Kim Basinger

Kim Basinger Biography

Kimila Ann "Kim" Basinger ( , often mispronounced ; born December 8, 1953) is an American actress, singer, and former fashion model.

She is known for her portrayals of Domino Petachi, the Bond girl in Never Say Never Again (1983), and Vicki Vale, the female lead in Batman (1989). Basinger received a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress " Motion Picture nomination for her work in The Natural (1984). She won an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in L.A. Confidential (1997). Basinger also acted in the movies 9½ Weeks (1986), I Dreamed of Africa (as Kuki Gallmann) and 8 Mile (2002).

Early life

Basinger was born in Athens, Georgia, on 8 December 1953. Her mother, Ann Lee (née Cordell), was a model, actress, and swimmer who appeared in several Esther Williams films. Her father, Donald Wade Basinger, was a big band musician and loan manager; as a U.S. Army soldier, he landed in Normandy on D-Day (June 6, 1944). The third of five children, she has two brothers, Mick and Skip, and two sisters, Ashley and Barbara. Basinger's ancestry includes German, Swedish, Irish, and Cherokee Native American, and she was raised a Methodist. The relationship between her parents was tenuous, and her father's critical nature affected her emotionally from a young age. She has said. "I just couldn't please him enough. He never complimented me ever. And I saw a lot of silence. Children always read into silence as something terrible." Basinger has described herself as extremely shy and lonely during her childhood, and has stated that she faced many hardships during her school years as a result.

Basinger studied ballet from about age three to her mid-teens. By her mid teens, she grew in confidence and successfully auditioned for the school cheerleading team. When Basinger was 16, she started modeling, by winning the Athens Junior Miss contest. She then won the title "Junior Miss Georgia". She competed in the national Junior Miss pageant and was offered a modeling contract with the Ford Modeling Agency. She turned it down in favor of singing and acting, and enrolled at the University of Georgia, but soon reconsidered and went to New York to become a Ford model. Despite earning $1,000 a day, Basinger never enjoyed modelling, saying "It was very hard to go from one booking to another and always have to deal with the way I looked. I couldn't stand it. I felt myself choking." Basinger has said that even as a model, when others relished looking in the mirror before appearing, she abhorred it and would avoid mirrors out of insecurity.

Career

Not long after her Ford deal, Basinger appeared on the cover of magazines. She appeared in hundreds of ads throughout the early 1970s, most notably as the Breck Shampoo girl. She alternated between modeling and attending acting classes at the Neighborhood Playhouse, as well as performing in Greenwich Village clubs as a singer.

In 1976, after five years as a cover girl, Basinger quit modelling and moved to Los Angeles to act. She had guest roles on TV shows such as Charlie's Angels and The Six Million Dollar Man, as well as a starring role on the short-lived series Dog and Cat (1977).

In 1978, Basinger played the lead role in the made-for-TV movie Katie: Portrait of a Centerfold, as a smalltown young woman, who goes to Hollywood to become an actress and winds up a famous centerfold for a men's magazine. She was cast as prostitute Lorene Rogers in the 1979 NBC miniseries remake of the 1953 film From Here to Eternity. Basinger reprised that role in a 13-episode series spinoff in 1980. She made her theatrical feature debut in Hard Country (shot in 1979 and released in 1981), where she starred opposite Jan Michael Vincent. Her next film was the 1982 adventure Mother Lode, featuring Charlton Heston and directed by Fraser Clarke Heston.

Basinger's breakout role was as Bond girl Domino Petachi in Never Say Never Again (1983), opposite Sean Connery. She received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in Barry Levinson's The Natural (1984), opposite Robert Redford. In 1984, Basinger began work on the sexually provocative film 9½ Weeks (released 1986), which co-starred Mickey Rourke. Oscar-winning writer-director Robert Benton cast her in the title role for the film Nadine (1987) with Jeff Bridges. Basinger played Vicki Vale in the 1989 blockbuster Batman, directed by Tim Burton.

Several directors cast her twice in their films, including Blake Edwards for The Man Who Loved Women (1983) and Blind Date (1987), and Robert Altman for Fool for Love (1985) and Prêt-à-Porter (1994). In 1992, Basinger was a guest vocalist on a re-recorded version of Was (Not Was)'s "Shake Your Head", which also featured Ozzy Osbourne on vocals, and reached the UK Top 5.

Basinger scaled back her acting work for most of the 1990s. She made a comeback in 1997 as the femme fatale in the neo-noir L.A. Confidential. She initially turned down the film twice, feeling an insecurity at returning to the screen and enjoying motherhood. The role earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, as well as the Golden Globe and Screen Actor's Guild Award. In a 2000 interview with Charlie Rose, Basinger said that L.A. Confidential and her next project, I Dreamed of Africa (2000), were the most pleasurable of her career and that the cast were all there for the right reasons. She says that Vincent Pérez was the "most incredible actor she had ever worked with" and had the "biggest heart of anybody she has ever worked with."

Curtis Hanson cast her again, as Eminem's mother in 8 Mile (2002). Basinger appeared in the mainstream thrillers Cellular (2004) and The Sentinel (2006), but for the rest of the decade her appearances were in low-profile projects. She starred in the 2006 Lifetime original movie The Mermaid Chair, as well as independent films such as 2008's The Burning Plain.

Basinger played Zac Efron's character's mother in the 2010 film Charlie St. Cloud.

Personal life

Relationships and family

Basinger dated and lived with Dale Robinette in the 1970s.

