Billed as one of the sexiest stars in Hollywood by Empire Magazine (1995) her movie career was launched in the early eighties with the hit movie Body Heat (1981) whose title symbolizes the movie’s content. She played a seductive murderess that lures William Hurt onto a deadly path of murder.
Born June 19, 1954 in Springfield, Missouri, her youth was spent mostly abroad in Canada, Cuba, Venezuela, and England due to her father was a U.S. Ambassador. She learned early to adjust to situations and new locations.
Her first desire for acting was found in England where she witnessed great stage performances with Angela Lansbury and Christopher Plummer. While in London she also attended the London's Central School of Speech and Drama.
After her father’s death her mother and her returned back to her hometown of Springfield. She attended Southwest Missouri State University and later University of Maryland, which she graduated with a degree in theater in 1977.
From soap opera Television, The Doctors on which she played the character of Nola Dancy Aldrich (1978-1979) she launched right into movies.
Body Heat was her stepping-stone to Steve Martin comedy The Man with Two Brains (1983) but her true leap to stardom came with a romantic action/adventure with Michael Douglas in Romancing the Stone (1984). It was this movie that won her a Golden Globe. This was a box office smash where she played Joan Wilder (romance writer) trying to rescue her sister in Columbia.
The worldwide revenue for this movie was $115 million plus. The follow-up sequel was Jewel of the Nile (1985) where she teamed up once again with Michael Douglas.
With leading co-stars she had it made. In 1985 she co-stared with Jack Nicholson in Prizzi’s Honor, two hired killers, lovers, finally hired to kill each other. Sounds almost like the new Brad Pitt movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith, at least a close similarity.
A clever movie that you might want to catch is Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) co-staring Nicolas Cage where she relieves her past and weighs decisions in her life and would she have made different choices?
Acting has not been her sole career. She has directed the movie Leslie's Folly (1994) and even produced a movie Friends at Last (1995) which she played the leading role.
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