kathleen turner | biography (b. 1954) | gallery

Kathleen Turner

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B I O G .

Actress

Date of birth:

19 June 1954
Springfield, Missouri, USA

Birth name:

Mary Kathleen Turner

Height:

5' 10"

Spouse:

Jay Weiss (1983 - present) 1 daughter
David Guc (1977 - 1982) (divorced)

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Facts
It is, perhaps, Kathleen Turner's voice that she is most famous for. Indeed, it is often compared to Lauren Bacall's. Turner says: '...whenever we bump into each other, we always have a vocal contest. Lauren will say, "Good evening, Miss Turner", and then I'll say, "Good evening, Miss Bacall", in a lower voice, and we'll carry on until our voices are so low that neither of us can hear the other.'
In January 2006, Turner appears on the London stage in the role of Martha in the Edward Albee classic, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 'I've been wanting to play it for the past 30 years,' says Turner, 'and even though I'd been asked to do it before, I felt that I had to be beyond child-rearing age to be able to, you know, really stick the knife in, in the way the role demanded. I got a call offering me the part the week I turned 50.'
Turner's husband, Jay Weiss (b. 1955), is a millionaire property developer. They have a daughter, Rachael.
She grew up in Springfield, Missouri, the third of four children. She realised early on that she wanted to act, but her diplomat father, she says, 'thought acting was ridiculous'.
On Burt Reynolds Turner says: 'When I worked with Burt Reynolds on Switching Channels, it was such a disappointment. He replaced Michael Caine, who was still finishing off Jaws 4. He came in, screaming, "I've never taken second billing to a woman!" and it went downhill from then on. Burt made me cry every day. It wasn't a pleasant experience.'
Turner has never lived in Hollywood, preferring New York. In 2006 she wants a base in Europe for six months of the year, 'largely for work reasons'.
Around 1994, Turner discovered she had rheumatoid arthiritis. Th pain was so intense that she had to go through chemotherapy and a course of steroids in order to function normally.