Kathleen Turner
| Kathleen Turner | |
| Background information | |
| Born as: | Mary Kathleen Turner |
| Born | Jun 19, 1954 (age 71) Springfield, Missouri, U.S. |
| Spouse(s): | Jay Weiss (1984 - 2007) divorced |
| Children: | 1 |
| Alma mater: | University of Maryland, Baltimore County |
| Years active | 1972–present |
Mary Kathleen Turner (born ✦June 19, 1954) is an American actress. Known for her distinctive deep husky voice, she is the recipient of two Golden Globe Awards, as well as nominations for an Academy Award, a Grammy, and two Tony Awards.
After debuting both on and off Broadway in 1977, followed by her television debut as Nola Dancy Aldrich on the NBC soap opera "The Doctors" (1978–1979), Turner rose to prominence with her portrayal of Matty Walker in Body Heat (1981), which brought her a reputation as a sex symbol. She worked solidly throughout the 1980s, in films such as The Man with Two Brains (1983), Crimes of Passion, Romancing the Stone (both 1984), Prizzi's Honor, The Jewel of the Nile (both 1985), Switching Channels, The Accidental Tourist (both 1988), and The War of the Roses (1989). For her portrayal of the title character in Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), Turner was nominated for the 1987 Academy Award for Best Actress. Subsequent credits include V.I. Warshawski (1991), Serial Mom (1994), Baby Geniuses, The Virgin Suicides (both 1999), Beautiful (2000), Marley & Me (2008), and Dumb and Dumber To (2014). Outside film, Turner guest-starred as Sue Collini on Showtime's "Californication" (2009) and Roz Volander on Netflix's "The Kominsky Method" (2019–2021). She also played Charles Bing, the drag queen father of Chandler Bing, on the seventh season of "Friends" (2001). Turner's voice work includes Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Constance in Monster House (2006), as well as characters on television series such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, King of the Hill, and Rick and Morty.
In addition to her work on stage and screen, Turner has taught acting classes at New York University.
Early life
Born June 19, 1954, in Springfield, Missouri, to Patsy (née Magee) and Allen Richard Turner, a U.S. Foreign Service officer who grew up in China (where Turner's great-grandfather had been a Methodist missionary), Turner is the third of four children, and the only one to be born in the United States. She has a sister, Susan, and two brothers.
Raised in a strictly conservative Christian home, both of her parents discouraged Turner's interest in performing:
- "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 [there] and sit in the car. She'd come out at intermissions and tell him, 'She's doing very well.'"
Owing to her father's position with the Foreign Service, Turner grew up in Canada, Cuba, Venezuela, and London, England. She attended high school at The American School in London, graduating in 1972. "The start of real acting for me began during high school in London", she stated in her 2008 memoir. "There were seven of us who were sort of a theater mafia. We produced, directed, acted, chose the plays, got one teacher fired, and another one hired." Her father died of a coronary thrombosis one week before her graduation, and the family returned to Springfield, Missouri. At the age of 19, Turner began volunteering at a local Planned Parenthood office.
She studied theater at Southwest Missouri State University for two years. During this period, director Herbert Blau saw her performance in The House of Blue Leaves, and invited her to spend her senior year at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1977. During that period, Turner acted in several productions directed by film and stage director Steve Yeager.
Personal life
Turner married real estate entrepreneur Jay Weiss of New York City in 1984, and they had one daughter, singer Rachel Ann Weiss, who was born on October 14, 1987. Turner and Weiss divorced in December 2007, but Turner has said, "[Jay]'s still my best friend."
By the late 1980s, Turner had acquired a reputation for being difficult, what The New York Times called "a certifiable diva". She admitted that she had developed into "not a very kind person", and actress Eileen Atkins—with whom she starred in the play Indiscretions on Broadway—referred to her as "an amazing nightmare". In 2018, she commented on her reputation, stating: "The 'difficult' thing was pure gender crap. If a man comes on set and says, 'Here's how I see this being done', people go, 'He's decisive.' If a woman does it, they say, 'Oh, fuck. There she goes.'" Turner has defended herself against Atkins' claims, saying that Atkins harbored animosity towards her because she was having trouble memorizing her lines, which Atkins found very unprofessional. Turner later realized that medication she was taking for her rheumatoid arthritis was making her "fuzzy." She added that, on days when the rheumatoid arthritis in her wrist was especially bad and she warned the other cast members not to touch it, Atkins would intentionally sit on it during a scene where Turner had to play dead, causing Turner extreme pain.
Turner slammed Hollywood over the difference in the quality of roles offered to male actors and female actors as they age, calling the disparity a "terrible double standard".
A few weeks after leaving the production of the play The Graduate in November 2002, she was admitted into the Geisinger Marworth Treatment Center in Waverly, Pennsylvania, for the treatment of alcoholism. "I have no problem with alcohol when I'm working", she 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."
Bound for Hollywood
Kathleen Turner, an ad woman by day and a hooker by night in Ken Russell's garish "Crimes of Passion," is backed up to her own drafting table and tied there, hands apart, for a lecture on sin and salvation by Tony Perkins, in a loony portrayal right out of "Psycho." And we've had a look at some advance footage from "Jewel of the Nile," the much-awaited sequel to "Romancing the Stone," and caught a glimpse of Miss Turner - ever the lady in peril - strung up by the wrists in a Moroccan torture chamber.
Filmography
- Wikipedia article: Kathleen Turner Filmography
External links
- More information is available at [ Wikipedia:Kathleen_Turner ]
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