Kathleen Turner

Biography

Early life

Born Mary Kathleen Turner in Springfield, Missouri, Turner's parents were career diplomats, and she lived in four foreign countries--Canada, Cuba, Venezuela, and England while growing up. Turner has two brothers and a sister. She was a gymnast as a teenager. While attending high school in London, she also took classes at the Central School of Speech and Drama.

Her father, Allen Richard Turner, grew up in China and was a foreign services diplomat who was imprisoned by the Japanese for four years during World War II. When her father died of a coronary thrombosis in 1972, the family moved back to the United States.
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Career

She attended Southwest Missouri State University at Springfield for two years, then gained her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Maryland Baltimore County in 1977. In 1978, the 5'10" husky voiced Turner was hired as the second Nola Turner on NBC daytime soap The Doctors, but was fired the next year because the producers felt she was "not hot enough".

Turner had the last laugh as she became a movie star a few years later in Body Heat, which many consider one of the sexiest films (with Turner giving one of the sexiest performances) in the history of cinema. Turner remained a film star up to the early 1990s, but has since rarely appeared in major productions.

During her heyday, she rose to fame as the leading-lady star of Romancing the Stone with Michael Douglas, Prizzi's Honor with Jack Nicholson, Peggy Sue Got Married with Nicolas Cage, and The War of the Roses with Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito. Her career began to slide with her appearances in increasingly low-budget and low-profile films.

Turner is noteworthy for doing her own stunts in her films, and she broke her nose in V.I. Warshawski. (She revisited the role of V.I. Warshawski on BBC Radio 4 in the early 1990s in serialised dramatisations of several of Sara Paretsky's books).

She also had some very scary moments as the eponymous Serial Mom.

In addition to the movies and radio work listed above, she has also appeared as a guest on Friends (as the transvestite father of Chandler Bing), King of the Hill (voice), The Simpsons (voice), Saturday Night Live, which she hosted twice, and as a defense attorney on Dick Wolf'sLaw & Order franchise.

Turner spoke the voice (uncredited) of sexy Jessica Rabbit in the toon-noir Who Framed Roger Rabbit? in 1988.

Turner has made many notable and acclaimed stage appearances. These include a Tony-nominated performance as 'Maggie the Cat' in Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on Broadway in 1989, and her recent role as 'Martha' in Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? on Broadway in 2004-5. As of March 2006, she is currently playing in the latter production at the Apollo Theatre in London's West End. Turner also appeared on the West End (and subsequently Broadway) stage in 2000, as Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate.

Because of her deep voice, she was often compared to a young Lauren Bacall. When the two met, Turner reportedly introduced herself to Bacall by saying "Hi, I'm the young you."

Turner was immortalized in the 1980s song "The Kiss of Kathleen Turner" by Austrian techno-pop singer Falco. She received a lifetime achievement award from the Savannah College of Art and Design at the Savannah Film Festival in October 2004.
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Awards

She was nominated for an Oscar for best actress in 1987 for her role in Peggy Sue Got Married. She received two Golden Globe awards, both for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture, for Romancing the Stone (1984) and Prizzi's Honor (1985) and she won the L.A. Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress for Ken Russell's Crimes of Passion(1984). In 1989 she was Tony-nominated for her performance as 'Maggie the Cat' in Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on Broadway.
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Personal life

Turner lived with agent David Guc from 1977–1982 and was married to New York real-estate mogul, Jay Weiss, from 1984–2005.

She and Weiss have a daughter, Rachel Ann Weiss, born October 14, 1987.

Turner was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in 1992. On December 3, 1999, Turner checked herself into Marworth in Waverly, Pennsylvania for alcohol abuse.

The ravages of both illnesses have taken their toll on this once classical beauty, but she turned them to her at least temporary advantage with an incredible performance as Martha, the middle-aged, slatternly, blowsy (and alcoholic) anti-heroine of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? on Broadway in 2005, opposite Bill Irwin, eviscerating memories of Elizabeth Taylor's Oscar-winning movie performance from 1962. As of March 2006, the production is playing at the Apollo Theatre in London's West End.