Kathleen Turner

Actresses

Mary Kathleen Turner (born June 19, 1954) is an American actress. Known for her distinctive, gritty voice, she made her film debut in Lawrence Kasdan’s Body Heat (1981), with William Hurt, Richard Crenna, Ted Danson, J.A. Preston, and Mickey Rourke. She won two Golden Globes for Best Actress for Robert Zemeckis’s Romancing the Stone (1984), with Michael Douglas, Danny DeVito, Alfonso Arau, and Manuel Ojeda; and John Huston’s Prizzi’s Honor (1985), with Jack Nicholson, Robert Loggia, William Hickey, and Anjelica Huston.

Other films in the early 1980s include Carl Reiner’s The Man with Two Brains (1983), with Steve Martin and David Warner; Philippe Mora’s A Breed Apart (1984), with Rutger Hauer, Powers Boothe, and Donald Pleasence; Ken Russell’s Crimes of Passions (1984), with Anthony Perkins, John Laughlin, Annie Potts, and Bruce Davison.

Turner was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for Francis Ford Coppola’s Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), with Nicolas Cage, Barry Miller, Catherine Hicks, Joan Allen, Jim Carrey, John Carradine, Maureen O’Sullivan, and Helen Hunt.

Other films in the late 1980s include Julia Julia (1987), with Gabriel Byrne, Sting, Gabriele Ferzetti; Ted Kotcheff’s Switching Channels (1988), with Burt Reynolds, Christopher Reeve, Ned Beatty, and Henry Gibson; the uncredited voice of Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), with Bob Hoskins, Christopher Lloyd, Charles Fleischer, and Joanna Cassidy; Kasdan’s The Accidental Tourist (1988), with Hurt, Geena Davis, Bill Pullman, Amy Wright, David Ogden Stiers, and Ed Begley Jr.; and War of the Roses (1989), with Douglas, DeVito (who also directed), and Sean Astin.

Films in the 1990s include Jeff Kanew’s V.I. Warshawsk (1991), with Jay O. Sanders and Charles Durning; Herbert Ross’s Undercover Blues (1993), with Dennis Quaid, Fiona Shaw, Stanley Tucci, Larry Miller, Park Overall, and Tom Arnold; House of Cards (1993), with Tommy Lee Jones; Naked in New York (1994), with Eric Stoltz, Mary-Louise Parker, Ralph Macchio, Jill Clayburgh, Tony Curtis, Timothy Dalton, and Whoopi Goldberg; and John Waters’s Serial Mom (1994), with Sam Waterston, Ricki Lake, and Matthew Lillard.

Films in the mid to late 1990s include Moonlight and Valentino (1995), with Elizabeth Perkins, Gwyneth Paltrow, Goldberg and Jon Bon Jovi; Michael Ritchie’s A Simple Wish (1997), with Martin Short, Mara Wilson, Robert Pastorelli, and Amanda Plummer; Tom DiCillo’s The Real Blonde (1997), with Matthew Modine, Catherine Keener, Daryl Hannah, Maxwell Caulfield, Elizabeth Berkley, Marlo Thomas, Bridgette Wilson, Buck Henry, and Lloyd; Love and Action In Chicago (1999), with Courtney B. Vance, Regina King, Jason Alexander, and Ed Asner; and Bob Clark’s Baby Geniuses (1999), with Lloyd, Kim Cattrall, Peter MacNicol, Ruby Dee, and Dom DeLuise.

Films in the 2000s include Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides (2000), with James Woods, Kirsten Dunst, AJ Cook, Josh Hartnett, Scott Glenn, Michael Paré, and DeVito; Sally Field’s Beautiful (2000), with Minnie Driver, Hallie Kate Eisenberg, Joey Lauren Adams, Leslie Stefanson, and Wilson; Prince of Central Park (2000), with Danny Aiello, Harvey Keitel, and Cathy Moriarty; voicing in Monster House (2006), with Mitchel Musso, Sam Lerner, Spencer Locke, Steve Buscemi, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Kevin James, Nick Cannon, Jason Lee, Fred Willard, Jon Heder, and Catherine O’Hara; and Marly & Me (2008), with Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston, Eric Dane, and Alan Arkin.

