Kim Basinger

Season 5, Episode 507

Original Airdate: June 20, 1999

Kim Basinger was born on December 8, 1953 in Athens, Georgia, the third of five children. Both of her parents came from show business backgrounds: her father played trumpet in a jazz band and her mother performed water ballet in several Esther Williams films. At the age of three, she began ballet and voice training to overcome a severe case of shyness.

By the time she turned sweet sixteen, the blonde haired beauty had won the Junior Miss Georgia title and was off to New York to compete in the national Junior Miss contest. Although she didn't win, the attention she attracted got her an on-the-spot contract from the Ford Modeling Agency.

Throughout the 1970's, her modeling career flourished and was seen in hundreds of ads, most notably as the Breck girl. Next came Hollywood doing the guest shot circuit on several TV series and made-for-TV films including The Ghost of Flight 401 (1978), Katie: a Portrait of a Centerfold (1978) and From Here to Eternity (1979) for which she received critical praise.

These led to plum roles on the silver screen including the Bond flick Never Say Never Again (1983), The Natural (1984), 9 1/2 Weeks (1986) and Blind Date (1987). In 1989, she reached superstar status playing opposite Michael Keaton in Tim Burton's Batman. Kim is an avid vegetarian and donates time and resources to various animal rights groups. She is also an environmentalist and in 1990 bought the entire town of Braselton, Georgia for 20 million dollars in order to pump up the local economy.

In 1991 on the set of The Marrying Man, she began an off screen romance with co-star Alec Baldwin and eventually made him “the marrying man” in 1994. The couple co-starred in a remake of The Getaway in 1995.

After taking time off to raise a daughter, Kim made a triumphant comeback in 1997 starring in Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confidential. The role won her both an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. Recent film roles include the supernatural thriller Bless the Child (2000) and a portrayal of real-life wildlife preservationist Kuki Gallmann in I Dreamed of Africa (2000).