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Kathleen Turner – Net Worth, Career Ups and Downs, Awards and Achievements

Real Name:Mary Kathleen Turner
Birthday:June 19, 1954
Net Worth:$20 million
Height:173 cm
Occupation:American Actress, Director

Mary Kathleen Turner is an American actress and director. In the past few years she called out Hollywood and the salaries actors receive. The irony is that she earned millions during her acting career. Born in 1954, the American actress won two Golden Globe Awards and earned one Academy Award nomination. So, how much is Kathleen Turner’s fortune?

Turner rose to fame during the 1980s. Some of her famous roles include Body Heat, Crimes of Passion, Romancing the Stone, The Man with Two Brains. She got a few great roles in the early 1990s as well. But at the time, she moved to theatre work and earned a Tony Award nomination. She also gives acting classes at New York University.

Career Ups and Downs

Born in 1954 in Springfield, Missouri, Kathleen is the third of four children. She is the only one born in the United States. Her father served as US Foreign Service Officer and grew up in China. Turner spent her childhood in a strict conservative Christian household. Her parents didn’t approve of her choice and interest in performing and acting.

For her parents, theatre and acting served as the path to a career of a streetwalker. Because of her father’s service, Kathleen spent her childhood in Canada, Cuba, Venezuela, and London. In London, England, she attended The American School and graduated in 1972. In her memoirs, she says that her acting began during her high school years in London.

She and her friends produced, directed, and acted plays. Her father died one week before her graduation. Following his death, the family got back to Springfield.

There, she attended Southwest Missouri State University for two years. She studied theater, and during that period, director Herbert Blau noticed her. He invited her to spend her senior year at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. There, she got a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1997. At the time, she acted in productions by stage director Steve Yeager.

In 1977, the actress made her Broadway debut in Gemini by Albert Innaurato.

In 1978, Kathleen made her television debut in the soap opera The Doctors. Soon after that, she got her first big role. Portraying Matty Walker in the thriller Body Heat, Kathleen earned international prominence and recognition. In 1995, Empire magazine cited the movie when making the 100 Sexiest Stars in Film History.

The role also allowed Turner to move straight to leading actor gigs. She didn’t have to suffer any of the predatory male behavior at the time. More than four decades after the movie, people still refer to Kathleen as a sexual icon. And it is all thanks to Body Heat.

Following the success of the movie, she stayed away from “femme fatale” roles. She wanted to prevent typecasting. So, instead, she took on a role in the comedy movie The Man With Two Brains in 1983. After that, she co-starred in Romancing the Stone with Danny DeVito and Michael Douglas.

For the role in Romancing the Stone, she earned a Golden Globe award. The movie made it to the top 10 grossing movies of 1984. The following year, the cast got reunited for The Jewel of the Pile sequel.

Several months before that, she starred in Prizzi’s Honor with Jack Nicholson. For this role, she won another Golden Globe Award. Later on, she starred in Peggy Sue Got Married. That role earned her an Academy Award nomination.

In 1988, Kathleen tried something else. She tried voice acting, lending her voice for the Jessica Rabbit in the Who Framed Roger Rabbit toon-noir. Critics praised her performance “as the kind of sexpot ball-breaker she was made for”.

Turner remained an A-list movie star until the early 1990s. That is when her disease caught her. Rheumatoid arthritis restricted her activities and prevented her from acting. But she also stated that age caught up on her as well. In one interview, she said, “When I was 40, the roles started slowing down, I started getting offers to play mothers and grandmothers”.

In 1992, during the filming of Serial Mom, Kathleen started experiencing inexplicable pains and fevers. One year later, doctors diagnosed her with rheumatoid arthritis. By that point, she could hardly turn her head or walk. Many doctors predicted she will end up in a wheelchair.

And as the disease progressed, she started consuming more and more alcohol. In her memoirs, she writes that in the beginning, she drank to kill the pain. And then she continued, and it damaged her personally.

Because of her alcohol problems and arthritis issues, Turner turned down movies. She turned down roles in Ghost and The Bridges of Madison County. Both movies earned big money at the box office.

During the 2000s, after eight years of treatments, her arthritis went into remission. That was all thanks to newly available treatments. Kathleen started appearing on television again, including three episodes of Friends.

In the 2000s, she also moved to London to get back to stage acting. She had success as a stage actress before. In 1990, she earned a Tony Award nomination for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. And then in 2000, she starred in the stage version of The Graduate. Ticket sales went through the roof after the announcement she will play a part in it.

In 2005, Kathleen got the role of Martha in the revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf. For this role, she earned her second Tony Award Nomination for Best Actress in a Play. She lost to Cherry Jones.

In the past few years, she performed at theaters, but also at the Metropolitan Opera. In February 2019, she made her MET debut in the speaking role of The Duchess of Krakentorp in the opera La Fille du Regiment.

She got married to real estate magnate Jay Weiss in 1984. They have one daughter together. In 2007, the two got a divorce, but she still considers him her best friend.

Awards and Achievements

Kathleen Turner is an award-winning actress. Many also consider her a sex symbol. But she is more than that. Turner won awards for serious roles. She earned one Academy Award nomination for her role in Peggy Sue Got Married.

She earned six Golden Globe nominations and won two of them. She won the award for Prizzi’s Honor in 1986 and then in 1985 for Romancing the Stone.

Her appearance in Body Heat earned her a BAFTA nomination for Most Outstanding Newcomer to Leading Film Roles.

Net Worth

As of September 2020, Kathleen Turner’s wealth is more than $20 million. But the fun part is that in the past few years she voiced her opinion regarding the salaries of actors and actresses. She called out Hollywood actors and studious spending on salaries. She says that is immoral and that funds should go into improving the quality of scripts.

Turner advocates for investing in writers and allowing actors rehearsal time. She cited examples like Robert Downey Jr. earning $10 million for $15 minutes of screen time in Spider-Man: Homecoming. She famously said, “How much money does a person need. You can only live in one house at a time”.

Kathleen acts for decades. So far, she has more than 60 acting credits. And in the mid-2000s, she wrote her memoirs, Send Yourself Roses: Thoughts on My Life, Love, and Leading Roles. The book got published in 2008.

Written by Steven

Steven is a young student from San Francisco who is obsessed with computers.

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