Phoebe Cates

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Phoebe Cates
Born July 16, 1963 (age 43)
New York City, New York
Spouse(s) Kevin Kline
Notable roles Linda Barrett -
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Kate Beringer -
Gremlins

Phoebe Cates (born Phoebe Belle Katz on July 16, 1963 in New York City, New York) is an American film actress best known for her roles in several teen films, most notably Fast Times at Ridgemont High. At the height of her popularity, Harper's Bazaar named her as one of America's 10 Most Beautiful Women of 1984.

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[edit] Biography

Cates was born in New York City; her father, director Joseph Cates, is of Jewish heritage; her maternal grandfather was a Chinese Filipino, and her maternal grandmother was a Russian Jew. Cates attended the Professional Children's School.

She achieved icon status in 1982 for her popular girl role in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, particularly the monumental nude scene in which she sheds her bikini top in a slow-motion fantasy sequence. As Fast Times became a defining early-'80s cult classic, this image of her became inextricably imprinted on generations of teenage boys.

That same year, in the romance film Paradise, and in contrast to the coyness of Brooke Shields in the similarly themed The Blue Lagoon, Cates displayed copious nudity, although a body double may have been used in some of the close-ups. In a People magazine article, Cates said she had expressed reservations about this situation to her father, who advised her to play it in whatever way she felt was artistically and financially honest. She is quoted as saying "I was only 17 when I did my nude scenes in Paradise. They were serious and more difficult because they were not easily justified. But the topless scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) was funny, which made it easy."[1]

In 1985 Cates appeared Off-Broadway in Rich Relations by David Henry Hwang at Second Stage Theatre.

Her later roles were more modest and largely oriented toward younger audiences, who remember her best as the female lead in the two Gremlins films. Her face made the covers of teen magazines such as Seventeen, Tiger Beat, Teen Beat and others.

In 1989, she married actor Kevin Kline, whom she had originally met while auditioning for the part that Meg Tilly ultimately won in The Big Chill. In 1991, she was slated to be in Father of the Bride, but dropped out due to pregnancy. In 1994, she starred along with her husband in Princess Caraboo. In 1996, she narrated the award-winning documentary short, The Flame, a film about the nonprofit world hunger organization Heifer International.

Kline and Cates make their home in New York City and have two children, Owen Kline, born in 1991 (who, in 2005, received rave reviews for his performance in The Squid and the Whale), and Greta Kline, born in 1994. Owen and Greta appeared in Cates' most recent film, The Anniversary Party (2001). The film was an ensemble drama written and directed by Scottish actor Alan Cumming and Cates' real-life best friend of the past 25 years, Fast Times at Ridgemont High co-star Jennifer Jason Leigh. In it Cates played, fittingly enough, a Hollywood actress who has retired from acting to be a full-time mother.

In 2005, Cates opened her own boutique called Blue Tree on New York's Madison Avenue.[2]

[edit] In pop culture

The pool scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High has been endlessly imitated and parodied including:

  • Pop/rock band Fenix*TX wrote a song entitled "Phoebe Cates" on their album Lechuza. The song contains lyrics such as "I'm looking for a fast time, Watching out for bright lights, Send me off to private school, When I'm with you it's paradise." This is a play on words containing four of her movie titles. Another line reads: "Wasting time... going blind.... I've been in love since the day I saw Fast Times/It's on a permanent rewind and can you guess my favorite part?/I used to like tossing off to her pool scene/Now I'm kissing TV screens..."
  • "Phoebe Cates (Is Dead)" is a song by the Hoolapoppers.
  • In "The One Where The Stripper Cries", a Season 10 episode of the sitcom Friends, Phoebe Cates is included on a list that Ross and Chandler made in college of women whom they both liked and therefore agreed that neither could date.

[edit] Selected filmography

[edit] References

  1. ^ Phoebe Cates Bio
  2. ^ http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=1590206&page=1 ABC News (June 1, 2006): Perfect Gifts, According to Phoebe Cates: Former Teen Starlet Owns Upper East Side Gift Store


[edit] External links

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