Kim Basinger - Career

Career

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 as a singer.

In 1976, after five years as a cover girl, Basinger quit modelling and moved to Los Angeles to act. She had guest roles on TV shows such as Charlie's Angels and The Six Million Dollar Man, as well as a starring role on the short-lived series Dog and Cat (1977). In 1978, Basinger played the lead role in the made-for-TV movie Katie: Portrait of a Centerfold, as 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 cast as prostitute Lorene Rogers in the 1979 NBC miniseries remake of the 1953 film From Here to Eternity. Basinger reprised that role in a 13-episode series spinoff in 1980. She made her theatrical feature debut in Hard Country (shot in 1979 and released in 1981), where she starred opposite Jan Michael Vincent. Her next film was the 1982 adventure Mother Lode, featuring Charlton Heston and directed by Fraser Clarke Heston.

Basinger's breakout role was as Bond girl Domino Petachi in Never Say Never Again (1983), opposite Sean Connery. She received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in Barry Levinson's The Natural (1984), opposite Robert Redford. In 1984, Basinger began work on the sexually provocative film 9½ Weeks (released 1986), which co-starred Mickey Rourke. 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.

Some directors cast her multiple times 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.

Basinger scaled back her acting work for most of the 1990s. She made a comeback in 1997 as the femme fatale in the neo-noir L.A. Confidential. She initially turned down the film three times, feeling an insecurity at returning to the screen and enjoying motherhood. This earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, as well as the Golden Globe and Screen Actor's Guild Award. In a 2000 interview with Charlie Rose, Basinger said that that and her next project I Dreamed of Africa (2000) were the most pleasurable of her career and that the cast were all there for the right reasons. She says that Vincent Pérez was the "most incredible actor she had ever worked with" and had the "biggest heart of anybody she has ever worked with."

Curtis Hanson cast her again as Eminem's mother in 8 Mile (2002). Basinger appeared in the mainstream thrillers Cellular (2004) and The Sentinel (2006), but for the rest of the decade her appearances were in low-profile projects. She starred in the 2006 Lifetime original movie The Mermaid Chair, as well as independent films such as 2008's The Burning Plain.

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