Kim Basinger

Infobox actor


imagesize = 250px
caption = Kim Basinger at the Academy Awards, March 1990
birthdate = birth date and age|1953|12|8
birthplace = Athens, Georgia
birthname = Kimila Ann Basinger
occupation = Film actress
spouse = Ron Snyder (1980-1988)
Alec Baldwin (1993-2002)
academyawards = Best Supporting Actress
1997 "L.A. Confidential"
goldenglobeawards = Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
1997 "L.A. Confidential"
sagawards = Outstanding Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
1997 "L.A. Confidential"
awards = NBR Award for Best Cast
1994 "Prêt-à-Porter"

Kimila Ann "Kim" Basinger (pronEng|ˈbeɪsɪŋɚ "bay-sing-er," often mispronounced IPA|/ˈbæsɪndʒɚ/"bass-in-jer") (born December 8, 1953) is an Academy Award-winning American film actress and former fashion model.

Early life

Basinger was born in Athens, Georgia. Her father, Don Basinger, was a big band musician and loan manager [ [http://www.filmreference.com/film/64/Kim-Basinger.html "Kim Basinger biography"] . Film Reference.com.] who landed in Normandy during D-Day. [ [http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/contributor/1800011707/bio "Kim Basinger"] . Yahoo Movies.] Her mother, Ann, was a model, actress, and swimmer who appeared in Esther Williams films. She has two brothers, Mick and Skip, and two sisters, Ashley and Barbara.

When Basinger was sixteen years old, she started her modeling career by winning the Athens Junior Miss contest. She followed that by winning the title “Junior Miss Georgia”. Basinger then competed in the national Junior Miss pageant. It was there that Basinger was offered a modeling contract with Ford Modeling Agency. Initially turning down the offer in favor of singing and acting, Basinger reconsidered and went to New York to become a Ford model.

Career

Not long after penning the deal, Basinger was on the cover of numerous magazines. She appeared in hundreds of ads throughout the early ‘70s, most notably appearing as the Breck shampoo girl. She achieved a top model status by age 20, earning a salary of $1,000 a day. In the meantime, she alternated between modeling work and attending acting classes at the prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse as well as performing in various Greenwich Village clubs.In 1976, after a five-year stint as a cover girl, Basinger decided to put her modeling career on hold and move to Los Angeles to begin a career in acting. After appearing in small parts on a few TV shows such as "McMillan & Wife" and "Charlie's Angels", her first starring role was a made-for-TV movie, "Katie: Portrait of a Centerfold" (1978) in which she played a small town girl who goes to Hollywood to become an actress and winds up becoming a famous centerfold for a men's magazine. She was a Bond girl in "Never Say Never Again" (1983), where she starred opposite Sean Connery. She did a famous pictorial for "Playboy" in 1983, which Basinger has said led to good opportunities, such as Barry Levinson's "The Natural" (1984), co-starring Robert Redford, for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination as Best Supporting Actress. Academy Award winning writer-director Robert Benton cast her in the title role for the film "Nadine" (1987). Other directors repeated her in their films, such as 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). Her most prominent appearances include "9½ Weeks" (1986), "Batman" (1989) and Curtis Hanson's "L.A. Confidential" (1997), for which she received an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, as well as the Golden Globe and Screen Actor's Guild Award. Hanson would cast her once more as Eminem's mother in the hit film "8 Mile" (2002). She holds the distinction of being the only actress who has both posed nude in "Playboy" and won an Academy Award.

In 1992 Basinger was the 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. This makes her also one of a few Academy Award winners for acting roles to have had a hit record, particularly in more recent years.

In the video for Tom Petty's 1993 song "Mary Jane's Last Dance", Basinger played the role of a deceased woman Petty brings home from the morgue for a dinner date, clothing her in a wedding dress. Later, Petty is shown carrying her to a rocky shore and throwing her into the sea. In a macabre ending, she is seen floating in the water with her eyes open.

She was, at an early stage, considered for the role of Donna in film adaptation of the stage musical "Mamma Mia!", but lost to Meryl Streep.

