By Gary Geyer

Kathleen Turner has never courted popularity and celebrity to gratify her ego. She has a natural ebullience and sexiness and doesn’t believe that stars should have to “airbrush their image” to stay on top.No shrinking violet, Kathleen has always been fearless, outspoken, and, at times, unfashionably blunt. Whatever she does, on-stage or in films, she does with incredible flourish. “I’m usually quite physical, and I enjoy that,” she says. She has taken great risks in her choice of roles and projects

To name but a few

Body Heat, (her first film role in 1981) made Kathleen a household name, so to speak. She followed up the “formidble broad” image she created with gusto. What comes to mind are the rolls of a streetwalker who penetrates a cop with his own nightstick in Crimes of Passion (1984), a Mob hit woman in Prizzi’s Honor (1985), the sultry voice of Jessica Rabbit (I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way”) in the animated film masterpiece Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), and a homicidal Donna Reed-type in Serial Mom (1994). Someone (not me) has said, “She made testosterone curdle.”

Confident since birth

“I think I was born confident. I have a brother who’s a psychologist. He says that three quarters of the world are born feeling that they will be affected by the world; one quarter are born knowing that they will affect the world. I don’t know why. It never occurred to me that I couldn’t change things that needed changing or couldn’t have what I wanted if I worked hard enough and I was good enough. I don’t expect gifts.”

On her upbringing

Kathleen’s father was a diplomatic officer. As a diplomat’s daughter, she has said, “you have to learn to present yourself very early on. You can say, “Hi. I’m so-and-so,” or prepare to be ignored for a year or two. Which I was not. And I remember thinking, as I traveled from one country to another, that no one here knows anything about me. So I could be anybody, I could speak as I wished, act as I wished, dress as I wished.”

On playing ‘good and likable.

“I often play women who are not essentially good or likable, and I often go through a stage where I hate them. And then I find the reasons why they are that way, and end up loving and defending them.”

On the realities of Hollywood

She says, “When I was about 40, the roles started slowing down. I started getting offers to play mothers and grandmothers. I’d say the cut-off point for leading ladies today is 35 to 40, whereas half the men in Hollywood get their start then. It’s a terrible double standard.”

On the likes of Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan

“Hollywood is singularly and frustratingly obsessed with youth. I find the idea of today’s icons and major stars being teenagers is incredibly uninspiring.”

On young actresses and foreheads.

“I do not admire young actresses whose foreheads cannot move. I think, what the hell are you doing to yourself? –certainly limiting your ability to communicate.” Kathleen watched Hollywood downsize her career because she was no longer a twenty-something sex bomb.

Is 40 the new 30, or the new 70?

She has observed that women’s magazines insist that 40 is the new 30, but “…for American actresses today 40 is more like the new 70. I figured as I got older, the good roles for women would be in the theatre. So 15 years ago I started building a Broadway career to try and develop the chops to be accepted as a great theatrical actress.” Recently, Kathleen moved to Rome part-time from New York so that she could continue working as an actress “The older I get, the less I suffer fools gladly” “I think the Europeans have enough tradition and respect for the experience and body of work of an actress that they don’t sell out to the new ones.”

Wanted: Women writers

Kathleen believes, “What we need are more women writers, writing for older women. There are some actresses who have production companies and create their own material, and I truly admire that, but it’s not me.”

Rheumatoid arthritis and the tabloids

Kathleen was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in 1993. That certainly did not help her film career. As a result of her daily intake of steroids to control pain and severe joint swelling, Kathleen had put on some weight. The tabloids weren’t kind; They she had let herself go with drinking and overeating. She said, “It hurt me very much what they wrote, but I was frightened if the industry knew I was sick, it might hurt my career.” So she kept her mouth shut instead of denying what they wrote.[Kathleen is now in remission with medication and looks great, back to her fighting weight.]

We want our sex symbols to be frozen in time.

Kathleen had said that she understood why the public’s reaction was centered on her perceived loss of sexuality. “Sex symbols,” she said, “are expected to be frozen in time. People were saying, ‘look, her face is getting heavier, comparing me to who I was 20 years ago which makes no sense. They didn’t stop growing or changing, why would I look the same? And if I did look the same, is that not bizarre?”

Sexier happens in a woman’s brain, not her bra.

Kathleen says she feels as sexy now as she did two decades ago because she considers “sexy” happens in a woman’s brain, not her bra. She said “When I was 20, I looked for approbation from everyone. But by the time I was 40 and now at 50, you wake up and think, f–k you, I don’t have to prove myself any more, and that makes you sexy.”

Kathleen says that her days get better and better “as my experience and knowledge gains.” <<

Gary Geyer is Editor-in-Chief of LetLifeIn.com (Editor@LetLifeIn.com) as well as editor of the People & Entertainment section and the Fun Stuff section. Reach him at Gary@LetLifeIn.com.Gary@LetLifeIn.com.