Kathleen Turner

Kathleen Turner
Turner in 2013
Born	Mary Kathleen Turner (1954-06-19) June 19, 1954 (age 70) Springfield, Missouri, U.S.
Education	Southwest Missouri State University University of Maryland, Baltimore County (BFA, 1977)
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1972–present
Spouse	Jay Weiss ​ ​ (m. 1984; div. 2007)​
Children	1
Website	kathleenturner.net

Mary Kathleen Turner (born June 19, 1954) is an American actress. Known for her distinctive husky voice,^[1][2] she is the recipient of two Golden Globes, as well as nominations for an Academy Award, a Grammy, and two Tony Awards.

After debuting both off and on Broadway in 1977, followed by her television debut as Nola Aldrich on the NBC soap opera The Doctors (1978–1979), Turner rose to prominence with her portrayal of Matty Walker in Body Heat (1981), which brought her a reputation as a sex symbol.^[3] She worked solidly throughout the 1980s, in films such as The Man with Two Brains (1983), Crimes of Passion, Romancing the Stone (both 1984), Prizzi's Honor, The Jewel of the Nile (both 1985), Switching Channels, The Accidental Tourist (both 1988), and The War of the Roses (1989). For her portrayal of the title character in Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), Turner was nominated for the 1987 Academy Award for Best Actress. Subsequent credits include V.I. Warshawski (1991), Serial Mom (1994), Baby Geniuses, The Virgin Suicides (both 1999), Beautiful (2000), Marley & Me (2008), and Dumb and Dumber To (2014).

Outside film, Turner guest-starred as Sue Collini on Showtime's Californication (2009) and Roz Volander on Netflix's The Kominsky Method (2019–2021). She also played Charles Bing, the drag queen father of Chandler Bing, on the seventh season of Friends (2001). Turner's voice work includes Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Constance in Monster House (2006), as well as characters on television series such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, King of the Hill, and Rick and Morty.

In addition to her work on stage and screen, Turner has taught acting classes at New York University.^[4][5]

Born June 19, 1954, in Springfield, Missouri,^[6] to Patsy (née Magee)^[7] and Allen Richard Turner, a U.S. Foreign Service officer^[7] who grew up in China (where Turner's great-grandfather had been a Methodist missionary), Turner is the third of four children, and the only one to be born in the United States.^[8] She has a sister, Susan, and two brothers.^[9][10][11]

Raised in a strictly conservative Christian home, Turner's interest in performing was discouraged by both of her parents: "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 [there] and sit in the car. She'd come out at intermissions and tell him, 'She's doing very well.'"^[10][12]

Owing to her father's position with the Foreign Service, Turner grew up in Canada, Cuba, Venezuela, and London, England.^[13] She attended high school at The American School in London,^[14] graduating in 1972.^[9] "The start of real acting for me began during high school in London", she stated in her 2008 memoir. "There were seven of us who were sort of a theater mafia. We produced, directed, acted, chose the plays, got one teacher fired and another one hired."^[15] Her father died of a coronary thrombosis one week before her graduation,^[16][9] and the family returned to Springfield, Missouri. At the age of 19, Turner began volunteering at a local Planned Parenthood office.^[4]

She attended Southwest Missouri State University^[17] for two years, studying theater. During this period, director Herbert Blau saw her performance in The House of Blue Leaves, and invited her to spend her senior year at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County,^[18] where she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1977.^[19] During that period, Turner acted in several productions directed by film and stage director Steve Yeager.^[20]

In 1973, Turner spent the summer with her mother in Midland, Texas. There, at the Yucca Theater, Turner made history when she was cast as the first female villain in the Summer Mummers 1973 melodrama, Plodding Among the Planets.