Personal life

Basinger married makeup artist Ron Snyder-Britton in 1980. They met on the film "Hard Country", but the marriage ended in divorce in 1988. He would later write a memoir titled "Longer than Forever", published in 1998, about their time together and about her rumored affair with actor Richard Gere, with whom she starred in "No Mercy" (1986) and "Final Analysis" (1992). [Britton, Ron. [http://www.blake.co.uk/e-store/product.php?productid=4971&cat=37&page=7 "Longer than Forever"] . Blake Publishing. 1998. ISBN 9781857823257.] She later had a relationship with Prince, for less than a year. She met her second husband, actor Alec Baldwin, when both played romantic lovers in the 1991 success , "The Marrying Man". They married on August 19, 1993 and appeared in another success in Europe and Russia, the remake of "The Getaway" (1994). They also played themselves in an 1998 episode of "The Simpsons" (which also includes Ron Howard), where Basinger corrects Homer Simpson on the pronunciation of her last name and also polishes her Oscar statuette. They have a daughter, Ireland Eliesse "Addie" Baldwin (born October 23, 1995). The couple separated in 2000 and divorced in February 2002. Since then, Basinger and Baldwin have been locked in a contentious public custody battle.

Basinger suffers from agoraphobia, which she blames on discomfort early in her Hollywood career from people "ogling" her when she was required to appear in bikinis. She said she was in "misery because people were looking at [her] " and that she would go "home and play piano and scream at night to let out... frustrations." [ [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000107/news "Kim Basinger Pinpoints Source of Her Agoraphobia"] . 17 October 2002 (WENN). Reprinted news at IMDB.com.]

Some of her family members recommended that Basinger buy the small town of Braselton, Georgia in 1989 for $20 million, with the hopes of establishing the town as a tourist attraction with movie studios and a film festival, but she met financial difficulties and sold it in 1993. 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. Her financial difficulties were exacerbated when she pulled out of the controversial film "Boxing Helena", resulting in the studio suing and winning an $8-million judgment against her at after a trial. Kim filed for bankruptcy [ [http://www.straightbankruptcy.org/hollywood_bankruptcy.asp "Kim Basinger Files Bankruptcy"] . Straight Bankruptcy.com] and also appealed the jury's decision to a higher court, which sided with her. Eventually, she and the studio settled for a lesser amount. [ [http://www2.jsonline.com/letsgo/movies/0921basinger.stm "For Kim Basinger, the "fire ball" is out - and Veronica Lake is in"] . Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 20 September 1997.]

Basinger is also a vegetarian and PETA supporter. [KIM will be present at Venice Festival movie on 27 august 2008 [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000107/bio Kim Basinger - Biography ] ]

Filmography

###@@@KEY@@@### s-achsuccession box
title=Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
years=1997
for "L.A. Confidential"
before=Juliette Binoche
for "The English Patient"
after=Judi Dench
for "Shakespeare in Love"succession box
title=Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
years=1997
for "L.A. Confidential"
before=Lauren Bacall
for "The Mirror Has Two Faces"
after=Lynn Redgrave
for "Gods and Monsters"succession box
title=Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
years=1997
for "L.A. Confidential"
before=Lauren Bacall
for "The Mirror Has Two Faces"
after=Kathy Bates for "Primary Colors"

Television work

*"Charlie's Angels" (1976) (episode: Angels in Chains)
*"Dog and Cat" (1977) (canceled after six episodes)
*"The Ghost of Flight 401" (1978)
*"Katie: Portrait of a Centerfold" (1978)
*"From Here to Eternity" (1979) (miniseries)
*"From Here to Eternity" (1980) (canceled after thirteen episodes)
*"Killjoy" (1981)
*"Sean Connery, an Intimate Portrait" (1997) (documentary)
*"The Simpsons" (1998: 13.17) (as herself)

References

External links

*imdb name|id=0000107|name=Kim Basinger
*amg name|2:4427

Persondata
NAME=Basinger, Kim
ALTERNATIVE NAMES= Basinger, Kimila Ann
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Actor
DATE OF BIRTH=December 8, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH=Athens, Georgia
DATE OF DEATH=
PLACE OF DEATH=