They all dominated the box office thanks to their physical attractiveness, some managed to strengthen their careers beyond the role of sex bombs and won the most prestigious awards, others gave up the fight with a sexist and misogynistic industry that reduced them to mere pieces of flesh and he condemned them to playing grandmothers once they turned 40, while allowing the Pacinos, Eastwoods and Nicholsons to continue acting as leading men well into their 70s. There are many common elements between them. Almost all of them starred in erotic thrillers, cinema's favorite genre of four decades ago, and almost all of them were also labeled “difficult” at some point, sometimes because they simply asked to retain some control, not just over the script, but about her own nakedness.
Kim Basinger (Georgia, 70 years old)
Kim Basinger with her Oscar for her role in the film “LA Confidential” in 1997.HAL GARB (AFP via Getty Images)
The scene that turned her into one Sex symbol. An amateur striptease to the rhythm of You Can Leave Your Hat On by Joe Cocker. In Nine and a Half Weeks (1986), modest gallerist Elizabeth discovered her sexuality and viewers discovered Kim Basinger. The filming was so intense that it almost destroyed his career instead of becoming his springboard.
What happened to your career? Before conquering the world with Adrian Lyne's controversial film, she was a Bond girl in Never Say Never Again (1983), Sean Connery's “unofficial” return to the 007 saga. After becoming a star, she continued to cultivate her eroticism in the sweaty Stuck with No Way Out alongside Richard Gere and demonstrated his talent for comedy in Blind Date alongside Bruce Willis. To prove that she is an all-rounder, she chose the superhero genre in Batman and was an unusual alien in My Girlfriend is an Alien. She starred in a failed remake of The Getaway with her then-husband Alec Baldwin, and before taking a break, she surprised them with her role as an overwhelmed reporter in Robert Altman's underrated Pret-a-porter. Thanks to her role as a prostitute in LA Confidential, she won an Oscar in 1997 – confirmation that her talent was as overwhelming as her attractiveness. This was supported by her roles as Eminem's alcoholic mother in Eight Mile and as Jeff Bridges' wife in the adaptation of John Irving's novel A Difficult Woman. She didn't have any more significant success until she played Christian Grey's partner and former lover in the sequels to Fifty Shades of Grey, a much more sanctimonious version of her first major success which, although no one knew it at the time, marked her departure to the screens. A farewell for health reasons, as he confessed in one of his few interviews. She suffers from agoraphobia, which has caused her to have frequent panic attacks. “I still feel anxious sometimes, but I've worked really hard to stop it paralyzing me like it used to. “I've found that it helps me focus on myself,” she said.
What is he doing now? Although she has voluntarily moved away from Hollywood, she continues to focus on activism on behalf of animals, as can be seen on her Instagram account, where she defines herself as “an actress who hopes that one day all of humanity will be with animals treated with the respect they deserve.”
Sharon Stone (Pennsylvania, 65 years old)
Lenore Osgood (Sharon Stone) in Ratched. © Netflix/Courtesy Everett Colle
The scene that turned her into one Sex symbols. The most famous leg transition in history in Basic Instinct (1992). And the most controversial. Stone claims Paul Verhoeven asked him to take off his underwear with the promise not to see anything. When he saw the movie on the big screen, he realized he could see everything. “I was in a state of shock,” he admitted. “At the end of the film I stood up, walked up to Paul Verhoeven and slapped him.”
What happened to her? The role of Catherine Tramell, a bisexual author who works as a cold and amoral serial killer, is one of those sweets that only comes once in an actress' life. Meg Ryan, Julia Roberts and Michelle Pfeiffer turned it down because they feared it would harm their careers. Stone accepted, always regretting that the fame he craved had come to him when he was already in his thirties. He began in the cinema as a dream of Woody Allen in Memories, went through all the television series of the time and tormented José Frade in Spain, where he was filming Blood and Sand. He showed signs of his personality in “Total Recall,” where he demonstrated charisma on par with Schwarzenegger, but it was “Basic Instinct,” the fourth-highest-grossing film worldwide in 1992, that made us all learn his name and give him one earned an Oscar nomination. She had no instinct for choosing good projects, and it was only with Scorsese's Casino that she was able to demonstrate her great skills as a dramatic actress by receiving another nomination. Later came films that focused more on his body than his talent, like Acosada or The Specialist, and there were also some titles that could be claimed as their own, like Quick and Mortal or The Muse “, in which we could see how well he handled comedy. In 2001 he suffered a stroke, after which he confessed to seeing death, which halted his career for years. “I had to take out a mortgage on my house. I lost my seat in the cinema. “I lost everything I had,” he explained.
