Kathleen Turner

About Kathleen Turner

Mary Kathleen Turner (born June 19, 1954) is a Tony Award- and Academy Award-nominated American actress. She came to fame during the 1980s, after roles in the Hollywood films Body Heat, Romancing the Stone and Prizzi's Honor.

Turner was born in Springfield, Missouri, the daughter of Patsy (née Magee) and Allen Richard Turner, who was a U.S. Foreign Service officer and schoolteacher; who grew up in China (where Turner's great-grandfather was a Methodist missionary). A diplomat, her father had been imprisoned by the Japanese for four years during the Second World War. As a child, Turner lived in Canada, Venezuela, the United Kingdom and was living in Cuba, at the time Castro came to power. Turner has two brothers and a sister. While attending high school in London, she was a gymnast and also took classes at the Central School of Speech and Drama.

In her early years, Turner was interested in performing. Her father did not encourage her: "My father was of missionary stock," she later explained, "so theater and acting were just one step up from being a streetwalker, you know? So when I was performing in school, he would drive my mom and sit in the car. She'd come out at intermissions and tell him, 'She's doing very well.'"