''Body Heat''
In 1978, Turner made her television debut in the NBC daytime soap ''The Doctors'' as the second Nola Dancy Aldrich. She made her film debut in 1981 as the ruthless Matty Walker in the thriller ''Body Heat'', a role which would bring her to international prominence. ''Empire Magazine'' cited the film in 1995 when it named her one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in Film History. ''The New York Times'' wrote in 2005 that, propelled by her "jaw-dropping movie debut [in] ''Body Heat''... she built a career on adventurousness and frank sexuality borne of robust physicality." Turner would ultimately become one of the top box office draws and most sought after actresses in the 1980s and early 1990s.The brazen quality of Turner's screen roles was reflected in her public life. With her deep voice, Turner was often compared to a young Lauren Bacall. When the two met, Turner reportedly introduced herself by saying, "Hi, I'm the young you." In the 1980s, she controversially boasted that "on a night when I feel really good about myself, I can walk into a room, and if a man doesn't look at me, he's probably gay."
Eighties stardom
After ''Body Heat'', Turner steered away from femme fatale roles to 'prevent typecasting' and because the femme fatale roles had a 'shelf-life'. Consequently, her first project after this was 1983 comedy ''The Man With Two Brains.'' Turner starred in ''Romancing the Stone'' with Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito. Film critic Pauline Kael wrote of her performance as writer Joan Wilder, "Turner knows how to use her dimples amusingly and how to dance like a woman who didn’t know she could; her star performance is exhilarating." ''Romancing the Stone'' was a surprise hit: she won a Golden Globe for her role in the film and it became one of the top-ten-grossing movies of 1984. Turner teamed up again with Douglas and DeVito the following year for its sequel, ''The Jewel of the Nile''.Several months before ''Jewel'', Turner starred in ''Prizzi's Honor'' with Jack Nicholson, winning a second Golden Globe award, and later starred in ''Peggy Sue Got Married'' which co-starred Nicolas Cage. For ''Peggy Sue'', she received a 1986 Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.
In 1988's toon-noir ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit'', she was the speaking voice of cartoon femme fatale Jessica Rabbit, intoning the famous line, "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way." Her uncredited, sultry performance was acclaimed as "the kind of sexpot ball-breaker she was made for." (Amy Irving provided Jessica Rabbit's singing voice in the scene in which the character first appears in the movie.) That same year she also appeared in ''Switching Channels'', which was a loose remake of the 1940 hit film ''His Girl Friday''.
Turner appeared in the 1986 song "The Kiss of Kathleen Turner" by Austrian techno-pop singer Falco. In 1989, Turner teamed up with Douglas and DeVito for a third time, in ''The War of the Roses'', this time as Douglas' self-obsessed wife. ''The New York Times'' praised the trio, saying that "Mr. Douglas and Ms. Turner have never been more comfortable a team ... each of them is at his or her comic best when being as awful as both are required to be here ... [Kathleen Turner is] evilly enchanting." In that film, Turner played a former gymnast, and, as in other roles, she did many of her own stunts. (She broke her nose filming 1991's ''V.I. Warshawski'').
Slowed by disease
Turner remained an A-list film star leading lady until the early nineties when rheumatoid arthritis seriously restricted her activities and her movie career went into rapid decline. She was diagnosed in 1992, after suffering "unbearable" pain for about a year. By the time she was diagnosed, she "could hardly turn her head or walk, and was told she would end up in a wheelchair".As the disease worsened and the medication greatly altered Turner's looks along with excess alcohol consumption that Turner said she used to kill her physical pain, her once promising film career as a leading lady took a nose dive and Turner was seen less and less in blockbusters—though Turner has also blamed her age, stating "when I was forty the roles started slowing down, I started getting offers to play mothers and grandmothers..." She appeared in the low-budget
''House of Cards'', experienced moderate success with John Waters' ''Serial Mom'', and had supporting roles in ''A Simple Wish'', ''The Real Blonde'', and Sofia Coppola's acclaimed ''The Virgin Suicides''.
Remission
Despite drug therapy to help her condition, the disease progressed for about eight years. Then, thanks to newly available treatments, her arthritis went into remission. She was seen increasingly on television, including two episodes of ''Friends'', where she appeared as Chandler Bing's transsexual father. She also provided the voice of Malibu Stacy creator Stacy Lovell on the episode"Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy" on ''The Simpsons''. She played a defense attorney on ''Law & Order''.
In 2006, Turner performed a cameo in FX's acclaimed
''Nip/Tuck'', playing a phone sex operator in need of laryngeal surgery. She appeared in a small role in 2008's ''Marley & Me''.
She is currently playing the role of Charlie Runkle's sexually hyperactive boss in the television series ''Californication''.
Voice actress
In the same year, she voiced the role of "Constance" in the animated film ''Monster House''. She has also recently been doing radio commercial voice-overs for Lay's potato chips. BBC Radio 4 produced three radio dramas based on the V.I. Warshawski novels by Sara Paretsky. The first two, ''Deadlock'' and ''Killing Orders'' feature Kathleen reprising her 1991 movie role but the third, ''Bitter Medicine'', saw Sharon Gless take over the part. She also provided the voice of Jessica Rabbit in the 1988 live action/animated movie ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit'', and again in the Disneyland attraction spinoff, Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin.Stage career
In recent years, Turner has found renewed success on stage. After 1990s roles in Broadway productions of ''Indiscretions'' and ''Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'' (for which she earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress), Turner moved to London in 2000 to star in a stage version of ''The Graduate''. The BBC reported that initially mediocre ticket sales for ''The Graduate'' ''"went through the roof when it was announced that Turner, then aged 45, would appear naked on stage"''. While her performance as the infamous Mrs. Robinson was popular with audiences (with sustained high box office for the duration of Turner's run), she received mixed reviews from critics. The play transferred to Broadway in 2002 to similar critical reaction.In 2005, Kathleen Turner beat out a score of other contenders (including Jessica Lange, Frances McDormand, and Bette Midler) for the role of Martha in a 2005 Broadway revival of Edward Albee's ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?''. Albee later explained to the ''New York Times'' that when Turner read for the part with her eventual co-star Bill Irwin, he heard "an echo of the 'revelation' that he had felt years ago when the parts were read by [Uta] Hagen and Arthur Hill". He added that Turner had ''"a look of voluptuousness, a woman of appetites, yes ... but a look of having suffered as well"''.
Ben Brantley praised Turner at length, writing:
As Martha, Turner received her second Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Play (losing out to Cherry Jones). The production was transferred to London's Apollo Theatre in 2006. She starred in Sandra Ryan Heyward's one-woman show, ''Tallulah'', which she toured across the U.S.
Adapted from the Wikipedia article Kathleen Turner, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
