I'm glad for Kim's own mental health and safety that she managed to get away from that meathead, Alec Baldwin. I love Kim's intense, steely like expression (basically her "Don't mess me!" look) in the first photo.
You're the one who doesn't seem to want to discuss what the hell happened to Kim Basinger's career (and I had already said regarding her alleged mental state that she can sometimes come across as very neurotic and flaky, so you can't pull that card) in this particular forum in the first place, so I don't know where you're going to or getting at!
That's an extremely ignorant summarization! What, you can't be "neurotic and flaky" while younger too!? And who's being dramatic, buy complaining about whom, what or who not I can't discuss in this forum and elsewhere!?
That's an extremely ignorant summarization! What, you can't be "neurotic and flaky" while younger too!? And who's being dramatic, buy complaining about whom, what or who not I can't discuss in this forum and elsewhere!?
Don't worry, I'm not going to waste anymore time replying to your nonsensical posts.
I thought Kim's career fizzled out because she was mentally ill. I remember reading stories about her having social anxiety and not being able to leave her house.
Kim Basinger (the former Playmate and Bond Girl) finally won Oscar gold portraying a fantasy girl for the ordinary Joe in “L.A. Confidential.” She then immediately forgot that her audience was made up primarily of men and her career went in the way of her clothes in the first part of her career (see what we did there?).
She went on to star in a series of chick flick flops like: “I Dreamed of Africa,” “Bless the Child” and “The Mermaid Chair” (pictured). No, not the Daryl Hannah kinda mermaid… just a catchy name that probably got some poor people who were at Blockbuster on some lonely night to accidentally rent it.
Kim Basinger (the former Playmate and Bond Girl) finally won Oscar gold portraying the proverbial hooker with a heart of gold in L.A. Confidential. So did Basinger build on her Oscar win and continue on her career upswing? Uh, nope. Basinger went on to star in a series of chick flick flops like: I Dreamed of Africa, Bless the Child and The Mermaid Chair. Gee, I guess being married to Alec Baldwin really did take a toll on her.
Kim Basinger also thought she was Meryl Streep and picked inappropriate follow-up roles after L.A. Confidential but her behavior with Alec Baldwin – leaking those tapes and sacrificing her own daughter’s name for vengeance ruined her career.
hehe. Funny side note – Boxing Helena also *beep* the career of Kim Basinger after she tried to pull out of the film when she got wind of the script. The producers sued the s*** out of her and won. Not many career ruining films that can claim they ruined the career of people that didn’t even star in them.
Kim Basinger has had quite a few career snafus when you think about it. Just after winning an Oscar for L.A. Confidential she did that s***fest that was Bless the Child which put her right back where she was before she had won the Oscar.
By Christopher Bahn
msnbc.com contributor
updated 2/27/2004 5:08:19 PM ET
Career-damaging award?
Marcia Gay Harden, who won in 2000 for “Pollock,” recently told Premiere magazine that the award was one of the worst things that ever happened to her career. “The Oscar is disastrous on a professional level,” she said. “Suddenly the parts you’re offered become smaller and the money less. There’s no logic to it.” Still, she’s fared better than most, with a solid, if small, role in “Mona Lisa Smile”and another supporting-actress nomination for “Mystic River.”
Tomei in particular was the poster girl for the curse after her win for 1992’s “My Cousin Vinny,” when she not only was unable to find good roles that would provide her with another breakthrough hit, but had to endure scurrilous and untrue rumors that the only reason she’d been given the Oscar was that Jack Palance had announced the wrong name during the live broadcast. Her 2001 nomination for “In the Bedroom” helped prove her detractors wrong, but she has yet to find a solid role to follow that one.
The jury’s still out on whether the curse will affect Catherine Zeta-Jones, who spent much of the year after winning for “Chicago” at the last Oscars with her newborn baby, and only recently returned to cinemas in the underperforming Coen Brothers comedy “Intolerable Cruelty.” But she’s co-starring with Tom Hanks in the upcoming “The Terminal” and also has “Ocean’s Twelve” and the “Zorro”sequel on deck, all likely hits.
For Sorvino and Basinger, the problem seems to be that they simply chose to star in bad films. After success in “Mighty Aphrodite,” Sorvino moved on to the dumb horror flick “Mimic,” dumb action flick “The Replacement Killers,” dumb comedy “Romy & Michelle’s High School Reunion,” dumb sex film “Tales of Erotica,” and a prominent role in the very dumb box-office bomb “Gods & Generals,” the worst film of 2003. On the positive side are stints in the critically divisive “Summer of Sam” and “The Grey Zone.”
