Born:
June 19, 1954
in
Springfield, Missouri
Best Known For:
Her sultry voice.
Early-life:
Born Mary Kathleen Turner in Springfield, Missouri, on June 19, 1954. She's the third of four children whose father, Richard, was a foreign diplomat imprisoned by the Japanese during the Second World War. She had a nomadic childhood, attending school in Cuba, Canada and England, before returning to Missouri following her father's death when she was a teenager. She studied at the University of Maryland and London's Central School of Speech and Drama before moving to New York.
Career:
Turner started out the on stage, making her Broadway debut in 1977. She had a regular role in US soap The Doctors before making her first film, Body Heat, in 1981. Her sexy performance propelled her to stardom. Her follow-up movies were the smash-hit comedy The Man with Two Brains and Romancing the Stone. Throughout the rest of the 1980s, Turner was a massive star, appearing in Prizzi's Honour, Peggy Sue Got Married (for which she was Oscar-nominated), The Accidental Tourist and The War of the Roses. She also voiced Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Turner didn't do as well in the 1990s, but did appear in the acclaimed Serial Mom and The Virgin Suicides. She has also guest starred in Friends as Chandler's drag queen father, and has returned to the theatre, most notably in The Graduate, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Bakersfield Mist.
Quote:
"Hollywood tells us women past a certain age cannot be alluring. Well, to hell with them. We are."
Trivia:
Turner was forced to scale back her career in the 1990s after being struck down by rheumatoid arthritis.