benefited from the protein. They have a light in their eyes, their skin is glowing...People can get overwhelmed trying to envision a future free from hunger, but if we all do a little something, we can create change."