Several months after moving to New York City in 1977, Turner took over the female lead in Michael Zetter's play Mister T, which co-starred Jonathan Frakes and played at Soho Repertory Theatre. That production marked her off-Broadway debut. Several months later, Turner made her Broadway debut as Judith Hastings in Gemini by Albert Innaurato, staged at The Little Theatre (now known as the Helen Hayes Theater) and starring Danny Aiello. It opened May 21, 1977, during the time when she was appearing in the soap The Doctors.^[21]

In 1978, Turner made her television debut in the NBC daytime soap The Doctors as the second Nola Dancy Aldrich. She made her film debut in 1981 as the ruthless Matty Walker in the thriller Body Heat; the role brought her to international prominence. Empire cited the film in 1995 when it named her one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in Film History.^[22] The New York Times wrote in 2005 that, propelled by her "jaw-dropping movie debut [in] Body Heat ... she built a career on adventurousness and frank sexuality born of robust physicality".^[12] Turner ultimately became one of the top box-office draws, and most sought-after actresses of the 1980s and early 1990s.

Turner stated in 2018, "Body Heat was a blessing because I went straight to being a leading actor and I didn't have to suffer any of this predatory male behaviour like many young actresses. It doesn't frustrate me that nearly four decades after that film I'm still referred to as a sexual icon. I got over that a long time ago."^[23]

Because of her deep, husky voice, Turner was often compared to a young Lauren Bacall. When the two met, Turner reportedly introduced herself by saying, "Hi, I'm the young you."^[24]

After Body Heat, Turner steered away from femme fatale roles to "prevent typecasting" and "because femme fatale roles had a shelf-life". Consequently, her first project after this was the 1983 comedy The Man With Two Brains. Turner co-starred in Romancing the Stone with Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito. Film critic Pauline Kael wrote of her performance as writer Joan Wilder, "Turner knows how to use her dimples amusingly and how to dance like a woman who didn't know she could; her star performance is exhilarating."^[25] Romancing the Stone was a surprise hit: she won a Golden Globe for her role in the film, and it became one of the top-ten-grossing movies of 1984.^[26] Turner teamed with Douglas and DeVito again the following year for its sequel, The Jewel of the Nile. Pre-production for the movie was fraught with conflict, because Turner refused to commit to the "terrible" script she had been delivered. When she said no, 20th Century Fox threatened her with a US$25 million breach of contract lawsuit. Eventually Douglas, also the film's producer, agreed to undertake rewrites on the script to make it more acceptable to Turner, which led to much back-and-forth between the two as the script was retooled right up to when shooting started in Fez, Morocco.^[27]

Several months before Jewel, Turner starred in Prizzi's Honor with Jack Nicholson, winning a second Golden Globe award, and later starred in Peggy Sue Got Married, which co-starred Nicolas Cage. For Peggy Sue, she received the award for Best Actress from the U.S. National Board of Review of Motion Pictures,^[28] as well as an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

In 1988's toon-noir Who Framed Roger Rabbit, she was the speaking voice of cartoon femme fatale Jessica Rabbit, intoning the famous line, "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way." Her uncredited, sultry performance was acclaimed as "the kind of sexpot ball-breaker she was made for".^[29] (Amy Irving provided Jessica Rabbit's singing voice in the scene in which the character first appears in the movie.) That same year, Turner also appeared in Switching Channels, which was a loose remake of the 1940 hit film His Girl Friday; this, in turn, was a loose remake of the Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur comedy The Front Page.^[30]

Turner was the subject of the 1986 song "The Kiss of Kathleen Turner" by Austrian techno-pop singer Falco. In 1989, Turner teamed with Douglas and DeVito for a third time, in The War of the Roses, but this time as Douglas's disillusioned wife, with DeVito in the role of a divorce attorney who told their shared story. The New York Times praised the trio, saying that "Mr. Douglas and Ms. Turner have never been more comfortable a team ... each of them is at his or her comic best when being as awful as both are required to be here ... [Kathleen Turner is] evilly enchanting."^[31] In that film, Turner played a former gymnast and, as in other roles, did many of her own stunts. (She broke her nose two years later, filming 1991's V.I. Warshawski.)^[32][33]

