Born in Athens, Georgia. A former fashion
model, Basinger worked for several years to establish credibility in Hollywood.
Her parents both had some experience with the entertainment world, her
father played in big-band jazz bands, and her mother was a swimmer and
model who
appeared in several Esther Williams films.
She began her acting career with appearances
on TV series like Charlie's Angels and The Six Million Dollar Man. Her
feature film debut came in 1981 with Hard Country, and her breakthrough
role came two years later opposite Sean Connery's James Bond in Never Say
Never Again.
In 1984, Basinger starred with Robert Redford,
Robert Duvall, and Glenn Close in The Natural. She steamed up the
screen with Mickey Rourke in 91/2 Weeks (1986), and cemented her reputation
as a sexy screen star with a turn as Vicki Vale, the love interest in 1989's
Batman. She met her future husband Alec Baldwin while making The Marrying
Man (1991), after her marriage to make-up artist Ron Britton had ended.
Basinger suffered through a difficult professional
period in which an investment in a small town, Braselton, Georgia, went
sour, and a lawsuit suing her for breach of contract in a movie deal left
her filing for bankruptcy in the early 90s.
She married Baldwin in 1994, and the couple
had a daughter, Ireland Eliesse, in 1995. After taking off a few years
to devote time to her family, Basinger came back with the biggest role
of her career, as the Veronica Lake look-a-like in the critically acclaimed
L.A. Confidential (1997), for which she received an Oscar for Best Supporting
Actress. |
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