Phoebe Cates
Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox person
Phoebe Belle Cates Kline (born July 16, 1963)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> is an American businesswoman and retired actress and model. She appeared in the films Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), Gremlins (1984), Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990), Drop Dead Fred (1991) and Princess Caraboo (1994). In 2005, she founded the Blue Tree boutique.
Early life and educationEdit
Cates was born on July 16, 1963, in New York City,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> to a family of television and Broadway production insiders. She is the daughter of Lily and Joseph Cates (originally Joseph Katz),<ref name="NYT">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> who was a major Broadway producer and a pioneering figure in television, and who helped create The $64,000 Question.<ref name="cates1">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}Template:Dead linkTemplate:Cbignore</ref> Her uncle, Gilbert Cates, produced numerous television specials, often in partnership with Cates's father, as well as several annual Academy Awards shows. Her father was Jewish and her mother was Catholic.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Cates is of Eurasian<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> or mixed European and Asian descent. Her mother was born in Shanghai, China<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> to a family of Chinese-Filipino heritage. Cates's father is American and from Manhattan.<ref name="NYT"/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Cates attended the Professional Children's School and the Juilliard School.<ref name="people" /> A few years later, she wanted to become a dancer, and eventually received a scholarship to the School of American Ballet, but quit after a knee injury at age 14.<ref name="people" />
CareerEdit
At age ten, Cates started modeling, appearing in Seventeen and other teen-oriented magazines. She then began a short, successful career as a model.<ref name="seventyfive">Cohen, D. & S. Young and Famous: Hollywood's Newest Superstars, 1987. p.75. Template:ISBN</ref> She said that she disliked the industry: "It was just the same thing, over and over. After a while, I did it solely for the money."<ref name="people" /> As a teen model, Cates appeared on the cover of Seventeen magazine four times, first in the April 1979 issue. She appeared within the magazine as well, on the editorial pages in 1979 and 1980.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Dissatisfied with modeling, Cates decided to pursue acting.
Cates was offered her first part in the movie Paradise (1982) after a screen test in New York. She was uncertain about the nudity the role required, but her father encouraged her to take the job.<ref name="people" />
Paradise was filmed in Israel from March to May 1981.<ref name="Paradise Desert">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In the film, Cates performed several full-frontal nude scenes and several rear scenes aged 17. The movie had a plot similar to The Blue Lagoon. She also sang the film's theme song and recorded an album of the same name. In a 1982 interview, she recalled having trouble with the career change: As a model, she had to be conscious of the camera; but as an actor, she could not.<ref name="people" /> She later regretted being in the film: "What I learned was never to do a movie like that again."<ref name="seventyfive" /> She claimed that the film's producers used a body double to film nude close-ups of her character without telling her.<ref name="people" /> According to her co-star Willie Aames, "She will have nothing to do with the film. She's really upset about it. She won't do any promotion with me."<ref>Beck, Marilyn (March 17, 1982). "Hollywood: Nude scenes too much for Aames." The Orange County Register. p C3</ref>
Later that year, Cates starred in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), featuring what Rolling Stone has described as "the most memorable bikini-drop in cinema history".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> She said that she had "the most fun" filming that movie.<ref name="seventyfive" />
The next year, Cates was in the comedy Private School (1983), co-starring Matthew Modine and Betsy Russell, and where she sang on two songs of the film's soundtrack: "Just One Touch" and "How Do I Let You Know".
In 1984, Cates starred in the TV mini-series Lace, based on a novel by Shirley Conran. She played the role of Lili "to get away from a sameness in her movie portrayals".<ref name="jacobs">"'Lace' miniseries is soap-opera tangle" by Associated Press, Star-News, February 24, 1984. p. 5C</ref> During her audition, she so impressed the writer that he wanted to hire her on the spot.<ref name="jacobs" /> She struggled with the portrayal of a bitter movie star because, despite her character's vicious persona, she wanted the audience to sympathize with her.<ref name="lace">"Angela Lansbury leads 'Lace' cast" by Julianne Hastings, Stars and Stripes, March 7, 1984. p. 12.</ref> She did not read Conran's novel, on which the movie was based because she did not want to have a "fixed image".<ref name="lace" /> Her best-known line in the film, "Which one of you bitches is my mother?", was named the greatest line in television history by TV Guide in 1993.<ref>TV Guide April 17–23, 1993. pg. 96</ref> She also starred in the sequel mini-series Lace II.
In the summer of 1984, Cates co-starred in the box office hit Gremlins for executive producer Steven Spielberg, the highest-grossing film of her career. She reprised her role of Kate Beringer in the sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch.
