Biography, Emmy-Winning Actor, Movies, Children

Alec Baldwin News: Actor Charged Again with Involuntary Manslaughter in Rust Shooting

A New Mexico grand jury has indicted actor Alec Baldwin on one charge of involuntary manslaughter in relation to the deadly 2021 shooting on the set of his movie Rust. If convicted, the 65-year-old faces up to 18 months in prison.

Baldwin, who stars in and is a producer of the film, was preparing for a scene on October 21, 2021, when a prop gun fired and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, 42. The actor has maintained that he didn’t pull the trigger.

He faced a similar charge in the case in January 2023; it was later dropped after his defense team raised questions about whether the gun was functioning properly when it fired. “We look forward to our day in court,” Baldwin’s attorneys Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro said of the new indictment.

An attorney for Hutchins’ family said her clients welcomed the indictment and continue to look for answers about what happened on the set. “They continue to seek the truth in our civil lawsuit for them and they also would like there to be accountability in the criminal justice system,” according to a statement from the office of attorney Gloria Allred.

Who Is Alec Baldwin?

Alec Baldwin is an Emmy-winning actor known for his role as TV executive Jack Donaghy on the sitcom 30 Rock as well as roles in the movies Beetlejuice, Glengarry Glen Ross, and The Hunt for Red October. His acting career started in 1980 when he was cast in the daytime soap opera The Doctors before he embarked on an award-winning theater career and made his movie debut with 1987’s Forever Lulu. His performance in The Cooler earned him a 2003 Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Baldwin holds the record for most times hosting Saturday Night Live. The actor is currently facing a criminal charge following a deadly shooting in October 2021 on the set of a yet-to-be-released Western film Rust.

Quick Facts

FULL NAME: Alexander Rae Baldwin III
BORN: April 3, 1958
BIRTHPLACE: Amityville, New York
SIBLINGS: Stephen, William, Daniel, Elizabeth, Jane
SPOUSES: Kim Basinger (1993-2002) and Hilaria Thomas (2012-present)
CHILDREN: Ireland, Carmen, Rafael, Leonardo, Romeo, Eduardo, Lucia, and Ilaria
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Aries

Early Life and Famous Brothers

Brothers William, Stephen, Alec, and Daniel Baldwin all became actors.

Alec Baldwin was born Alexander Rae Baldwin III on April 3, 1958, in Amityville, New York. The second of six children, he grew up in Massapequa, a suburb of Long Island, New York. His brothers—Daniel, William, and Stephen—also became actors. Additionally, Alec has an older sister, Elizabeth, and a younger sister, Jane.

Alec majored in political science at George Washington University, intending to go to law school. However, his childhood love for acting resurfaced in college, resulting in a move to Manhattan to enroll in New York University’s drama department, where he studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute.

One of Baldwin’s early jobs was working as a bus boy at the legendary nightclub Studio 54 in New York City.

Movies and TV Shows

The Doctors and Knots Landing

Baldwin began his acting career on television when he landed a role playing Billy Aldrich on the NBC soap opera The Doctors (1980-1982). He soon moved to primetime TV as a co-star in the series Cutter to Houston and as Joshua Rush in the nighttime soap opera Knots Landing (1984-85). In 1988, he replaced George Carlin as the narrator of the popular animated children’s show Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends.

Beetlejuice, The Hunt for Red October, and Glengarry Glen Ross

Baldwin made his movie debut in the quirky Forever Lulu (1987) with Deborah Harry and Ruth Westheimer, better known as Dr. Ruth. His subsequent film highlights include Tim Burton’s offbeat comedy Beetlejuice (1988), Married to the Mob (1988) with Michelle Pfeiffer, Oliver Stone’s Talk Radio (1988), Working Girl (1988), playing Jimmy Swaggart in Great Balls of Fire (1989), and starring in Miami Blues (1990) and The Hunt For Red October (1990). Baldwin was also part of the all-star ensemble cast in David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) and starred in the film adaptation of Prelude to a Kiss (1992) and The Shadow (1994).

The Cooler, The Aviator, and The Departed

Continuing his movie work, Baldwin appeared in the 1998 thriller Mercury Rising and the 1999 comedy Outside Providence, before making an unbilled cameo in 1999’s Notting Hill, with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant.

Baldwin was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2003 for his role in the romantic drama The Cooler. In 2004, he appeared in The Aviator, Martin Scorsese’s biopic of Howard Hughes that starred Leonardo DiCaprio, and the quirky Along Came Polly with Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston. He worked with Scorsese again on The Departed in 2005.

30 Rock

Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin, seen here in September 2009, won multiple Emmy Awards for their work on the TV show 30 Rock.

In 2006, Baldwin landed a lead role as TV executive Jack Donaghy in the popular television sitcom 30 Rock, starring Tina Fey. He received numerous awards for his performance on the show, including three Golden Globes, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and two Emmy Awards. Baldwin also worked behind the cameras as a producer on 30 Rock.

Mission Impossible, Boss Baby, and The Public

Back on the big screen, Baldwin appeared in the romantic comedy It’s Complicated with Meryl Streep and Steve Martin in 2009 and Rock of Ages with Tom Cruise and Catherine Zeta-Jones in 2012. He then co-starred in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation in 2015, before reprising his role three years later for Mission: Impossible – Fallout.

With his distinctive, deep voice, Baldwin has provided voice work for documentaries and animated movies, including Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008) and Rise of the Guardians (2012). He also voiced the titular infant businessman of the animated Boss Baby (2017) and its 2021 sequel The Boss Baby: Family Business, as well as a polar bear in Arctic Dogs (2019).