Turner remained an A-list film star leading lady in the early 1990s, starring in V.I. Warshawski and Undercover Blues, until rheumatoid arthritis seriously restricted her activities. She also blamed her age, stating, "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, she began experiencing "inexplicable pains and fevers."^[34] The rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis was made about a year later. By the time she was diagnosed, she "could hardly turn her head or walk, and was told she would end up in a wheelchair".^[12] Of this period, she has said: "My body could respond only with excruciating pain whenever I tried to move at all. The joints in my hands were so swollen, I couldn't hold a pen. Some days I couldn't hold a glass to get a drink of water. I couldn't pick up my child... my feet would blow up so badly that I couldn't get them into any kind of shoes, let alone walk on them."^[35]

Turner's appearance changed after the rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis. "The press were merciless," she states in her memoir. "They snipped that I had become fat and unrecognizable because I was an angry, washed-up diva, an out-of-control has-been, when in truth the changes in my physical appearance were caused by drugs and chemotherapy and were not within my control. Still, I did not reveal what was happening to me."^[36]

As her rheumatoid arthritis progressed, alcohol consumption became a problem. "I drank consciously at first to kill the pain....Later, after I got the new medicines and the pain began to subside, I kept drinking too much... It didn't damage my work, but it damaged me personally."^[37]

Turner has admitted that the drinking made her difficult to be around.^[38] In 2005, an article in The New York Times stated: "Rumors began circulating that she was drinking too much." In her memoir, she said: "I went on letting others believe anything they wanted to about my behavior and physical changes. Many people bought the assumption that I'd turned into a heavy drinker. I couldn't publicly refute them because I believed it was worse to have people know that I had this terrible illness. They'd hire me if they thought I was a drunk, because they could understand drinking, but they wouldn't hire me if I had a mysterious, scary illness they didn't understand. We – Jay, my agent, myself – felt it was imperative to keep my rheumatoid arthritis quiet."^[37]

Her career as a leading lady went into a steep decline and she was seen in fewer and fewer very successful films. She turned down lead roles in Ghost and The Bridges of Madison County, both of which became big hits. She appeared in the low-budget House of Cards as well as the comedy-drama Moonlight & Valentino, and had supporting roles in A Simple Wish, The Real Blonde, and Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides. She also provided the voice of Malibu Stacy's creator, Stacy Lovell, in the episode "Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy" on The Simpsons.

Turner was originally cast as Zira in Disney's The Lion King II: Simba's Pride. Turner talked about the role and even sang a portion of her character's song (stating the film would be her singing debut) during an interview on The Rosie O'Donnell Show on March 10, 1998.^[39] She was replaced by Suzanne Pleshette in the final film.

Despite drug therapy to help her condition, the disease progressed for about eight years. Then, thanks to newly available treatments, her rheumatoid arthritis went into remission. She was seen increasingly on television, including three episodes of Friends, where she appeared as Chandler Bing's father, a drag performer.

In 2006, Turner guest-starred on FX's Nip/Tuck, playing a phone sex operator in need of laryngeal surgery. She appeared in a small role in 2008's Marley & Me and also played a defense attorney on Law & Order. In 2009, she played the role of Charlie Runkle's sexually hyperactive boss in season three of the television series Californication.

Turner starred in the indie film The Perfect Family in 2011 and had supporting roles in Nurse 3D (2013) and the comedy sequel Dumb and Dumber To in 2014.

She appeared in two episodes of the Hulu series The Path (2016–17), starred in an episode of the anthology series Dolly Parton's Heartstrings (2019) and guest-starred on two episodes of the CBS comedy series Mom in 2020. On the Netflix dramedy series The Kominsky Method, Turner was a guest in season 2 (2019) and became a main cast member in season 3 (2021). The series reunited her with fellow actor Michael Douglas for the first time since The War of the Roses.

Turner provided the voice of Jessica Rabbit in the 1988 live action/animated film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, its three animated short film spinoffs, and in the Disneyland attraction spinoff, Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin. In 2006, Turner voiced the character Constance in the animated film Monster House. Later, she provided radio commercial voice-overs for Lay's potato chips. BBC Radio 4 produced four radio dramas based on the V. I. Warshawski novels by Sara Paretsky. Two of them, Killing Orders and Deadlock, released in 2007, featured Turner reprising her 1991 film role, which had been based on Paretsky's novel Deadlock; however, the final series, Bitter Medicine, released in 2009, had Sharon Gless take over the part.^[40] In 2015, she narrated the anthology drama film Emily & Tim. Turner also had voice guest roles on the animated series King of the Hill, Family Guy, 3Below: Tales of Arcadia, Rick and Morty, Summer Camp Island, and Wizards: Tales of Arcadia.

