Why do some Hollywood leading men remain on the A-List for decades while many of their equally stunning female co-stars drop off the radar after a few years?
Find out more about the Romancing the Stone actor Kathleen Turner, who acted alongside Steve Martin, Michael Douglas, and Jack Nicholson.
Kathleen Turner was born in Springfield, Missouri, on June 19, 1954, to devout Christians who discouraged her desire to pursue acting.
“Theatre and acting were just one step up from being a streetwalker because my father was of missionary stock,” said Turner of his experience in the performing arts”.
Because of her father’s work for the USFS, they had residences in Venezuela, Cuba, and Canada. In order to pursue a career as a stage performer at a London high school, Kathleen relocated away from her parents.
There were seven of us, the theater mafia, Turner recalled of her youth”.
We chose the plays, staged them, directed them, and performed them. We also fired one teacher and hired another.
Her family relocated to Springfield, Missouri, after Kathleen’s father passed away when she was 17 years old.
She began supporting women’s rights and healthcare throughout her life after volunteering at a nearby Planned Parenthood. She provides assistance at the Board of Advocates for Planned Parenthood, Child Help USA, and City Meals On Wheels in New York City.
Turner was discovered by Herbert Blau at Southwest Missouri State University. He pushed her to enroll in the University of Maryland, where she earned a BFA.
Turner rose to fame after her The Doctors role debut for her sensational work in the 1981 thriller Body Heat.
Following the commercial success of Body Heat, Turner went on to star in The Man with Two Brains and Romancing the Stone. Turner, DeVito, and Douglas reunited for the films War of the Roses and Jewel of the Nile.
Turner was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for her roles in Prizzi’s Honor (1985) and Romancing the Stone (1984).
When reviewing Prizzi’s Honor in 1985, Robert Ebert said the following: “This is the strangest comedy in many a month, a movie so dark, so cynical, and so funny that probably only Jack Nicholson and Kathleen Turner could have kept straight faces during the love scenes. ”.
Turner is a seductive mob hitman who works with Jack Nicholson’s portrayal of New York City hitman Charley Partanna.
“Prizzi’s Honor reinforced the perception of me as a cunning woman, but I must admit there are times in Prizzi when my character is just this newlywed—got her job, but she’s making casseroles—that I like,” Turner acknowledged to David Sheff.
It’s out there, according to my husband and friends,” she insisted. I’m not particularly interested in learning. ”.
In Peggy Sue Got Married the following year, Turner portrayed Peggy Sue, a time traveler who visits her high school years in the 1960s.
It was a very unwelcoming environment for women, Turner remarked in 2018”.
“The contempt, the sense of being a prop.”.
Turner has had a successful theater career since the middle of the 1980s, but she might never receive another award.
Turner won a Tony Award in 1990 for her portrayal of Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which was her second significant stage performance. She was recognized by Theatre World for her work in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, earning the award for Outstanding Broadway Debut. Turner was followed by Tallulah, The Graduate, and indiscretions.
She played Martha for three years in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, which led to the actor receiving a second Tony nomination for the role.
Turner disliked the 1966 adaptation, which starred Elizabeth Taylor as Martha. Regarding the Hollywood legend, she stated in an interview with Vulture from 2018: “For a while, I felt like doing her wrongs right was half of my existence. That is awful. ”.
“She wasn’t very skilled,” she concluded.
But for the love of God, I was fortunate to perform the play and present the comedy. ”.
Turner built on her stage success with roles in Undercover Blues, The Virgin Suicides, and Beautiful.
In the animated movie Roger Rabbit from 1988, Jessica Rabbit’s voice was gravelly. She portrayed Charles Bing in Friends, Chandler Bing’s drag queen father.
Turner admitted to Vulture that she had a hard time fitting in with the elitist Friends cast.
I’ll be honest, as I always am, about the cast, but I didn’t feel especially welcomed, Turner said”.
“I can still feel the pain from my high heels while wearing this difficult sequined gown. The actors didn’t offer to seat me, which I thought was odd. ”.
At one point, Miss Turner recalled, one of the more experienced crew members told her to get a chair. “The Friends actors were such a clique, but my interaction with them was not exceptional”.
In the 1990s, Kathleen Turner experienced “inexplicable pains and fevers” as a result of rheumatoid arthritis”.
By 1994, she needed assistance getting out of bed. Turner used a combination of biotech medicine and gymnastics to treat her rheumatoid arthritis.
The year before I was diagnosed was terrifying, she said as she recalled her rheumatoid arthritis education campaign from 2002. ”. I couldn’t understand it. ”.
I didn’t know why I was so ill and in such pain, the woman admitted. “I am involved in this campaign because I want people to know they can get information, deal with their illness, and stand up for their lives and way of life. There is no shortage of assistance. ”.
Turner’s circumstances were frequently upsetting, particularly in the news, but she didn’t let that stop her.
She claimed in 2018 that she disregarded the doctor’s advice that she would spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair after being diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in 1992. It is impossible for me to overstate how hard I fought the agonizing pain and horror of who I had become.
For years, she was forced to conceal her illness, she said. It was embarrassing to be called a drunk and criticized for my appearance. Even though he had a drinking issue, Robert Downey Jr. which studios were used. If I admitted to having an untreated illness, people wouldn’t approach me.
Jay Weiss, a real estate magnate, and Kathleen Turner divorced in 2007.
The 66-year-old Jessica Rabbit actor claims that he is okay with being referred to as a sexual icon nearly 40 years after [Body Heat]. That happened a very long time ago.
New York University’s Turner teaches Practical Acting.
She remarked, “I love teaching,” to Shondaland in 2020. “I can go into detail about it”.
I’m hard on them, and I only accept people with a certain level of skill, she remarked”.
“If not, I wouldn’t be helpful. ”.