Around that time, the actor enjoyed a prominent role in the ensemble drama The Public, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2018, before appearing in the crime film Motherless Brooklyn and the comedies Before You Know It and Drunk Parents in 2019.

More recently, Baldwin has appeared in the disaster film Supercell and the thriller 97 Minutes, both from 2023.

Talk Show Host and Saturday Night Live

Baldwin tried his hand at being a talk show host in the fall of 2013, but it proved to be a short-lived venture. Up Late with Alec Baldwin aired only a few times before its host landed in hot water. The show was suspended after Baldwin made homophobic remarks to a New York photographer, and he soon parted ways with MSNBC. He later returned to hosting in 2018 with The Alec Baldwin Show. The show lasted only eight episodes and went off the air for good by December of that year.

A fan of classical music, Baldwin serves as host of the New York Philharmonic’s radio show. He also has hosted Saturday Night Live a record 17 times and performed a popular impersonation of President Donald Trump on the show, for which he earned another Emmy in 2017.

Theater Career

Early on, Baldwin also pursued a theater career. He made his Broadway debut in Joe Orton’s black comedy Loot (1986), which won him a Theatre World Award. His next stage role was in Caryl Churchill’s hit comedy Serious Money (1987). He also starred off-Broadway in a sold-out engagement of Prelude to a Kiss, receiving an Obie Award as Best Actor in 1991. He reprised this role on screen in 1992.

Baldwin then appeared as Stanley Kowalski in a revival of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire (1992), earning a Tony nomination for Best Actor. He later appeared in the 1995 version of the play on CBS, which co-starred Jessica Lange, John Goodman, and Diane Lane. In 1998, Baldwin went back to the stage, appearing in Shakespeare’s Hamlet with co-star Angela Bassett, at the Joseph Papp Public Theater in New York City.

Marriages and Children

Alec Baldwin and his wife, Hilaria, in May 2023; the couple has been married since July 2012.

Baldwin began a relationship with yoga instructor Hilaria Thomas in August 2011. The couple got engaged the following April and were married on July 1, 2012, at New York City’s St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral. Their guests included Jimmy Fallon, Lorne Michaels, Tina Fey, and Woody Allen.

The couple had their first child together, a daughter named Carmen, in August 2013. They have since had four sons: Rafael, born June 2015; Leonardo, born in September 2016; Romeo, born in May 2018; and Eduardo, born in September 2020. In February 2021, Hilaria posted on her Instagram that they welcomed a daughter, Lucia. A little over a year later in September 2022, the couple had their seventh child, a daughter named Ilaria.

Hilaria and Alec Baldwin with their seven children (from left): Ilaria, Eduardo, Leonardo, Maria, Romeo, Rafael, and Carmen

Prior to his current marriage, Baldwin wed actress Kim Basinger in 1993, and the couple had one daughter, Ireland, in 1995. In January 2001, after seven years of marriage, Basinger filed for divorce. Their split was finalized in 2002 after a vicious custody battle over the couple’s daughter and allegations of abuse and alcoholism.

In their divorce trial, Baldwin was awarded joint legal custody of his daughter. In May 2007, however, the courts briefly revoked his visitation rights when his then-11-year-old daughter publicized an expletive-strewn phone message he left her in April of that year.

Books and Getting Sober

In 2008, Baldwin published the book A Promise to Ourselves, which documented his battle to retain custody of and visitation with his daughter. In the book, he revealed that he had spent millions in travel, bought a home close to Basinger, and taken a break in his career in order to be near his daughter. He said that, as a result, his frustration leaked into a court-appointed phone call to his daughter, which she didn’t answer. In 2009, he told Playboy magazine that he had contemplated suicide over the voicemail incident.

In 2017, prior to the release of his memoir Nevertheless, Baldwin gave an interview to Good Morning America anchor George Stephanopoulos, in which he discussed his struggles with alcoholism, a drug overdose which he kept private for many years, and getting sober in 1985. “I got sober when I was just about to turn 27,” Baldwin said in the interview. “And those two years that I lived in that white, hot period, as a daily drug abuser, as a daily drinker... to my misery, boy, that was a tough time.”

Baldwin is an outspoken activist for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and has been a contributor to community theater organizations, including the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, New York, and the now-defunct Circle Repertory Theatre in New York City. Baldwin is also on the board of directors of The Creative Coalition, People for the American Way, New York City Center, and The Drama League of New York.

Rust Shooting and Manslaughter Charges

More recently, Baldwin has been in headlines because of a deadly shooting that happened on the set of his movie Rust in October 2021. Baldwin, who stars in and is a producer of the Western, was practicing a cross-draw technique for a scene during filming on October 21, 2021, near Santa Fe, New Mexico, when the prop gun he was using accidentally fired and struck 42-year-old cinematographer Halyna Hutchins as well as director Joel Souza. Hutchins died from her injuries.

The actor and the film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, were each charged with involuntary manslaughter in January 2023. Baldwin’s charges were dropped three months later when special investigators said there were “new facts” that needed further investigation. But in January 2024, a New Mexico grand jury voted to again charge Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter. If convicted, the actor faces up to 18 months in prison. Baldwin has maintained he didn’t pull the trigger.

Reed’s trial is set to begin in February 2024. In the meantime, the movie was completed and is awaiting distribution.

Alec Baldwin Net Worth

According to Celebrity Net Worth, Baldwin’s total value is estimated to be around $70 million as of January 2024.

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Tyler Piccotti first joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate News Editor in February 2023, and before that worked almost eight years as a newspaper reporter and copy editor. He is a graduate of Syracuse University. When he's not writing and researching his next story, you can find him at the nearest amusement park, catching the latest movie, or cheering on his favorite sports teams.

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