Kathleen Turner

WHAT THIS HOT summer movie season needs and now has is a good, old-fashioned private eye film starring Kathleen Turner as the detective.The movie is ''V.I. Warshawski,'' which is based on the mystery novels written by Sara Paretsky.In the film, Turner is Warshawski, a private eye who talks tough and when she needs to, dirty. She's a stunner in many ways. She is a physical stunner when it comes to dealing with her enemies, and she is a visual stunner when she is just moving about.She may be adept in the martial arts department, but she also likes to dress.

On November 15, 2004, JAMES E., JR., beloved husband of Joan W. Turner (nee Weyprecht); devoted father of Julia M. Mc Elwee, Laura T. Wedekind, Andrew K. Turner and Amy T. Orr; dear brother of William J. and Lawrence Turner, Patricia Ruff and Kathleen Turner. Also survived by nine grandchildren. Friends may call at the Sterling-Ashton-Schwab Funeral Home, Inc., 736 Edmondson Ave., Catonsville, (one-half mile west of Beltway exit 14), on Thursday from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 P.M. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at St. Mark Chapel on Friday at 10 A.M. Interment in New Cathedral Cemetery.

LONDON -- Let's cut to the chase. A lot of women in their 40s will not undress in front of a mirror. Some stay married so they'll never have to take their clothes off in front of another man. And then there is Kathleen Turner, who is making her West End debut as the middle-aged Mrs. Robinson -- in the nude. True, she is only naked for a minute and she is illuminated by a soft backlight, the stage equivalent of an airbrush, if there is one. She is in great shape and a stunning heir to the role seared into a generation's memory by Anne Bancroft in the 1967 film of the same name, "The Graduate."

The hit London stage version of The Graduate, starring Kathleen Turner as uninhibited Mrs. Robinson, will begin a three-city pre-Broadway tour at the Mechanic Theatre in January. Turner will re-create the role she originated last spring on the West End, creating a sensation in a brief scene in which she bares all. The show had the largest opening advance ticket sale of any play in West End history. The stage play is directed and adapted by Terry Johnson from the screenplay by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry, and the Charles Webb novel that inspired the 1967 movie.

Kathleen Turner will star in John Waters' new film "Serial Mom," which will begin shooting here April 12.Waters, with a mordant giggle, describes the film as "A true-crime parody about a sweet, lovable, serial killer who could be your own mother." Turner has the title role and her daughter will be played by Waters' regular Rikki Lake, though other cast members have not yet been set.Turner, a powerhouse blond who leapt to instant fame with "Body Heat," has forged a mainstream career with such films as "The War of the Roses" and "Romancing the Stone."

She came, she saw, she sort of conquered.They came, they saw, they sort of worshiped.That's the way it was at the Senator Theatre when actress Kathleen Turner appeared Wednesday night before a crowd of 800 to discuss her new film "House of Cards," her career and her nipples.Yes, her nipples.Question from the audience: "Were those your real nipples in 'Crimes of Passion'?"Audience: Gasp!Turner: "Yes, they were, honey."Audience: Laughter.Questioner: "You have the best breasts of anybody."Turner: "Thank you but -- we can stop there."

Kathleen Turner may or may not win an Oscar for her performance in John Waters' "Serial Mom," but she certainly deserves one for her performance at a Thursday press conference on the set of the movie in Towson.Radiant, ebullient, blazing with charisma and wit, Turner dominated a panel of actors and executives, including Waters himself, and did such a good job of it and kept everybody so royally entertained, nobody seemed to mind.Dressed for the part of a conventional Everymom who just happens to kill people -- in a shapeless beige house dress and espadrilles -- she looked so suburban you wanted to invite her to a Tupperware party, that is if today weren't her car pool day. But Turner was so busy imitating the best parts of Katharine Hepburn, Tallulah Bankhead and Elizabeth Taylor, and so forcefully being the life of the party -- any party, all parties -- that most in attendance were more likely to ask for an autograph.

It's a voice with an accent that falls somewhere between the American heartland and London's West End. Or is it the Deep South and sunny Spain? In an era when cigarettes are social poison, this voice is unadulterated nicotine -- a sound so low and sultry, it could singe the phone wires. And then there's the vocabulary. "Extraordinarily" pops up more than once. So does "exhilarating." No understatement here, thank you. The voice is so distinctive it couldn't belong to anyone but Kathleen Turner -- unless, of course, it belonged to Tallulah Bankhead.

The hit London stage version of The Graduate, starring Kathleen Turner as uninhibited Mrs. Robinson, will begin a three-city pre-Broadway tour at the Mechanic Theatre in January. Turner will re-create the role she originated last spring on the West End, creating a sensation in a brief scene in which she bares all. The show had the largest opening advance ticket sale of any play in West End history. The stage play is directed and adapted by Terry Johnson from the screenplay by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry, and the Charles Webb novel that inspired the 1967 movie.