What is he doing now? We saw her under Ryan Murphy in Ratched, also in The New Pope and alongside Kaley Cuoco in The Flight Attendant.
Kathleen Turner (Missouri, 69 years old)
Kathleen Turner on the set of “Fire in the Body,” the film that made her a star in 1981.
The scene that turned her into one Sex symbol. “You shouldn't be wearing these clothes.” “Why? It's just a blouse and a skirt.” “Then you shouldn't wear that body.” Lawrence Kasdan wrote a script on the level of the great film noir classics, and Turner did his best to live up to Matty Walker in “Fire in the Body “ (1981) to give a sexuality that transcended the screen. At the undisguised tribute to Perdition, a sweaty and confused William Hurt fell down like all the spectators before her.
What happened to her? She was one of the most famous actresses of the eighties. He demonstrated his dramatic talent in John Huston's The Honor of Prizzi and his comedic vision in the highly regarded films After the Green Heart and The Jewel of the Nile, where his chemistry with Michael Douglas was evident. Francis Ford Coppola's Peggy Sue Got Married earned her an Oscar nomination and was the voice of Jessica Rabbit, the animated sex symbol who wasn't bad, she was just drawn, in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? . His unstoppable career was halted by rheumatoid arthritis. To hide it, she led the press to believe she was an alcoholic. She didn't care, she knew that detox clinics were as commonplace in star biographies as visits to the hairdresser, but no insurance would guarantee the contract of an actress with a disabling illness. “Producers know what addictions are and are used to dealing with them,” he admitted to Vulture in 2018. “But if I said, 'I have a mysterious incurable illness and I don't know if I'll be able to walk tomorrow,' no one wanted to hire me.” In a short time, she went from sex symbol to the victim of the most embarrassing body shaming and the phone didn't ring more. He found a place in John Waters' scattered crew, with whom he made the hilarious film “Mom's Murders.” But as his illness worsened and the addictions with which he tried to cope with the pain, his performances became more and more sporadic, but never without talent. She was great as the fanatical matriarch of the Lisbon family in The Virgin Suicides and hilarious as the transgender father of the beleaguered Mathew Perry in Friends, a role she has no regrets about but wouldn't play again. “Taking the role of a transsexual or a drag queen was not considered, it was never considered. It never occurred to me that I was taking someone's place. Probably not (I would accept the role now). But I don't regret doing it. “It was a real challenge!” he told the Guardian.
What is he doing now? TV. To the delight of nostalgic people, he has returned three decades after their apocalyptic divorce in The War of the Roses to share the screen with Michael Douglas in the second season of The Kominsky Method. The chemistry between the two is still intact.
Debra Winger (Ohio, 68 years old)
Debra Winger, on a red carpet in Rome 2011. Stefania D'Alessandro (getty images)
The scene that turned her into one Sex symbol. His ride on a mechanical bull in City Cowboy (1980) managed to eclipse a Travolta who had just triumphed in Saturday Night Fever and Grease, but when Winger is on screen, it's otherwise no one on screen.
What happened to your career? The sour and rarely forthcoming Pauline Kael said of her that she was “one of the main reasons for going to the cinema in the 1980s”. But 40 years later, her name is synonymous with slamming the door on Hollywood, a farewell reinforced by Rosana Arquette's documentary “Looking for Debra Winger,” in which several actresses spoke out about the problem of getting good ones after the age of 35 to find relevant female roles. It was the absence of Sissy Spacek that made her the star of City Cowboy, even though the all-powerful producer Robert Evans found her unattractive for the role. It wasn't the last time he would have to hear something like that. Don Simpson didn't think she was “very fuckable” to star in “An Officer and a Gentleman.” The box office proved him right. Also the Academy, which nominated her for her first Oscar. The second nomination went to the tear-jerker film “The Force of Affection”, the third nomination went to “Twilight Lands”, the love story between the poet Joey Gresham and CS Lewis, author of the “Chronicles of Narnia”. She also appeared in unconventional thrillers such as “The Case of the Black Widow” or “The Trail of Treachery” by Costa Gavras and took on the role of Jane Bowles in “The Sheltering Sky” by Bernardo Bertolucci. At the age of forty he decided to leave Hollywood and only returned sporadically.
