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| An actress noted as much for her exotic, almost otherworldly beauty as she is for her considerable talent, Uma Thurman is one of the most renowned actresses of her generation. The daughter of celebrated professor of Buddhist Studies Robert F. A. Thurman and Nena von Schlebrugge, a model and psychotherapist who was once married to Timothy Leary, Thurman was born in Boston on April 29, 1970. Raised with three brothers in Amherst, where her father taught at Amherst College, she enjoyed a fairly bohemian upbringing, one that was marked by visits from Eastern holy men and Tibetan refugees. Encouraged to think for herself and to be independent, Thurman, who had been interested in acting from an early age, left her Massachusetts boarding school at the age of 15 to pursue an acting career. Moving to New York, she earned a living by washing dishes and modeling, though the latter means of support never agreed with her. The fledgling actress made her debut in Kiss Daddy Goodnight (1987), a forgettable film that cast her as a teen vamp who seduces and robs unsuspecting men. She also had a starring role in the teen comedy Johnny Be Good (1988), but it was with her casting in Stephen Frears' Dangerous Liaisons (1988) as Cecile de Volanges, the impressionable convent girl deflowered by John Malkovich's slimy Vicomte de Valmont, that Thurman first gained recognition. Her scenes with Malkovich, particularly the one in which he offered to teach her a few bedroom terms in Latin, proved to be some of the most memorable of the year, resulting in a sizable helping of fame for the young actress. Further recognition followed with Thurman's portrayal of Henry Miller's wife -- and the object of both his and Anais Nin's affections -- in Philip Kaufman's Henry and June (1990). Unfortunately, the actress' role in the NC-17 film -- which required her to take part in explicit love scenes with Maria de Medeiros -- inspired a great deal of unwelcome, stalker-like attention from any number of "fans," causing Thurman to shy away from doing a subsequent number of films. The projects she did take part in -- Robin Hood (1991), Final Analysis (1992), Jennifer 8 (1992), Mad Dog and Glory (1993), Gus Van Sant's Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1994) -- all proved to be forgettable affairs. By the time she received the script for Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Thurman's career was in great need of resuscitation. Fortunately, Pulp Fiction provided just that. A huge, unanticipated success, Pulp Fiction was the most talked-about film of the year, eventually becoming recognized as one of the most influential films of the decade. For her part, Thurman gave a sly, smoldering performance as Mia Wallace, the coke-snorting wife of gangster Marsellus Wallace, and soon found herself enjoying both a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination and an accompanying resurgence in Hollywood popularity. She followed the success of Pulp Fiction with three relatively modest romantic comedies, A Month by the Lake (1995), The Truth About Cats and Dogs (1996), and Beautiful Girls (1996). The 1997 future dystopia Gattaca did little for Thurman but introduce her to co-star and future husband Ethan Hawke (the two married in May of 1998 and had a daughter later that year; Thurman had been married once before, to Gary Oldman); Batman and Robin, that same year, was less than a bright spot in Thurman's career. 1998 proved to be similarly disappointing, with both The Avengers, which cast the actress as the cat-suited Emma Peel opposite Ralph Fiennes' John Steed, and Bille August's Les Miserables experiencing swift deaths at the box office. Thurman resurfaced in 1999 in Woody Allen's widely acclaimed Sweet and Lowdown. The story of a famed jazz guitarist (Sean Penn) whose talent is inversely proportional to his merits as a human being, it cast Thurman as his brilliant but unfaithful wife. |
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