In June 1984, Cates made her stage debut in the Off-Broadway play The Nest of the Wood Grouse, a comedy by Soviet writer Viktor Rozov, at the Joseph Papp Public Theater.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Cates said that while doing the play she "felt a certain freedom and a certain connection with acting that I had never really felt before".<ref name="BobbieWygant">Template:Cite AV mediaTemplate:Cbignore</ref> Cates appeared Off-Broadway again two years later in Rich Relations, written by David Henry Hwang, at the Second Stage Theatre.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In December 1989, Cates made her Broadway debut in a revival of Paddy Chayefsky's The Tenth Man at the Vivian Beaumont Theater.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In 1988, Cates told an interviewer, "There are simply not that many good parts in film", but that theater had "tons of good women's roles...I think of theater as what I like to do most...I've only felt happy as an actress for about two years. I rarely watch my film work."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Cates continued to appear steadily in films through the early 1990s, usually in supporting roles or in ensemble casts. These include Date with an Angel (1987), Bright Lights, Big City (1988), Shag (1988), Heart of Dixie (1989), Drop Dead Fred (1991) and Bodies, Rest & Motion (1993). The films suffered from mixed to poor reviews and failed to make an impact at the box office.<ref name="nzherald">Template:Cite news</ref>
Cates was set to play Steve Martin's daughter in the successful comedy Father of the Bride (1991), but her pregnancy with her first child forced her to drop out.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In 1994, Cates starred in the fact-based comedy-drama Princess Caraboo (1994) with her husband Kevin Kline. It was Cates's last film before she shifted her focus away from acting to raising her children, Owen and Greta.<ref name="nzherald" />
Post-retirementEdit
In 2001, Cates briefly returned to acting for one film, The Anniversary Party (2001), as a favor to her best friend and former Fast Times at Ridgemont High castmate Jennifer Jason Leigh, who directed it.<ref name="looper">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In 2005, she ventured into business and opened a boutique, Blue Tree, on New York's Madison Avenue.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Personal lifeEdit
In the early 1980s, Cates shared an apartment in Greenwich Village with her then-boyfriend Stavros Merjos. She met him in 1979 after she went to her first night at Studio 54 with family friend Andy Warhol.<ref name="people">Template:Cite magazine</ref>
In 1983, during her audition for a role (awarded to Meg Tilly) in The Big Chill, Cates met actor Kevin Kline. They were both dating other people but became romantically involved two years later. They married in a private New York wedding on March 5, 1989,<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> and she changed her name to Phoebe Cates Kline.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> They moved to the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York, across Fifth Avenue from Central Park, where they raised their two children, son Owen Joseph Kline (b. 1991) and daughter Greta Kline (b. 1994). Owen and Greta appeared with their parents in the 2001 movie The Anniversary Party. Owen also appeared in the 2005 film The Squid and the Whale, and made his directorial debut with the coming-of-age black comedy Funny Pages. Greta fronts the band Frankie Cosmos.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
FilmographyEdit
Film and televisionEdit
| Year | Film | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1982 | Paradise | Sarah | |
| Fast Times at Ridgemont High | Linda Barrett | ||
| 1983 | Private School | Christine Ramsey | |
| Baby Sister | Annie Burroughs | Television movie | |
| 1984 | Lace | Elizabeth "Lili" Lace | Miniseries |
| Gremlins | Kate Beringer | ||
| 1985 | Lace II | Elizabeth "Lili" Lace | Miniseries |
| 1987 | Date with an Angel | Patricia "Patty" Winston | |
| 1988 | Shag | Carson McBride | |
| Bright Lights, Big City | Amanda Conway | ||
| 1989 | Heart of Dixie | Aiken Reed | |
| 1990 | I Love You to Death | Joey's Girl at Disco | Uncredited |
| Gremlins 2: The New Batch | Kate Beringer | ||
| Largo Desolato | Young Philosophy Student | Television movie | |
| 1991 | Drop Dead Fred | Elizabeth "Lizzie" Cronin | |
| 1993 | Bodies, Rest & Motion | Carol | |
| My Life's in Turnaround | Herself | ||
| 1994 | Princess Caraboo | Princess Caraboo/Mary Baker | |
| 2001 | The Anniversary Party | Sophia Gold |
NotesEdit
ReferencesEdit
External linksEdit
- [https://www.imdb.com/{{#if: 0000121
| name/{{#if:{{#invoke:ustring|match|1=0000121|2=^nm}}
| Template:Trim/
| nm0000121/
}}
| {{#if: {{#property:P345}}
| name/Template:First word/
| find?q=%7B%7B%23if%3A+%0A++++++%7C+%7B%7B%7Bname%7D%7D%7D%0A++++++%7C+%5B%5B%3ATemplate%3APAGENAMEBASE%5D%5D%0A++++++%7D%7D&s=nm
}}
}}{{#if: 0000121 {{#property:P345}} | {{#switch:
| award | awards = awards Awards for | biography | bio = bio Biography for
}}}} {{#if:
| {{{name}}}
| Template:PAGENAMEBASE
}}] at IMDb{{#if: 0000121{{#property:P345}}
| Template:EditAtWikidata
| Template:Main other
}}{{#switch:{{#invoke:string2|matchAny|^nm.........|^nm.......|nm|.........|source=0000121|plain=false}}
| 1 | 3 = Template:Main otherTemplate:Preview warning | 4 = Template:Main otherTemplate:Preview warning
}}{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:IMDb name with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|showblankpositional=1| 1 | 2 | id | name | section }}
- Blue Tree Cates's New York boutique's website
- Template:Rotten-tomatoes-person