Phoebe Cates has appeared in many films, including Gremlins and Freaking Fred, but her iconic topless pool scene in the 1982 film Fast Times at Ridgemont High will always be remembered.
However, the former actress left Hollywood over 20 years ago. She now works a 9 to 5 job doing what she loves. Phoebe Bell Cates was born on July 16, 1963 in New York. In her youth, she attended private school and studied ballet at Juilliard.
Acting was in Phoebe’s blood from the time she was born, with her father, Joe Cates, being a producer and director, and her uncle serving as president of the Directors Guild.
His older brother is a former actor, and his younger sister Valerie also worked on stage. Phoebe started dancing at a young age, but suffered a setback after a knee injury forced her to retire.
At 14, she began modeling instead and experienced much success. For example, she appeared on the cover of Seventeen magazines four times. However, she felt no passion for the career and began expanding her horizons.
”It was just the same thing, over and over. After a while, I did it solely for the money,” Phoebe said, speaking of her short modeling career.
Eventually, she met her film agent at a party at New York’s Studio 54, she trained with Robert Ravan, founder of The Actors’ Circle in New York.
”I just knew that I didn’t want to go to college. And that it would be a great way to get out of college if I could get a couple of movies or something. Seriously. It’s true,” she told The Daily Item in 1985.
Cates also studied with Alice Spivack of the H.B. Studios and made her acting debut in 1982 as Sarah in Paradise. Not even a year later, she starred in the film Experienced and then the famous Fast Times at Ridgemont High with the legendary swimming pool scene.
The film, a teen hit, has contributed much to pop culture and is probably most known for one frame – which Rolling Stone magazine depicted as ”the most memorable bikini-drop in cinema history.”
As a friend said, that scene made a lot of teenage boys’ hearts beat a lot faster than they should have…
In 1982, Phoebe gave her two cents on it.
”In this business, if a girl wants a career, she has to be willing to strip. If you’ve got a good body, then why not show it?” she said.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High had a pretty impressive cast when you look at it today – it included now-stars like Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Eric Stoltz, and Forest Whitaker.
“Well, it was funny because we were all so young when we made it. And then it came out, and it was this big hit, you know, where you’d go to the theater, and people would say the lines with it, and people had seen the movie repeatedly,” Jennifer Jason Leigh told The Daily News.
Later, while also working in theatre, Phoebe starred in Private School as Christine Ramsey in 1983 and co-starred in Steven Spielberg’s Gremlins in 1984. Phoebe met Kevin Kline, a critically acclaimed theater actor, while auditioning for the 1983 film The Big Chill. While Cates did not get the role, she did gain an eventual husband.
Kline was 16 years older than Cates, but they did not start dating until two years after they first met. After Kline hired Cates’ former assistant, he asked the employee to help him to ask out the actress.
In 1989, Cates and Kline–25 and 41, respectively–married in New York City. Cates gave birth to their first child, Owen Joseph, in 1991. In 1994, she had their daughter, Greta Simone.
In 2017, as the couple celebrated an impressive 27 years of marriage, many wondered what kept them so happy and together for so long.
“We take care of the marriage,” Kline said.
Even though she was doing well at the time, Cates had decided to take a step away from acting after the two had their children. In the 1990s, she started to vanish from the entertainment industry.
In 1998, she explained to Playboy that she and her husband had agreed to alternate acting jobs so the children would never be without a parent.
Kline would add that Cates still would choose to stay home with the children when it was her turn to work. While Cates did some acting here and there, she began to be seen more at red-carpet events with her husband, who continued acting more consistently.
It was in 2005 that Cates opened Blue Tree, not far from the famous Carnegie Hall. Products like fragrances, clothing, and gifts could be purchased at the store.
Cates devoted herself to becoming a full-time shopkeeper, typically working hands-on in the store or finding new products to sell. Today, you can see Phoebe’s store at 1283 Madison Avenue in New York City, located on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where she also lives.
And just so you know, Phoebe still looks amazing!
What comes to mind when you think of Phoebe? I always felt that she was a pretty good actress, but my first two thoughts of her are usually the shower scene (in the cave) in “Paradise” and the bikini scene in “Fast Times At Ridgemont High.”