Films in the 2010s include The Perfect Family (2012), with Emily Deschanel, Jason Ritter, Michael McGrady, Shannon Cochran, Sharon Lawrence, Angelique Cabral, Richard Chamberlain, and Elizabeth Peña; Nurse (2014), with Paz de la Huerta, Katrina Bowden, Corbin Bleu, and Judd Nelson; Peter & Bobby Farrelly’s Dumb and Dumber To (2014), with Carry, Jeff Daniels, Rob Riggle, Laurie Holden, and Rachel Melvin; Emily & Tim (2016), Zosia Mamet, Thomas Mann, Alexis Bledel, Kal Penn, Cara Buono, Dominic Fumusa, Malcolm Gets, David Pittu, Andre Braugher, Phylicia Rashad, Olympia Dukakis and Louis Zorich; and Another Kind of Wedding (2018), with Kevin Zegers, Jessica Paré, Wallace Shawn, and Frances Fisher.

Turner had a cameo in season 2 of the Netflix series The Kominsky Method (2018-2021), playing the ex wife of Douglas’s character. She would then be a regular during the third and final season. TV movies include Friends at Last (1995), with Colm Feore, Julie Khaner, and Sarah Paulson; Legalese (1998), with James Garner, Gina Gershon, Mary-Louise Parker, and Brian Doyle-Murray; Cinderella (2000), with Marcella Plunkett, Gideon Turner, Jane Birkin, Warner, Leslie Philips, Lucy Punch, Katrin Cartlidge, Sharon Maughan, Nickolas Grace, and Jenny Tomasin; and Lovestruck (2019), with Rachel Bilson, Andie MacDowell, and Richard Roxburgh.

Each review will be linked to the title below.

(*seen originally in theaters)

(**seen rereleased in theaters)

  • Body Heat (1981) – directed by Lawrence Kasdan
  • The Man with Two Brains (1983) – directed by Carl Reiner
  • Romancing the Stone (1984) – directed by Robert Zemeckis
  • A Breed Apart (1984) – directed by Philippe Mora
  • Crimes of Passion (1984) – directed by Ken Russell
  • Prizzi’s Honor (1985) – directed by John Huston
  • The Jewel of the Nile (1985) – directed by Lewis Teague
  • Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) – directed by Francis Ford Coppola
  • Julia and Julia (1987) – directed by Peter Del Monte
  • Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam (1987) – directed by Bill Couturié – TV documentary
  • Switching Channels (1988) – directed by Ted Kotcheff
  • Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) – directed by Robert Zemeckis (live action) & Richard Williams (animation) – uncredited voice
  • The Accidental Tourist (1988) – directed by Lawrence Kasdan
  • Tummy Trouble (1989) – directed by Frank Marshall (live action) & Rob Minkoff (animation) – short
  • The War of the Roses (1989) – directed by Danny DeVito
  • Roller Coaster Rabbit (1990) – directed by Frank Marshall (live action) & Rob Minkoff (animation) – short
  • V.I. Warshawski (1991) – directed by Jeff Kanew
  • Rabbit Ears: Rumpelstiltskin (1991) – directed by Craig Rogers – short
  • Trail Mix-Up (1993) – directed by Barry Cook – short
  • House of Cards (1993) – directed by Michael Lessac
  • Undercover Blues (1993) – directed by Herbert Ross
  • Naked in New York (1994) – directed by Daniel Algrant
  • Serial Mom (1994) – directed by John Waters
  • Leslie’s Folly (1994) – director only – TV short
  • Friends at Last (1995) – directed by John David Coles – TV movie
  • Moonlight and Valentino (1995) – directed by David Anspaugh
  • Style & Substance (1996) – directed by Robby Benson – TV movie
  • Bad Baby (1997) – directed by Tom Burton – TV movie
  • A Simple Wish (1997) – directed by Michael Ritchie
  • The Real Blonde (1997) – directed by Tom DiCillo
  • Legalese (1998) – directed by Glenn Jordan – TV movie
  • Love And Action In Chicago (1999) – directed by Dwayne Johnson-Cochran
  • Baby Geniuses (1999) – directed by Bob Clark
  • The Virgin Suicides (1999) – directed by Sofia Coppola
  • Cinderella (2000) – directed by Beeban Kidron – TV movie
  • Beautiful (2000) – directed by Sally Field
  • Prince of Central Park (2000) – directed by John Leekley
  • Monster House (2006) – directed by Gil Kenan
  • Marley & Me (2008) – directed by David Frankel
  • The Perfect Family (2012) – directed by Anne Renton
  • Nurse (2014) – directed by Doug Aarniokoski
  • Dumb and Dumber To (2014) – directed by Bobby & Peter Farrelly
  • Emily & Tim (2016) – directed by Eric Weber – narrator – anthology
  • Another Kind of Wedding (2018) – directed by Pat Kiley
  • Lovestruck (2019) – directed by Sanaa Hamri – TV movie