From Georgia peach to world-renowned movie star, Kim Basinger has gone the distance. This Oscar-winning actress parlayed her good looks into a successful film career, and, at the age of 50, can still steam up the screen with as much sex appeal as any Hollywood hottie half her age.

She was born to play the part. Tall, blonde and beautiful, the Athens native was competing in pageants at the age of 16 and commanding $1,000 a day as a model at 20. By the early ’80s, she had graduated from Breck girl to Bond girl. And that was just the beginning.

She turned heads as Robert Redford’s love interest in The Natural in 1984, set the town on fire with Mickey Rourke in the sultry 9 1/2 Weeks in 1986, and drove Bruce Willis to near insanity in the zany comedy Blind Date in 1987. There was no doubt about it. Kim was hot property.

Two years later, she was dealt another lucky hand – the plumb part of photojournalist Vicky Vale in the blockbuster Batman. Kim was the last minute replacement for actress Sean Young. It was her breakout role. She’d become a superstar.

Both blessed and cursed by her beauty, Kim has worked hard to shake the plague of typecasting throughout her career. She was duly rewarded with an Academy Award in 1997. Proving that she was more than a pretty face – even if playing a drop-dead gorgeous call girl – Kim napped the Oscar for best supporting actress in the film noir classic L.A. Confidential. Cast as a Veronica Lake lookalike, she also won a Golden Globe for her portrayal.

Kim’s popularity, and salary, continued to soar. She commanded $5 million for her next movie, I Dreamed of Africa, in 2000.

Through it all, the blue-eyed belle has never lost her Southern charm. It’s part of her Georgia roots. Born Dec. 8, 1953, in Athens, Kim was the third of five children. She was so shy as a schoolgirl that her parents encouraged her to study ballet. By 16, she took the stage and title of the Athens Junior Miss contest, singing a number from My Fair Lady. The state and national pageants followed, as did a contract with the Ford Modeling Agency.

This small-town girl relocated to the big city of New York. Throughout the early ’70s, Kim appeared on dozens of magazine covers and in hundreds of ads, most notably as the Breck shampoo girl. She also took acting classes at the Neighborhood Playhouse, performed in various Greenwich Village clubs and sang under the stage name Chelsea.

With her heart set on a singing and acting career, Kim moved to Los Angeles in 1976 to take on Hollywood. She paid her dues, living in a cheap motel room and fishing for bit parts. Guest appearances on Charlie’s Angels and The Six Million Dollar Man led to bigger things, including her feature film debut in the low budget Hard Country in 1981, a splashy spread in Playboy and, finally, a co-starring role opposite Sean Connery in the James Bond adventure Never Say Never Again.

Over two decades later, Kim is still racking up movie credits as one of the most glamorous women in Hollywood. In 2002, she won rave reviews for her gritty performance as a troubled single mother in the acclaimed urban drama 8 Miles. This year, she had back-to-back releases: The Door in the Floor and Cellular.
An adaptation of John Irving’s best-selling novel A Widow for One Year, The Door in the Floor chronicles one pivotal summer in the lives of children’s book writer Ted Cole (Jeff Bridges) and his wife, Marion (Basinger), who are struggling to deal with the deaths of their two sons and their disintegrating marriage, while caring for their 4-year-old daughter.

Irving himself gave the movie a big thumbs-up, calling it “excellent work.”
As for Kim’s portrayal of Marion, co-producer Ted Hope said, “Kim’s performance is incredibly brave because she as an actress is doing what few dare to do: not asking to be liked.”

Kim’s latest project is New Line Cinema’s action thriller Cellular. She plays a kidnapped woman who places a random call, reaching a young man whom she must persuade to help her. With Kim on the line, how could co-star Chris Evans refuse?

SEASON FALL 2004 COVER PHOTOGRAPHY © David LaChapelle/CORBIS OUTLINE
Kim Basinger stars in Tod Williams’ “THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR,” a Focus Features release. Photo by John Clifford

From the Fall 2004 issue.

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