After 1990s roles in Broadway productions of Indiscretions and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (for which she earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress), Turner moved to London in 2000 to star in a stage version of The Graduate. The BBC reported that initially mediocre ticket sales for The Graduate "went through the roof when it was announced that Turner, then aged 45, would appear naked on stage". While her performance as the seductive Mrs. Robinson was popular with audiences, with sustained high box office for the duration of Turner's run, she received mixed reviews from critics.^[41] The play transferred to Broadway in 2002 to similar critical reaction.

In 2005, Turner beat a score of other contenders (including Jessica Lange, Frances McDormand, and Bette Midler)^[12] for the role of Martha in a 2005 Broadway revival of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Longacre Theatre. Albee later explained to the New York Times that when Turner read for the part with her eventual co-star Bill Irwin, he heard "an echo of the 'revelation' that he had felt years ago when the parts were read by [Uta] Hagen and Arthur Hill." He added that Turner had "a look of voluptuousness, a woman of appetites, yes ... but a look of having suffered, as well."^[12]

Ben Brantley praised Turner at length, writing:

As the man-eating Martha, Ms. Turner, a movie star whose previous theater work has been variable, finally secures her berth as a first-rate, depth-probing stage actress ... [A]t 50, this actress can look ravishing and ravaged, by turns. In the second act, she is as predatorily sexy as she was in the movie Body Heat. But in the third and last act, she looks old, bereft, stripped of all erotic flourish. I didn't think I would ever be able to see Virginia Woolf again without thinking of Ms. Hagen [Uta Hagen]. But watching Ms. Turner in that last act, fully clothed but more naked than she ever was in The Graduate, I didn't see the specter of Ms. Hagen. All I saw was Ms. Turner. No, let's be fair. All I saw was Martha.^[42]

As Martha, Turner received her second Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Play, losing to Cherry Jones. The production was transferred to London's Apollo Theatre in 2006. She starred in Sandra Ryan Heyward's one-woman show, Tallulah, which she toured across the U.S.

In August 2010, Turner portrayed the role of Sister Jamison Connelly in Matthew Lombardo's drama High at Hartford TheaterWorks.^[43] The production transferred to Broadway at the Booth Theater where it opened in previews on March 25, 2011, officially on April 19, 2011, and an announced quick closing on April 24, 2011.^[44] However, in a rare move, the production was revived, still headed by Turner, to undertake a national tour which began in Boston in December 2012.^[45]

From August to October 28, 2012, Turner appeared in Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins, a play about the legendary liberal Texas columnist Molly Ivins, at Arena Stage in Washington, DC.^[46] In December 2014 and January 2015, Turner performed the same show at Berkeley Repertory Theatre.^[47] She appeared again at Arena Stage in the title role of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage, which opened in February 2014,^[48] and playing Joan Didion in the one-woman show The Year of Magical Thinking, based on Didion's memoir of the same name, in October and November 2016.^[49] In February 2019, Turner made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in the speaking role of The Duchess of Krakentorp in Donizetti's opera La fille du régiment.^[50]

Turner married real estate entrepreneur Jay Weiss of New York City in 1984, and they had one daughter, singer Rachel Ann Weiss, who was born on October 14, 1987. Turner and Weiss divorced in December 2007, but Turner has said, "[Jay]'s still my best friend."^[51]

By the late 1980s, Turner had acquired a reputation for being difficult, what The New York Times called "a certifiable diva". She admitted that she had developed into "not a very kind person", and actress Eileen Atkins—with whom she starred in the play Indiscretions on Broadway—referred to her as "an amazing nightmare".^[12] In 2018, she commented on her reputation, stating: "The 'difficult' thing was pure gender crap. If a man comes on set and says, 'Here's how I see this being done', people go, 'He's decisive.' If a woman does it, they say, 'Oh, fuck. There she goes.'"^[27] Turner has defended herself against Atkins' claims, saying that Atkins harbored animosity towards her because she was having trouble memorizing her lines, which Atkins found very unprofessional. Turner later realized that the new medication for her rheumatoid arthritis she was taking was making her "fuzzy". She added that on days when the rheumatoid arthritis in her wrist was especially bad and she warned the other cast members not to touch it, Atkins would intentionally sit on it during a scene where Turner had to play dead, causing Turner extreme pain.^[27]

