Kathleen Turner Biography
Summary
"Mary Kathleen Turner" (born June 19, 1954) is an Academy Award-nominated American actress. She came to fame during the 1980s, after roles in the Hollywood films "Body Heat", "Romancing the Stone" and "Prizzi's Honor".
Early life
Turner was born in Springfield, Missouri, the daughter of Patsy Magee and Allen Richard Turner, who was a U.S. Foreign Service officer and schoolteacher; he grew up in China (where Turner's great-grandfather worked as a Methodist missionary) and, as a diplomat, had been imprisoned by the Japanese for four years during the Second World War. Because of her father's career, Turner lived in four foreign countries (Canada, Cuba, Venezuela, and the United Kingdom. Turner has two brothers and a sister. While attending high school in London, she was a gymnast and also took classes at the Central School of Speech and Drama.
In her early years, Turner was interested in performing, despite her father's lack of encouragement: 'My father was of missionary stock,' she later explained, 'so theater and acting were just one step up from being a streetwalker, you know? So when I was performing in school, he would drive my mom and sit in the car. She'd come out at intermissions and tell him, 'She's doing very well."
Turner graduated from the American School in London in 1972. Her father died of a coronary thrombosis the same year and the family moved back to the United States. She attended Missouri State University at Springfield for two years (where a fellow classmate was John Goodman), then gained her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Maryland Baltimore County in 1977. During this time, she acted in several productions directed by Steve Yeager.
Career
"Body Heat"
In 1978, Turner made her acting debut in the television NBC daytime soap "The Doctors" as the second Nola Dancy Aldrich, but she was fired the next year because the producers felt she was 'not hot enough'.
Turner soon launched a successful film career, making her debut in 1981 as the ruthless Matty Walker in the neo-noir thriller "Body Heat", which many consider one of the sexiest films ever. "Empire Magazine" cited the film in 1995 when it named her one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in Film History. "The New York Times" wrote in 2005 that, propelled by her 'jaw-dropping movie debut in "Body Heat"... she built a career on adventurousness and frank sexuality borne of robust physicality.'
The brazen quality of Turner's screen roles was reflected in her public life as well. With her deep voice, Turner was often compared to a young Lauren Bacall. When the two met, Turner reportedly introduced herself by saying, 'Hi, I'm the young you.' In the Eighties, she boasted that 'on a night when I feel really good about myself, I can walk into a room, and if a man doesn't look at me he's probably gay.'
Eighties stardom
On film, Turner rose to prominence as the star of "Romancing the Stone" with Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito. Demanding film critic Pauline Kael wrote of her performance as the mild-mannered romance writer Joan Wilder, 'Turner knows how to use her dimples amusingly and how to dance like a woman who didn't know she could; her star performance is exhilarating.' "Romancing the Stone" was a surprise hit: she won a Golden Globe for her role in the film and it became one of the top-ten-grossing movies of 1984. Turner reteamed with Douglas and DeVito the next year for a sequel, "The Jewel of the Nile".
After "Jewel", Kathleen Turner starred in "Prizzi's Honor" with Jack Nicholson. winning a second Golden Globe award, and in "Peggy Sue Got Married" with Nicolas Cage. For "Peggy Sue", she received a 1987 Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. In 1988's toon-noir "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", she provided the voice of cartoon femme fatale Jessica Rabbit. Her uncredited, sultry performance was acclaimed as 'the kind of sexpot ball-breaker she was made for.' She also voiced the famous line, 'I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way.'
Turner appears in the 1980s song 'The Kiss of Kathleen Turner' by Austrian techno-pop singer Falco. In 1989, Turner teamed up with Douglas and DeVito for a third time, in "The War of the Roses". "The New York Times" praised the trio, saying that 'Mr. Douglas and Ms. Turner have never been more comfortable a team....each of them is at his or her comic best when being as awful as both are required to be here. Kathleen Turner is evilly enchanting.' In that film, Turner played a former gymnast, and, as in other roles, she did many of her own stunts. (In fact, she broke her nose filming 1991's "V.I. Warshawski".)
Slowed by disease
Turner remained a film star until the early nineties when rheumatoid arthritis began to seriously restrict her activities. She was diagnosed in 1992, after suffering unexplained symptoms of 'unbearable' pain for about a year. By the time she was diagnosed, she 'could hardly turn her head or walk, and was told she would end up in a wheelchair.'
As the disease worsened, her career began to slide and she appeared in increasingly low-budget and obscure films including "House of Cards", "A Simple Wish", "The Real Blonde", and the critically scolded "Baby Geniuses" (1999). However, the same year as she starred in "Geniuses", Turner also played a supporting role in Sofia Coppola's acclaimed debut film "The Virgin Suicides".
Despite drug therapy to help her condition, the disease progressed for about eight years. Then, due to newly-available treatments, her arthritis went into remission. She was seen increasingly on television, including an episode of "Friends" where she appeared as Chandler Bing's transvestite father. She also provided the voice of Malibu Stacy creator on the episode 'Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy' on "The Simpsons". She also had a role as a defense attorney on "Law & Order".
