Profile: Alec Baldwin - He's complicated

Baldwin has only been nominated once for an Oscar: in 2004 he was up for best supporting actor as a casino boss in The Cooler. Yet if there was an Oscar for acts of career self-sabotage, Baldwin would have to build an extension on his trophy cabinet. Still handsome in a bon vivant style, Baldwin arrived in Hollywood in his twenties with the dark good looks of George Clooney, the cocksureness of Tom Cruise, and the acting versatility of Johnny Depp. Alas, he also has the diplomatic skills of Russell Crowe.

He's still banned from the Philippines after joking he was going to get a mail-order bride from there, but a far bigger cloud is his acrimonious divorce from actress Kim Basinger in 2002 after nine years of marriage. The relationship remains so poisonous that they communicate only through third parties or by e-mail. "It cost a fortune," he revealed on a talk show. "And moreover there was the psychic toll – I aged like 20 years in the last eight years. So, really, it killed me."

The ongoing bone of contention is custody of his daughter Ireland, who lives with her mother in Los Angeles while Baldwin is based in New York. When his daughter was ten, an answering machine message was leaked from Baldwin fuming over a missed phonecall.

"I don't give a damn that you're 12 years old or 11 years old, or a child, or that your mother is a thoughtless pain in the ass who doesn't care about what you do as far as I'm concerned," he said. "You have humiliated me for the last time ... So I'm going to let you know how I feel, about what a rude little pig you really are. You are a rude thoughtless little pig. Okay?"

Baldwin was initially so distraught by the damage the tape did to the relationship that he entertained thoughts of killing himself, offered to leave his TV show and briefly dropped his agent. But he rallied, and he and his daughter appeared to reconcile. Ireland attended her father's surprise 50th birthday party in New York, although mystery surrounds an incident last month when Ireland called the emergency services saying that her father had taken pills following an argument. Baldwin has since dismissed the event as "a misunderstanding on one person's part".

All of which has rather obscured the fact that Baldwin may be one of America's most underrated actors. Also muddying the water are his many actor brothers – all with the Baldwin name, and none with his starpower – who collectively appear to be one big Darwinian gag.

In a lead or in support, on stage or screen, Alec Baldwin has rarely disappointed. He made an indelible impression on anyone who saw his ten-minute rage in Glengarry Glen Ross but he also brightened up many stinkers such as The Getaway, The Juror and The Marrying Man.

He was certainly the highpoint of It's Complicated, a menopausal rom-com released over Christmas in which he gamely displayed a middle-aged stomach that could have demanded its own agent. On TV, he has won an Emmy and two Golden Globes for his work in the sitcom 30 Rock, as a TV executive who sees little difference between making TV shows and manufacturing microwaves. The burning question in TV land now is whether Baldwin and co-star Tina Fey will renew the show beyond 2012, when its deal with NBC expires – particularly since Baldwin has been quoted as saying he wants to give up acting soon, although he hasn't said why – or where he might go next.

Baldwin grew up in a middle-class home on Long Island, as the oldest of six children including future acting brothers Billy, Daniel and Stephen. At university he became interested in acting and his dark looks landed him a job on the daytime soap The Doctors, followed by a role as a deranged evangelist on the TV drama Knots Landing. Small parts in the films Married To The Mob, Working Girl and Great Balls Of Fire followed, before he landed the lead role as Jack Ryan in The Hunt For Red October. Poised on the brink of a lucrative film series, he passed up the sequel in favour of playing Stanley Kowalski in a Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Harrison Ford took over the Ryan role in Patriot Games and although Baldwin's Kowalski drew a Tony nomination and favourable comparisons to Marlon Brando, he never again had the chance to star in A-list projects. Cast opposite Anthony Hopkins in The Edge he became a byword for "difficult" when he arrived on set to play a youthful seducer of other people's wives whilst 20lbs overweight and sporting a Grizzly Adams beard. Eventually Art Linson, the movie's producer, stepped up to the plate. "When's the beard going to go?" he asked gingerly. Baldwin's violent response involved kicking a wardrobe, smashing a table and issuing a stream of expletives. The next day, he shaved.

Now 52, Baldwin will probably never become a superstar, but perhaps someone this impulsively hotheaded and ironic would never enjoy reigning over box-office returns. When asked why he had agreed to appear in a TV sitcom, he said candidly: "I wanted an audience. Sometimes you do films no-one sees. Like a tree falling in the woods." Other jobs attracted him for the paycheques. "Some acting is just like plumbing," he noted. " You won't often hear a plumber say he has artistic differences and won't install a certain toilet."

His sense of humour hasn't always been appreciated by those close to him. Asked what his greatest regret was, he responded: "Faking a heart attack on April Fools Day 2004, for my daughter and my girlfriend." However, his quick wit has made him a favourite on talk shows and as a host on the American skit show Saturday Night Live, and it was his hosting of a Women in Hollywood dinner that won him his Oscar role following self-deprecating cracks such as, "Movie actresses are so skinny that if I had a love scene I would crush them", On stage Carol Burnett asked, "Don't you think he should host the Oscars?" One of this year's Academy Awards producers, Adam Shankman, was in the audience and agreed.

On Oscar night, Baldwin shares a global platform with Steve Martin, but he makes no secret that he once fancied the political stage. At university he used to talk of becoming president of the United States but in the last decade he had scaled back his ambitions, saying: "If I ever ran for anything, the thing I would like to be is governor of New York."

Baldwin is no stranger to political grandstanding. He has for years been one of Hollywood's most famous left-wingers. Yet although he is undoubtedly bright, well read and politically engaged, these qualities may disqualify him from political office. "That's what I hate about Arnold Schwarzenegger," he once noted. "His only credentials are that he ran a fitness programme under some bygone president. I'm de Tocqueville compared to Schwarzenegger."