Basinger made mistake after mistake after “L.A. Confidential” that allowed her post-Oscar hotness cool to ice. First, she waited three years to make another movie. When she did, it was “I Dreamed of Africa,” which could have been retitled “I Dream Of Getting Out Of This Theater.” The boring supernatural thriller “Bless the Child” followed, a pathetic next try at a comeback that made fellow supporting-actress winner Whoopi Goldberg’s center-square spot on “Hollywood Squares”seem like Shakespeare.
Kim Basinger won an Oscar for her role as a sleazy femme fatale with a heart of gold in the wonderful L.A. Confidential, though I’m still not sure that she deserved to win, given how little screen time she had, and… meh, it’s Kim Basinger. Still, the win should have locked in an era of great Kim Basinger movies – Hollywood had bestowed her with its greatest honor, and we were eager to see more. Instead, Basinger decided to take a bizarre three-year break from making movies, presumably still shocked that she’d even been given an Oscar in the first place.
When she finally came back to work in 2000, everybody was totally over Kim Basinger, and it didn’t help that her comeback vehicle was a misguided, box office flop, and that she was plainly terrible in it (I Dreamed Of Africa – don’t watch it). So I guess she took an extended hiatus from acting given that she’d, like, received the highest honor available or something – what’s the point in more acting, right? But there’s a reason you keep acting, Kim, because audiences will move on otherwise. When was the last time you heard someone mention Kim Basinger? Exactly.
It became clear Kim Basinger had the Oscar Curse two years ago, when her ex-husband Alec Baldwin was in the hot seat on The View to explain his voice-mail rant against their daughter. At that moment we were all reminded that Kim Basinger is… still alive… and an even smaller percentage remembered that she won an Oscar not too long ago. She received the award for her part as a Hollywood call girl in LA Confidential, a role she played perfectly. Delivering her acceptance speech, Basinger seemed truly grateful — but evidently the Oscar gods thought that wasn’t enough and cast her career into a nosedive. Maybe it’s the “Debra Winger Effect” of a leading lady just getting too old for Hollywood. No matter the reason, she deserves a better swan song than The Sentinel.
Oscars Curse: Kim Basinger
For some, winning of Best Supporting Actress at the 1998 Academy Awards was a vindication for the long-maligned Kim Basinger, who was seen mainly as a B-list centerfold until her win for L.A. Confidential. But things only got worse for her career from there: aside from getting divorced from Alec Baldwin, can you name anything she’s done since?
Flash forward sixty years into the future and an actress of even more limited range than Rainer would be both a surprise winner and a victim of the Curse. It remains to be adequately explained what exactly exists in Kim Basinger’s performance in “L.A. Confidential” that made it worthy of a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1997. Less surprising, indeed, is that Basinger has done nothing of note since her inexplicable win.
It could also be argued that those three Oscar winners are examples of fortuitous film roles, when the perfect script, director, and studio came together to help them deliver a once-in-a-lifetime performance.
This could be called the Kim Basinger Law, named for the model-turned actress who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar as a Veronica Lake-lookalike prostitute in 1997’s L.A. Confidential. More than 15 years later, Basinger hasn’t had a hit since her supporting role as Eminem’s mother in the rapper’s 2002 film debut, 8 Mile.
Why They’re Jinxed: Like many of the women on this list, it’s difficult to determine if old age or the Oscar jinx was responsible for Kim Basinger’s career decline. She was a smokin’ hot 43-year-old when she won her Best Supporting Actress award, and now she’s 56. While still far more attractive than most women her age, the acting opportunities are growing increasingly slim (especially since her current demographic forces her to compete with the likes of Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren). She did get to play Eminem’s white trash mom in 8 Mile, but following that up with Cellular and The Sentinel didn’t help her cause. Most of her work these days is limited to television and indy films. A perfect example of the Oscar curse manifested when Basinger was cast in 2009’s The Informers, a film co-starring Billy Bob Thornton, Mickey Rourke and Winona Ryder. Despite the impressive cast, the movie never moved past limited release, and it only grossed a paltry $300,000. Sadly, she’s currently more famous for her down-and-dirty conflicts with ex-husband Alec Baldwin and her work for those crazy-ass bastards in PETA.