What is he doing now? We saw her as Ashton Kutcher's mother in the Netflix series “The Ranch” and also as Joseph Gordon-Levitt's mother in “Mr. Corman” from Apple TV. Little pickings for someone who was one of the most hypnotic presences on screen.
Linda Fiorentino (Philadelphia, 63 years old)
Linda Fiorentino in 1986. Cordon
The scene that turned her into one Sex symbol. A brunette struts into a joint, then five minutes later sticks her hand in the fly of a boastful cowboy who brags that he “had her like a horse.” Hollywood had just found Lauren Bacall's heir, Gene Tierney and Barbara Stanwyck.
What happened to your career? The Last Seduction (1995), an independent erotic thriller, captivated critics and earned Fiorentino the Independent Spirit for Best Actress and the New York Critics' Award. He wasn't aiming for the Oscar as it premiered directly on the HBO network, which at the time meant he was ineligible for the Academy Awards, but that didn't stop Vanity Fair from including him on its iconic cover featuring the series' female stars to be recorded year. She previously played a small but memorable role as a dominatrix sculptor in Martin Scorsese's What a Night and was part of the cast of Alan Rudolph's beautiful and damning film The Moderns. They weren't great roles, but they were enough to raise expectations that The Last Seduction lived up to. It was harder to maintain and the project chosen wasn't the right one. Hollywood offered him another erotic thriller, a knock-off of Basic Instinct, with which he shared a screenwriter, the excessive Joe Eszterhas. Produced by the legendary Robert Evans and directed by William Friedkin, who was responsible for The Exorcist, it seemed like nothing could go wrong, but it all did. In Men in Black she moved away from the role that had made her popular and although her role was taken for granted in the second part of the saga, she disappeared without further explanation, although rumors spoke of a “difficult” character who appeared in Hollywood Common language meant having your own opinion and not just being a tool to assert male power on or off screen.
What is he doing now? Nothing to do with cinema, her farewell was one of the most emphatic in the industry.
Susan Sarandon (New York, 77 years old)
Susan Sarandon at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. Antony Jones (Getty Images)
The scene that turned her into one Sex symbol. As the decadent gangster played by Burt Lancaster, he washes his naked body with lemons in Atlantic City (1980). Intimate care has never been so sensual. As in the best erotic scenes, the most seductive thing is not what Louis Malle shows, but what the viewer intuitively experiences.
What happened to your career? He showed from the start that he would never take the easy route. He worked under Billy Wilder on the masterful film Front Page and was part of the legendary The Rocky Horror Picture Show. At the behest of her partner Louis Malle, she acted as a pimp for Brooke Shields in The Little Girl and fell in love with a vampire in the poetic film The Craving. In the mid-'80s, she, along with Michelle Pfeiffer and Cher, formed the standout trio that battled the evil Jack Nicholson in The Witches of Eastwick, and was a sort of groupie-philosopher who teamed up with a baseball player each season in The Durham Buffaloes slept One of those movies where you're sure the script wasn't read by a woman with the strength to touch a single comma. In it, she shared filming with her husband Tim Robbins. The couple soon became Hollywood figureheads. Their opposition to treatment of HIV-infected Haitians in Guantanamo prison earned them a veto from the Academy. Thelma and Louise earned her an Oscar nomination and the greatest popularity of her career, but it was the life of a real nun, Sister Helen Prejean, that won her the statuette in Capital Punishment.
What is he doing now. Probably look for a replacement agency. Her support for the Palestinian cause has caused the company that has represented her for fourteen years to distance itself from her. While his commitment has not diminished, neither has his agenda; he has four projects underway.
Michelle Pfeiffer (California, 65 years old)
Danielle Levitt/Henry Rose
The scene that turned her into one Sex symbol. In “Scarface” (1984), a blonde whose face we do not see descends a glass elevator in an emerald green slip. As Al Pacino approached her, he looked with desire and fascination, just as millions of viewers watched him in the theaters.
What happened to your career? She is the absolute actress. He has done drama, comedy and musicals. She was Disney's villain and a Marvel and DC superhero. Her films have grossed more than $7 billion at the box office and she has received eight Golden Globe nominations (six consecutive) and three Academy Award nominations. She was stunning in the medieval fantasy Lady Halcón, whose script had to be changed to prevent her from just portraying a damsel in distress. He received his first Oscar nomination for “Dangerous Liaisons,” where he made it clear he was much more than just a pretty face, and when he stepped to the piano in “The Fabulous Baker Boys,” the world held its breath. The nineties are full of unforgettable performances. From the waitress in Frankie and Johnny to the tough teacher in Dangerous Minds. Since he had nothing left to prove, he slowed down. “I didn’t want to stop working, but I became very demanding with my demands,” he reasoned.