In 2006, Turner performed a cameo in FX's acclaimed "Nip/Tuck". She played a phone sex operator in need of laryngeal surgery. She has also recently been doing radio commercial voice-overs for Lay's potato chips.
Stage career
In recent years, Turner has found renewed success on the stage. After Nineties roles in Broadway productions of "Indiscretions" and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (for which she earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress), Turner starred in a London stage version of "The Graduate" in 2000, a role that made headlines around the world.
"The Graduate"
The BBC reported that initially mediocre ticket sales for "The Graduate" 'went through the roof when it was announced that Turner, then aged 45, would appear naked on stage'. While her performance as the middle-aged Mrs. Robinson was popular with audiences (with sustained high box office for the duration of Turner's run), she received mixed reviews from critics. The play transferred to Broadway in 2002 to similar critical reaction. In her next stage performance, however, Turner would receive almost unanimous critical acclaim.
"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
In 2005, Kathleen Turner beat out a score of other contenders (including Jessica Lange, Frances McDormand, and Bette Midler) for the role of Martha, the aging, blowsy, alcoholic anti-heroine in a 2005 Broadway revival of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?".
Albee later explained to the "New York Times" that when Turner read for the part with her eventual co-star Bill Irwin, he heard 'an echo of the 'revelation' that he had felt years ago when the parts were read by Hagen and Arthur Hill.' He added that Turner had 'a look of voluptuousness, a woman of appetites, yes ... but a look of having suffered as well.'
When the show opened, Turner's performance was extremely well-received, inviting comparisons to Elizabeth Taylor's Oscar-winning movie performance from 1966. The notoriously jaded "New York Times" critic Ben Brantley praised Turner at length, writing:
As Martha, Turner received her second Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Play. The show transferred to London's Apollo Theatre in 2006 and a 2007 national tour of the play was also scheduled.
She received a lifetime achievement award from the Savannah College of Art and Design at the Savannah Film Festival in October 2004.
Personal life
Turner lived with agent David Guc from 1977 to 1982. She married a millionaire New York real-estate mogul named Jay Weiss in 1984, and their daughter, Rachel Ann Weiss was born October 14, 1987. Turner was born into a Methodist family and has said that she has 'taken on a certain amount of Jewish tradition and identity' since marrying her husband and raising their daughter in the Jewish religion. In 2006, Turner announced that she and Weiss were planning a trial separation.
By the late Eighties, Turner had acquired a reputation for being somewhat difficult: what the "New York Times" called 'a certifiable diva.' She herself said was that she was 'not a very kind person' and actress Eileen Atkins has referred to her as 'an amazing nightmare.' According to her colleagues on "Virginia Woolf", she has since become easier to work with.
As a result of her altered looks from her arthritis treatment, "The New York Times" wrote in 2005, 'Rumors began circulating that she was drinking too much. She later said in interviews that she didn't bother correcting the rumors because people in show business hire drunks all the time, but not people who are sick.' However, Turner has also had well-publicized problems with alcohol. A few weeks after leaving "The Graduate" in November 2002, Turner checked herself into Marworth in Waverly, Pennsylvania for alcohol abuse. 'I have no problem with alcohol when I'm working,' she later explained. 'It's when I'm home alone that I can't control my drinking...I was going toward excess. I mean, really! I think I was losing my control over it. So it pulled me back.'
Political involvement
Turner serves on the board of People for the American Way, is chairperson for Planned Parenthood of America, and supports Amnesty International, Childhelp USA, and Citymeals-on-Wheels. She was one of John Kerry's first celebrity endorsements and reportedly invited him to come see her as Martha in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?". She has been a frequent donor to the Democratic Party. She has also worked to raise public awareness of RA.
Filmography
"Body Heat" (1981)
"The Man with Two Brains" (1983)
"Romancing the Stone" (1984)
"A Breed Apart" (1984)
"Crimes of Passion" (1984)
"Prizzi's Honor" (1985)
"The Jewel of the Nile" (1985)
"Peggy Sue Got Married" (1986)
"Julia and Julia" (1987)
"Switching Channels" (1988)
"Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (1988) (voice)
"The Accidental Tourist" (1988)
"The War of the Roses" (1989)
"Undercover Blues" (1993)
"House of Cards" (1993)
"Serial Mom" (1994)
"The Conspiracy of Silence" (1995)
"The Virgin Suicides" (1999)
"Baby Geniuses" (1999)
"Monster House" (2006) (voice)
External links
(Kathleen Turner) Official Site
(2006 Article on Kathleen Turner on Theatre.com)
' (Drama Queen) ', an in-depth interview and profile in "The Guardian", March 18, 2000
(Turner talks about her RA) in an interview for "Arthritis Today".
Credit
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article about Kathleen Turner.
