Kathleen Turner: She’s done with Hollywood

She was one of the sex symbols of the 1980s: Kathleen Turner. Today she is marked by the effects of her years of alcohol abuse and her illness. The actress has suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for decades. “I don’t look like I used to. Get over it!”, the Hollywood diva herself declared in . She will celebrate her 70th birthday on June 19th.

The diplomat’s daughter, who grew up in Canada, Cuba, Venezuela and England and took up acting against her father’s wishes, initially acted in theater in New York after graduating from university with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. After appearing in the TV soap opera “The Doctors”, she was hired in Hollywood in 1981 for the movie “Body Heat”.

Her debut was a leading role: a femme fatale with demonic, even murderous traits, who does not shy away from any act of bloodshed. Her unmistakable smoky voice and her “outspoken sexuality” (“New York Times”) made the young Kathleen Turner one of the most successful actresses of the 1980s and early 1990s.

She never wanted to commit to one type

For her debut in “Body Heat” she was nominated for a Golden Globe as best young actress. After that she insisted, even with hard-nosed studio bosses, that the roles should be adapted to her extravagant personality. She never wanted to commit to one type – with great success, because Turner prevailed: “I was never a woman who played the sweet girl, the shy lover or the submissive wife. I’m cut from a different cloth,” she explained to “Stern” a few years ago.

Her next film projects were in the comedy genre as a partner of Steve Martin (78) in “The Man with Two Brains” (1982) and in “The Hunt for the Green Diamond” (1984) with Michael Douglas (79), which was so successful that a sequel, “The Hunt for the Jewel of the Nile”, followed in 1985.

Then again, in “China Blue by Day and Night” (1984), she played a shady woman who works as a successful fashion designer during the day and as a prostitute at night. Again, the critics were enthusiastic about Turner’s acting. She could now choose her roles – and chose that of a professional assassin in “Prizzi’s Honor” (1985) alongside Jack Nicholson (87).

“The War of the Roses” becomes a cult film

Then came Michael Douglas, with whom she had become close friends, and comedy legend Danny DeVito (79) was the director. In 1989 they shot the turbulent tragicomedy “The War of the Roses”, in which Turner and Douglas brilliantly play through the escalation stages of a broken marriage – a film that became a classic.

One scene has gone down in film history. The quarreling couple Barbara and Oliver sit opposite each other at dinner. He particularly likes the pie that Barbara has made for him. “Nobody who can make a pie as good as that can actually be bad,” he explains. Barbara replies: “It depends on what the pie is made of!” Oliver is taken aback because he hasn’t seen his dog Benny, who is usually always begging at the table. Barbara looks at him and says: “Woof!” Oliver reacts in shock: “Benny?!?” Barbara replies: “A good dog right down to the last bite!” The “New York Times” praised Kathleen Turner: “She is charmingly vicious.”

At this point, Kathleen Turner was one of Hollywood’s top actresses. The only thing she was missing was an Oscar, but she did not receive this award, although she deserved it several times. For her role in “Peggy Sue Got Married” (1986), she was only nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress. For this, she won two Golden Globes (1984, “The Hunt for the Green Diamond”, 1986, “Prizzi’s Honor”).

Until the early 1990s, Kathleen Turner was one of the big stars. She played the title role in “VI Warshawski: Detective in Silk Stockings”, which, however, was a flop at the box office, unusual for a film in which Kathleen Turner appeared.

“The press was merciless”

Her appearance has changed, she has become fuller. She puts this down to her age, the number of roles she is offered is decreasing, she is now being asked to play mothers and grandmothers. Then, in 1992, while filming “Serial Mom”, the story of a serial killer, she begins to suffer from inexplicable pain and bouts of fever. A year later, the doctor diagnosed her with rheumatoid arthritis.

She is told that she will end up in a wheelchair. She herself notes: “My body only reacted with terrible pain when I tried to move even a little. The joints in my hands were so swollen that I could not hold a pen. Some days I could not hold a glass to drink something. My feet swelled so much that I could not put shoes on them, let alone walk on them,”

The media now focuses extensively on her weight gain. “The press was merciless,” she writes in her memoirs. “They joked that I had become fat and unrecognizable because I was an angry, washed-up diva, when in reality the changes in my appearance were caused by drugs and chemotherapy… Yet I did not reveal what was happening to me.”

There are rumors of alcohol problems, and they are true, as she reveals in her memoirs: “At first I drank deliberately to relieve the pain… Later, when I got the new medication and the pain subsided, I continued to drink too much…” Turner explained that she does not have a drinking problem when she is working. “When I am home alone, I cannot control my drinking… I tended to excess.”

It meant a total collapse for her film career in Hollywood. In 2002 she went to a rehab clinic, after which she was abstinent for several years. Today she drinks a glass now and then, but she cannot imagine ever consuming as much as she did in the past: “But I don’t have as much pain anymore either,” she explained to the Guardian.

In 2007, her marriage to New York real estate entrepreneur Jay Weiss, with whom she has a daughter, singer Rachel Ann Weiss, ended in divorce after 23 years. She says of her ex: “Jay is still my best friend.”

She is done with Hollywood

In 2014 she had a small comeback with the film comedy “Dumb and Dumber”, but Kathleen is essentially done with Hollywood. She acted in theater on Broadway again. And she was also in front of the camera again with her friend Michael Douglas in his comedy series “The Kominsky Method” (2018-2021).

She was “quite happy with my life on the stage,” she explained to “Stern” a few years ago. “Besides, I’m a bit too tough for Hollywood. There are hardly any roles that suit women like me.”

She is involved with Amnesty International and supports the Democratic Party. She sneers at the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (78) in the best Kathleen Turner manner: “He has the most disgusting handshake. He shakes your hand and strokes your palm with his index finger. That’s supposed to be a sensual gesture. But you just pull your hand away and think, YUCK.”

The “Friends” stars also get their fair share of criticism in the interview. The actress appeared in the cult series in a guest role as Chandler Bing’s (Matthew Perry, 1969-2023) father, the drag queen Helena Handbasket. “They were such a real clique, I don’t think I’m the only one who had an experience like that. They were a tight-knit, small group and no one outside of them mattered to them.” Nevertheless, she too mourned the far too early death of her son from the series.

“Matthew Perry came to one of my Broadway shows,” she recalled in People magazine. “When he saw me, he yelled, ‘Hey, Dad.'” Although she hadn’t seen him for at least ten years, she always remembered his personality. “He had a good sense of humor and a good heart. He liked other people, which – in my opinion – is very important, especially for an actor,” Turner said.