Turner slammed Hollywood over the difference in the quality of roles offered to male actors and female actors as they age, calling the disparity a "terrible double standard".

A few weeks after leaving the production of the play The Graduate in November 2002, she was admitted into the Geisinger Marworth Treatment Center in Waverly, Pennsylvania, for the treatment of alcoholism. "I have no problem with alcohol when I'm working", she explained. "It's when I'm home alone that I can't control my drinking ... I was going toward excess. I mean, really! I think I was losing my control over it. So it pulled me back."^[12]

Turner has worked with Planned Parenthood of America since age 19, and later became a chairperson. She also serves on the board of People for the American Way, and volunteers at Amnesty International and Citymeals-on-Wheels. She was one of John Kerry's first celebrity endorsers. She has been a frequent donor to the Democratic Party. She has also worked to raise awareness of rheumatoid arthritis.^[52]

In the mid-2000s, Turner collaborated with Gloria Feldt on the writing of her memoirs, Send Yourself Roses: Thoughts on My Life, Love, and Leading Roles. The book was published in 2008.^[53][54] In the book, Turner claimed that, while they were filming Peggy Sue Got Married, her co-star Nicolas Cage had gotten drunk and stole a Chihuahua that he liked.^[55] In turn, Cage filed a lawsuit against Turner and her book publisher in the UK, who took an excerpt from the book and posted it on their website (before publication).^[55] Cage argued defamation and damage to character and won the case, resulting in retractions, legal fees, and a donation to charity.^[55] Turner later publicly apologized.^[56] During an interview on The View, Turner apologized for any distress she might have caused Cage regarding an incident that took place 20 years earlier.^[57][58]

On August 7, 2018, Vulture published an in-depth interview with Turner, wherein she expressed her opinion on a wide range of issues, from Elizabeth Taylor's acting skills to what it was like meeting Donald Trump in the 1980s.^[59] Turner's frankness and certain revelations she made caused the article to be widely shared in different media outlets, which led to her name trending on Google.^[60]

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1981	Body Heat	Matty Walker
1983	The Man with Two Brains	Dolores Benedict
1984	Romancing the Stone	Joan Wilder
	A Breed Apart	Stella Clayton
	Crimes of Passion	Joanna Crane / China Blue
1985	Prizzi's Honor	Irene Walkervisks / Irene Walker
	The Jewel of the Nile	Joan Wilder
1986	Peggy Sue Got Married	Peggy Sue Bodell
1987	Julia and Julia	Julia
1988	Switching Channels	Christy Colleran
	Who Framed Roger Rabbit	Jessica Rabbit (voice)	Uncredited
	The Accidental Tourist	Sarah Leary
1989	Tummy Trouble	Jessica Rabbit (voice)	Short film
	The War of the Roses	Barbara Rose
1990	Roller Coaster Rabbit	Jessica Rabbit (voice)	Short film
1991	V.I. Warshawski	Victoria "V. I." Warshawski
1993	Trail Mix-Up	Jessica Rabbit (voice)	Short film
	Naked in New York	Dana Coles
	House of Cards	Ruth Matthews
	Undercover Blues	Jane Blue
1994	Serial Mom	Beverly R. Sutphin
1995	Moonlight and Valentino	Alberta Trager
	The Snow Queen	The Snow Queen (voice)	English dub
1997	Bad Baby	Gloria Goode (voice)
	A Simple Wish	Claudia
	The Real Blonde	Dee Dee Taylor
1999	Baby Geniuses	Elena Kinder
	Love and Action in Chicago	Middleman
	The Virgin Suicides	Mrs. Lisbon
2000	Beautiful	Verna Chickle
	Prince of Central Park	Rebecca Cairn
2006	Monster House	Constance (voice)
2008	Marley & Me	Ms. Kornblut
2011	The Perfect Family	Eileen Cleary
2013	Nurse 3D	Head Nurse Betty Watson
	Gods Behaving Badly	Styx	Unreleased
2014	Dumb and Dumber To	Fraida Felcher
2015	Emily & Tim	The Narrator (voice)
2017	Someone Else's Wedding[61]	Barbara Haines	Released as Another Kind of Wedding
2022	The Swearing Jar	Bev
	The Estate	Aunt Hilda