On October 12, 1980, Basinger married makeup artist Ron Snyder-Britton (born 1938), who worked on the crew of her film Hard Country (1981). They separated in 1988 and were officially divorced in 1989. He later wrote a memoir in 1998, Longer than Forever, about their time together and her rumored affair with actor Richard Gere, with whom she starred in No Mercy (1986) and Final Analysis (1992). After the divorce Basinger dated casting director Jon Peters and singer Prince.

She met her second husband, Alec Baldwin, in 1990 when they played lovers in The Marrying Man. They married on August 19, 1993, and appeared in the remake of The Getaway (1994). They played themselves in a 1998 episode of The Simpsons (which includes Ron Howard), in which Basinger corrects Homer Simpson on the pronunciation of her last name and polishes her Oscar statuette. Basinger and Baldwin have a daughter, Ireland Eliesse Baldwin (born October 23, 1995), thus connecting her to the well-known Baldwin family. They separated in December 2000 and were officially divorced in February 2002. In the following years, the pair were embroiled in a custody battle over their daughter. In a 2000 interview with Charlie Rose, Basinger confessed to having suffered from agoraphobia in the early 1980s and suffering deep-rooted insecurities. Basinger says that she has a "humorous relationship" with God and a strong faith.

Financial problems

Some family members recommended Basinger buy the small town of Braselton, Georgia, some 1,691 acres in 1989 for US$20 million, to establish as a tourist attraction with movie studios and film festival. However, she encountered financial difficulties and started to sell parts of it off in 1995. The town is now owned by developer Wayne Mason. In a 1998 interview with Barbara Walters, Basinger admitted that "nothing good came out of it", because a rift resulted within her family.

Basinger's financial difficulties were exacerbated when she pulled out of the controversial film Boxing Helena (1993), resulting in the studio's winning an US$8.1 million judgment against her. Basinger filed for bankruptcy and appealed the jury's decision to a higher court, which sided with her. She and the studio settled for $3.8 million instead.

Activism

Basinger is a vegetarian and an animal rights supporter. She has posed for anti-fur advertisements by PETA.

Discography

Studio albums

1989: Hollywood Affair (produced by Prince; Sabotage Records)

EPs

1989: The Scandalous Sex Suite EP with Prince (Warner Bros)
1991: Too Hot To Handle EP: Music from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (produced by Tim Hauser; Hollywood Records)

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Awards and nominations
1981	Hard Country	Jodie
1981	Killjoy	Laury Medford
1982	Mother Lode	Andrea Spalding
1983	Never Say Never Again	Domino Petachi
1983	The Man Who Loved Women	Louise Carr
1984	The Natural	Memo Paris	Nominated " Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress " Motion Picture
1985	Fool for Love	May
1986	9½ Weeks	Elizabeth
1986	No Mercy	Michele Duval
1987	Blind Date	Nadia Gates
1987	Nadine	Nadine Hightower
1988	My Stepmother Is an Alien	Celeste Martin	Nominated " Saturn Award for Best Actress
1989	Batman	Vicki Vale	Nominated " Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress
1991	The Marrying Man (aka Too Hot to Handle)	Vicki Anderson
1992	Final Analysis	Heather Evans
1992	Cool World	Holli Would
1993	The Real McCoy	Karen McCoy
1993	Wayne's World 2	Honey Horné
1994	The Getaway	Carol McCoy
1994	Ready to Wear (aka Prêt-à-Porter)	Kitty Potter	National Board of Review Award for Best Cast
1997	L.A. Confidential	Lynn Bracken	Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress " Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role Southeastern Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress Nominated " BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role Nominated " Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2000	I Dreamed of Africa	Kuki Gallmann
2000	Bless the Child	Maggie O'Connor
2002	8 Mile	Stephanie Smith
2002	People I Know	Victoria Gray
2004	The Door in the Floor	Marion Cole
	Elvis Has Left the Building	Harmony Jones	Straight to video
	Cellular	Jessica Martin	Nominated " Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress
2006	The Sentinel	1st Lady Sarah Ballentine
	The Mermaid Chair	Jessie Sullivan
	Even Money	Carol Carver
2008	While She Was Out	Della Myers
	The Informers	Laura Sloan
	The Burning Plain	Gina
2010	Charlie St. Cloud	Claire St. Cloud
2013	Third Person		Filming

Television

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1976	Gemini Man	Sheila	TV series; episode: "Night Train to Dallas"
1976	Charlie's Angels	Linda Oliver	TV series; episode: "Angels in Chains"
1977	McMillan & Wife	Janet Carney	TV series; episode: "Dark Sunrise"
	The Six Million Dollar Man	Lorraine Stenger	TV series; episode: "The Ultimate Imposter"
	Dog and Cat	Officer J.Z. Kane	TV series (canceled after 6 episodes)
1978	The Ghost of Flight 401	Prissy Frasier
	Katie: Portrait of a Centerfold	Katie McEvera
	Vega$	Allison Jorden	TV series; episode: "Lady Ice"
1979	From Here to Eternity	Lorene Rogers
1980	From Here to Eternity	Lorene Rogers	Spinoff (canceled after 13 episodes)
1998	The Simpsons	Herself	One episode: "When You Dish Upon a Star"

Awards and honors

Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Kim Basinger

Amongs other, Basinger has won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe award (out of two nominations), a Screen Actors Guild Award (out of two nominations), an award from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, as well from the Southeastern Film Critics Association. For her lifetime achievements in the cinematic arts, she is a recipient of the Athena Award at Kudzu Film Festival, while has been bestowed two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Her work, however, has earned her additional nominations, such as for the British Academy Film Awards, the People's Choice Awards, the Saturn Awards (overal three) and/or the MTV Movie Awards (four in total).