Kim Basinger

The beautiful model turned Oscar winning actress Kim Basinger 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). She also appeared in 9½ Weeks (1986), and 8 Mile (2002).

Born Kimila Ann Basinger in Athens, Georgia to Don Basinger, a jazz musician and loan manager, and Ann, a champion swimmer/model/water ballet performer, Basinger was so shy as a child that her parents had her tested to see if she was autistic.

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 Ford Modeling Agency. She turned it down in favor of singing and acting, but reconsidered and went to New York to become a Ford model.

Not long after the Ford deal, Basinger was 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.

In 1976, after five years as a cover girl, Basinger moved to Los Angeles to act. After guest roles on TV shows such as Starsky and Hutch and Charlie's Angels in 1976, and a starring role on the short-lived series Dog and Cat (1977), her first feature-length role was in a made-for-TV movie, Katie: Portrait of a Centerfold (1978) in which she played 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 then cast as a prostitute in From Here to Eternity (1979), in which she starred alongside Natalie Wood. Basinger played the same character in a 13-episode TV spinoff in 1980. She made her theatrical film debut in Hard Country (1981) with Jan Michael Vincent, followed by Mother Lode (1982) with Charlton Heston.

Basinger's breakout role was as Bond girl Domino Petachi in Never Say Never Again (1983), starring opposite Sean Connery. She posed nude for Playboy to promote the film. Basinger said Playboy led to 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. She starred opposite Mickey Rourke in the sexually provocative 9½ Weeks (1986). 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.

Directors repeated her in their films, such as Blake Edwards for The Man Who Loved Women (1983) and Blind Date (1987), as well as Robert Altman for Fool for Love (1985) and Prêt-à-Porter (1994). In 1992, Basinger was 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. In the video for Tom Petty's 1993 song "Mary Jane's Last Dance", Basinger played a dead woman whom Petty brings home from the morgue for dinner, dressing her in a wedding gown. Later, Petty is shown throwing her into the sea. In a macabre ending, she floats with her eyes open.

Basinger acted less in the 1990s to take care of her family. She made a comeback in 1997 as the femme fatale in the neo-noir L.A. Confidential, co-starring Russel Crowe. This earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, as well as the Golden Globe and Screen Actor's Guild Award. The film's director, Curtis Hanson, cast her once more as Eminem's mother in 8 Mile (2002). She appeared mostly in television and independent films such as While She Was Out, The Burning Plain, and Lifetime's The Mermaid Chair. She was also seen in the mainstream thrillers Cellular (2004) and The Sentinel (2006), and The Informers (2009).

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

She and actor Alec Baldwin were married in 1994 and had a daughter, Ireland, in 1995. The couple divorced in 2001 and had an angry and much-publicized custody battle over their daughter.

Basinger is an animal rights supporter. She has posed for anti-fur advertisements by PETA. She has written to fashion designers such as Yohji Yamamoto to ask that they stop using fur.