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1978–1979	The Doctors	Nola Dancy Aldrich	86 episodes[62]
1994	The Simpsons	Stacy Lovell (voice)	Episode: "Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy"
1995	Friends at Last	Fanny Connelyn	TV movie
1998	Legalese	Brenda Whitlass
2000	Cinderella	Claudette
	King of the Hill	Miss Liz Strickland (voice)	3 episodes
2001	Friends	Charles Bing / Helena Handbasket	Episodes: "The One with Chandler's Dad", "The One with Chandler and Monica's Wedding"[63]
2006	Law & Order	Rebecca Shane	Episode: "Magnet"
	Nip/Tuck	Cindy Plumb	Episode: "Cindy Plumb"
2009	Californication	Sue Collini	10 episodes
2016–2017	The Path	Brenda Roberts	2 episodes
2017	Family Guy	Herself (voice)	Episode: "Foxx in the Men House"
2019	Lovestruck	Grace	TV movie
	3Below: Tales of Arcadia	Gwendolyn (voice)	Episode: "There's Something About Gwen (of Gorbon)"
	Heartstrings	Mary "Old Bones" Shaw	Episode: "These Old Bones"[64]
	Rick and Morty	Monogatron leader's Wife (voice)	Episode: "The Old Man and the Seat"[65]
2019, 2021	The Kominsky Method	Roz Volander	6 episodes
2020	Mom	"Cookie"	2 episodes[66]
	Summer Camp Island	Mole Judge (voice)	Episode: "Molar Moles"
	Prop Culture	Herself	Episode: "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"
	Wizards: Tales of Arcadia	Lady of The Lake (voice)	Episode: "Lady of the Lake"
2022	HouseBroken	Nancy (voice)	Episode: "Who's Found Themselves in One of Those Magical Christmas Life Swap Switcheroos?"
2023	White House Plumbers	Dita Beard

Theater work by Kathleen Turner

Year	Play	Role	Venue	Notes
1977	Gemini	Judith Hastings	Little Theatre, Broadway	Replacement
1981	A Midsummer Night's Dream	Titania[67]	Arena Stage, Regional
1989	Love Letters	Melissa Gardner [68][69]	Promenade Theatre, Off-Broadway
1990	Cat on a Hot Tin Roof	Maggie	Eugene O'Neill Theatre, Broadway
1995	Indiscretions	Yvonne	Ethel Barrymore Theatre, Broadway
2000	The Graduate	Mrs. Robinson	Gielgud Theatre, West End
2000–2001	Tallulah	Tallulah Bankhead	National tour
2002	The Graduate	Mrs. Robinson	Plymouth Theatre, Broadway
2004	The Exonerated	Sunny Jacobs[70]	Casa Mañana Theatre, Regional
2005	Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?	Martha	Longacre Theatre, Broadway
2006			Apollo Theatre, West End
2007			National tour
	Crimes of the Heart	Unknown	Williamstown Theatre Festival, Regional	Directed only
2008			Laura Pels Theatre, Off-Broadway
2009	The Third Story	Peg / Dr. Rutenspitz	Lucille Lortel Theatre, Off-Broadway
2010	Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins	Molly Ivins	Philadelphia Theatre Company, Regional
	High	Sister Jamison Connelly	TheaterWorks, Regional
			Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Regional
			The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Regional
2011			Booth Theatre, Broadway
2012	Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins	Molly Ivins	Geffen Playhouse, Regional
			Arena Stage, Regional
	The Killing of Sister George	June Buckridge	Long Wharf Theatre, Regional	Also directed
2014	Mother Courage and Her Children	Mother Courage	Arena Stage, Regional
	Bakersfield Mist	Maude Gutman	Duchess Theatre, West End
2014–2015	Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins	Molly Ivins	Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Regional
2015	Would You Still Love Me If...	Victoria Pruitt	New World Stages Stage V, Off-Broadway	Also directed
2016	The Year of Magical Thinking	Joan Didion	Arena Stage, Regional
2017	An Act of God	God	George Street Playhouse, Regional
2024	A Little Night Music	Madame Armfeldt[71]	Ogunquit Playhouse, Regional