What is he doing now. She received her last Golden Globe nomination in 2021 with “French Exit”. Most recently, she was Betty Ford in the television series “The First Lady” and Janet Van Dyne in “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” Let's hope he still has a few setbacks left, the worst Marvel movie doesn't deserve to be his farewell.
Jessica Lange (Minnesota, 74 years old)
Jessica Lange in 1976.Hulton German (Corbis via Getty Images)
The scene that turned her into one Sex symbol. Their sex scene on a kitchen table The Postman Rings Twice (1981) exuded so much realism that Bob Rafelson was forced to deny that the sex was real. Lange and Nicholson gave new meaning to the division of household chores and showed that extremely intense eroticism could be conveyed without showing too much skin.
What happened to your career? He made his film debut in a big way. He was the object of King Kong's desire in Dino De Laurentis' version, a remake that would be forgettable without his presence. But it was “The Postman Rings Twice” that put it on the map. Become a sex bomb, Frances, the tragic biography of actress Frances Farmer established her as a dramatic actress and made her the star of a small milestone: this year she was nominated for leading actress and supporting actress. He won the latter for Tootsie, although he did not attach much importance to it. “The Oscars have become nonsense that has nothing to do with movies.” Whether or not she cared about awards for her roles as Patsy Cline in “Sweet Dreams” and “The Costa-Gavras Music Box,” it was Tommy Lee Jones' manic-depressive wife in Things That Never Die, which won her her second Oscar.
What is he doing now. Although he recently threatened to retire, he has several projects in hand, including a film about Marlene Dietrich's years in Las Vegas, produced by Ryan Murphy, the architect who created her thanks to American Horror Story and Feud made famous to a new generation of viewers.
Kelly McGillis (California, 66 years old)
Kelly McGillis and Tom Cruise in “Top Gun”.Getty Images
The scene that turned her into one Sex symbol. A discreet dance in a barn to the rhythm of Wonderful World in Only Witness (1985) demonstrated the unthinkable, that the Amish could be sexy.
What happened to your career? Thanks to the success of Only Witness, she received an offer she found difficult to refuse: the flight instructor who seduced Tom Cruise in Top Gun. Tony Scott's film immediately established “McGillis” as an erotic myth, even if the steamiest scenes were added as an afterthought, when audiences indicated in film tests that they wanted more than endless sequences of flights and volleyball games. She was offered the role that Jodie Foster would eventually play in The Accused, but although she did not identify herself at the time, she declined the role because she herself had been a victim of rape. She preferred to play the protagonist's lawyer and it was her first relevant role in which she was not just a companion to the male protagonist. But his fame had an early expiration date. Like so many women on the list, she was labeled “difficult.” She refused to artificially counteract aging and declared herself a lesbian in 2009, when it was still taking its toll.
What is he doing now. It hasn't played a relevant role for years. With a physique a far cry from what she looked like in 1986, there was no place for her in the new Top Gun.
Melanie Griffith (New York, 66 years old)
Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith. Kevin Winter (Getty Images)
The scene that turned her into one Sex symbol. Porn actress Holly Body struts sensually through the window in fishnet stockings and peroxidized hair in Body Double (1984), Brian de Palma's hallucinatory reimagining of Vertigo and Rear Window.
What happened to your career? Before being directed by de Palma, Hitchcock's greatest admirer and the scourge of his mother Tippi Hedren, Griffith had appeared with his mother in Roar, the most dangerous film adaptation in the history of cinema. It's not the worst thing he's ever experienced in his life. She played a crazy and dangerous blonde in Something Wild, again a reworking of a classic, in this case La fiera de mi hija, but it was Armas de mujer that established her. While his Tess McNeill had a mind for business and a body for sin, Griffith had a preternatural talent for comedy. He won a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination. She then chained together failed projects like “The Bonfire of the Vanities” and “Glow in the Dark” with Michael Douglas and her marriages to Don Johnson and Antonio Banderas. and his aesthetic touches began to attract more attention than his films.
What is he doing now. Take it easy. Griffith's well-known drug and alcohol addiction temporarily brought his career to a standstill. In August 2018, he also admitted that he had had skin cancer removed. Where she is very active on social networks where she usually brags about her good family.
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