A bevy of musicals and the Broadway tryout of a new one-woman show about Tallulah Bankhead, starring Kathleen Turner, will highlight the 2000-2001 Mechanic Theatre season. "What I'm really trying to do is get us back into pre-Broadway, back into the incubation process," said Michael J. Brand, executive director of the Mechanic. With six shows, the season will have one less subscription offering than the current season, which opened with the unconventional "Tony n' Tina's Wedding," presented at Scarlett Place, where it is now in its fifth month (see below)

It's a voice with an accent that falls somewhere between the American heartland and London's West End. Or is it the Deep South and sunny Spain? In an era when cigarettes are social poison, this voice is unadulterated nicotine -- a sound so low and sultry, it could singe the phone wires. And then there's the vocabulary. "Extraordinarily" pops up more than once. So does "exhilarating." No understatement here, thank you. The voice is so distinctive it couldn't belong to anyone but Kathleen Turner -- unless, of course, it belonged to Tallulah Bankhead.

LONDON -- Let's cut to the chase. A lot of women in their 40s will not undress in front of a mirror. Some stay married so they'll never have to take their clothes off in front of another man. And then there is Kathleen Turner, who is making her West End debut as the middle-aged Mrs. Robinson -- in the nude. True, she is only naked for a minute and she is illuminated by a soft backlight, the stage equivalent of an airbrush, if there is one. She is in great shape and a stunning heir to the role seared into a generation's memory by Anne Bancroft in the 1967 film of the same name, "The Graduate."

A bevy of musicals and the Broadway tryout of a new one-woman show about Tallulah Bankhead, starring Kathleen Turner, will highlight the 2000-2001 Mechanic Theatre season. "What I'm really trying to do is get us back into pre-Broadway, back into the incubation process," said Michael J. Brand, executive director of the Mechanic. With six shows, the season will have one less subscription offering than the current season, which opened with the unconventional "Tony n' Tina's Wedding," presented at Scarlett Place, where it is now in its fifth month (see below)

While "Toy Story 2" and "Princess Mononoke" show audiences that animated features can be just as fluid and expressive as their live-action counterparts, there are live-action movies that seem determined to be as two-dimensional as possible.Enter "End of Days," as idiotic, ugly and ridiculous a case in point as can be imagined.Arnold Schwarzenegger (just what computer animation program created him?) plays a burned-out security guard who foils a plot by Satan (Gabriel Byrne, changing accents more often than Kathleen Turner)

Take a bunch of cute babies and a once-lofty star like Kathleen Turner, and what do you get? One of the worst movies ever made."Baby Geniuses" is a unique form of torture in which even the babies aren't that cute. Out of the computer-animated mouths of these babes come crude and stupid remarks. (The Mercedes ad with the kid singing Johnny Cash-style in the back of the SUV did animation a lot better.)In the whole movie, in fact, there's a whole lotta dubbin' goin' on. Perhaps someone had second thoughts about the flat, expository dialogue and tried to improve it, but even third or fourth thoughts wouldn't have helped this soiled diaper of a script.

As grown-ups watch Martin Short snuffle, snort and grimace in the opening moments of "A Simple Wish," they are likely to compose a fervent wish of their own: Please, oh please, get me through this movie!The kids may warm to Short's genial turn as a hapless fairy godmother. Their parents will find him ceaselessly irritating, like someone in the next lunch booth who sneezes through the entire meal. Short is capable of hysterical caricature. With luck, one day he'll find the right movie vehicle.

On November 15, 2004, JAMES E., JR., beloved husband of Joan W. Turner (nee Weyprecht); devoted father of Julia M. Mc Elwee, Laura T. Wedekind, Andrew K. Turner and Amy T. Orr; dear brother of William J. and Lawrence Turner, Patricia Ruff and Kathleen Turner. Also survived by nine grandchildren. Friends may call at the Sterling-Ashton-Schwab Funeral Home, Inc., 736 Edmondson Ave., Catonsville, (one-half mile west of Beltway exit 14), on Thursday from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 P.M. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at St. Mark Chapel on Friday at 10 A.M. Interment in New Cathedral Cemetery.

You could forgive Harford County Councilwoman Theresa M. Pierno for still being a bit star-struck after the inauguration.After all, she went to President Clinton's inauguration with no tickets and her 16-year-old daughter in tow -- then found herself seated just left of the podium with Jack Nicholson, Kathleen Turner and Turner's husband, among other luminaries."

NEW YORK -- Martin Short believes in summer vacation the way bears believe in hibernation. It's annual. It's his nature.The Canadian funnyman, in town to publicize his fairy-godmother turn in "A Simple Wish," which opens Friday, was whiling away the hours before he and his wife and three children head north for three months on a lake."

The "naked" in "Naked of New York" is the nakedness of power. Here's a callow, unformed, infernally precious movie that has a cast far better than it deserves -- Kathleen Turner, Timothy Dalton, Eric Stoltz, Mary-Louise Parker, even, for crying out loud, William Styron. What is going on? Could it be . . . SATAN?Actually, no: it's the powerful producer-director Martin Scorsese, serving as executive producer to Dan Algrant's meek little autobiographical tale about a wannabe playwright struggling for attention in Manhattan.