How Kathleen Turner Is Overcoming Health Struggles at 70: ‘I’m Getting Stronger’

As a young starlet, Kathleen Turner discovered that three of Hollywood’s most notorious ladies’ men had made a bet on which one of them would take her home. “I was the hot new thing, and they were the hot things, and we were all supposed to link up,” says Kathleen of her night out with Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson and Michael Douglas. “Only nobody bothered to tell me that!” Kathleen left the dinner early to go home and study her script.

In a Hollywood career that began with her breakout role in 1981’s Body Heat, Kathleen, who turned 70 on June 19, has seen and done it all. “Body Heat was a blessing because I went straight to being a leading actor,” says the star, who has been married and divorced once and is the mother of daughter Rachel Weiss, 36, a singer-songwriter. “I learned very early that I had to have script approval.”

Demanding to control what she would or would not do in a project gave Kathleen a reputation as “difficult,” which she calls out as sexist. “Being decisive, knowing what I want, is too much of a male characteristic, so therefore I must be difficult,” she says. “Listen, if you talk to anyone who’s actually worked with me, you’ll never hear that.”

Kathleen Turner's Plans for the Future

In recent years, Kathleen has struggled with rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease that affects her mobility, but she hasn’t let it take over her life. “I’m getting stronger all the time,” says the star, who appeared in the 2024 film The Long Game. “Part of me goes: Jesus, do I get to stop working at some point? On the other hand, I can’t imagine not working. So there you go.”