Audio work by Kathleen Turner

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2023	White House Plumbers Podcast	Herself	Episode 2

Accolades for Kathleen Turner

Association	Year	Nominated work	Category	Results	Ref
Academy Awards	1987	Peggy Sue Got Married	Best Actress	Nominated	[72]
Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival	2015	—	Honorary Award	Won
BAFTA Awards	1983	—	Most Outstanding Newcomer to Leading Film Roles	Nominated
Chicago International Film Festival	1992	—	Piper-Heidsieck Award	Won
Chlotrudis Awards	1995	Serial Mom	Best Actress	Nominated
David di Donatello Awards	1990	The War of the Roses	Best Foreign Actress	Nominated
Drama Desk Awards	2005	Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?	Outstanding Actress in a Play	Nominated	[73]
DVD Exclusive Awards	2001	Love and Action in Chicago	Best Supporting Actress	Nominated
Golden Globes	1982	Body Heat	New Star of the Year in a Motion Picture	Nominated
	1985	Romancing the Stone	Best Actress — Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical	Won	[74]
	1986	Prizzi's Honor		Won	[75]
	1987	Peggy Sue Got Married		Nominated	[76]
	1990	The War of the Roses		Nominated	[77]
Grammy Awards	2001	The Complete Shakespeare Sonnets	Best Spoken Word Album	Nominated	[78]
Hasty Pudding Theatricals	1989	—	Woman of the Year	Won
Los Angeles Film Critics Association	1984	Romancing the Stone / Crimes of Passion	Best Actress	Won
Montréal World Film Festival	2013	—	Grand Prix Special des Amériques	Won
National Board of Review	1986	Peggy Sue Got Married	Best Actress	Won
National Society of Film Critics Awards	1985	Romancing the Stone / Crimes of Passion	Best Actress	Nominated
	1987	Peggy Sue Got Married	Best Actress (tied with Sandrine Bonnaire for Vagabond)	Nominated
New York Film Critics Circle Awards	1986		Best Actress	Nominated
Online Film & Television Association	2001	Friends	Best Guest Actress in a Comedy Series	Nominated	[79]
People's Choice Awards	1986	Prizzi's Honor	Favorite Motion Picture Actress	Nominated
	1987	Peggy Sue Got Married		Nominated
	1990	The War of the Roses		Nominated
Provincetown International Film Festival	2007	—	Lifetime Achievement Award	Won
Sant Jordi Awards	1986	Prizzi’s Honor / Crimes of Passion	Best Foreign Actress	Won
	1988	Peggy Sue Got Married / Giulia e Giulia		Nominated
Santo Domingo OutFest	2012	The Perfect Family	Outstanding Performance	Won
Saturn Awards	1987	Peggy Sue Got Married	Best Actress	Nominated
Savannah Film Festival	2004	—	Lifetime Achievement Award	Won
Screen Actors Guild Awards	2021	The Kominsky Method	Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series	Nominated	[80]
Theatre World Awards	1990	Cat on a Hot Tin Roof	Special Award (for Outstanding Broadway Debut)	Won
Tony Awards			Best Actress in a Play	Nominated	[81]
	2005	Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?		Nominated
WorldFest Houston	1993	House of Cards	Best Actress	Won

• Official website
• Kathleen Turner at IMDb 
• Kathleen Turner at the TCM Movie Database
• Kathleen Turner at the Internet Broadway Database
• Kathleen Turner at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Interview and profile in The Guardian (March 18, 2000)