Basinger has worked relatively steadily since her Oscar win, but it’s been in roles that we’d rather forget. I Dreamed of Africa? How about let’s drink some coffee, stay up all night, and say we did. Then she followed up with several roles in which she seemed utterly miscast, as seen in 8 Mile and Cellular.
In the 1997 film L.A. Confidential, based on the novel by James Ellroy, Basinger played femme fatale Lynn Bracken and won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her work. Since then, she has played the mother to Eminem’s 8 Mile alter ego and had roles in a couple of straight-to-DVD titles. Her last major role was in the 2010 Zac Efron flick Charlie St. Cloud.
Oscar Win: Best Supporting Actress, L.A. Confidential (1998)
If you grew up in the ’80s/early ’90s, you most likely remember the days when Kim Basinger was the hottest actress in Hollywood. Starring in movies like Nine 1/2 Weeks definitely helped her gain sex appeal, but she also took on big roles such as Vicki Vale in Tim Burton’s Batman. When she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance in L.A. Confidential, she appeared to be at the peak of her career. Unfortunately, that peak would not last long.
In the past 15 years, Kim Basinger’s only noteworthy performance is playing Eminem’s mother in 8 Mile. Other than that, the movies she’s appeared in since L.A. Confidential have been largely disappointing and forgettable. Once she won her Oscar, it seems as if Hollywood stopped paying her much attention… even when she appears in high profile movies.
Last Christmas, she starred alongside Robert Deniro, Sylvester Stallone, Alan Arkin, and Kevin Hart in Grudge Match; of those five actors, the Oscar-winning actress was nowhere to be found in the movie trailers. That’s cold.
Kim Basinger was once Hollywood’s epitome of “the blonde bombshell” and she had the credentials to prove it. She was a Bond girl in Never Say Never Again, a superhero’s girlfriend in Batman, and a mysterious prostitute in L.A. Confidential, a role which won her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
However, in 2000, Basinger’s ugly divorce and custody battle with Alec Baldwin overshadowed her professional work and her career has never been the same. While she temporarily returned to limelight as Eminem’s mother in 8 Mile, she’s only landed roles in limited release films and straight-to-DVD dramas. If only a director would give her a role in a guaranteed blockbuster, a la Demi Moore in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, Basinger would definitely be back.
Kim Basinger
Best Known For: Batman (1989), L.A. Confidential (1997)
Most Recent Project: Black November (2012)
First she was a Bond Girl. Then she was Batman’s love interest. Then, after time spent raising kids, she won an Oscar playing a prostitute. Then, nothing. Well, 8 Mile, but basically nothing. But this time, it was by choice.
Since, L.A. Confidential, she’s worked sporadically, sharing her time with family and activism. Who can blame her? At 17 Basinger became a model and has been in the spotlight ever since.
Kim Basinger was Hollywood royalty throughout the eighties, but poor movie choices, poor real estate purchases, and a never-ending divorce battle with Alec Baldwin relegated her to the role of outsider ever since. Her brief (and unexpected) attempt at a comeback with 1997′s L.A. Confidential might have worked had she not waited another three years before releasing a follow-up movie to the Oscar winner. (Of course, when she finally did follow it up it was with the one-two punch of I Dreamed of Africa and Bless the Child. What you say? Exactly.)
At face value, Basinger made all the right choices here. Curtis Hanson at the helm (director of L.A Confidential) of an edgy biography of one of the biggest rappers of all time – it was looking like an inspired choice. Unfortunately, she was utterly forgettable as a character etched in the collective rap fan consciousness. Eminem’s biting and scathing rhymes about his horrible parentage are so iconic that Basinger’s performance retreats into the shadows.
Kim Basinger (1998) – Best Supporting Actress – LA Confidential
Kim Basinger won an Oscar for her performance in the fantastic Noir film LA Confidential, but what happened afterwards that is puzzling. She didn’t star in another movie for three years, and unlike her husband at the time, Alec Baldwin, it wasn’t because of a poor attitude or a difficulty to work with. For Basinger, it might be the curse of growing older as a female in Hollywood. Outside of a solid turn as Eminem’s mother in 8 Mile, nothing since LA Confidential has set the world on fire and the former sex symbol has been relegated to small supporting roles.
Basinger was already a major star by the time she portrayed Veronica Lake-lookalike Lynn Bracken in “Confidential,” having starred in films including “The Natural” (which got her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress), “Never Say Never Again” and as Bruce Wayne’s love interest in Batman (she was also married to Alec Baldwin, from 1993-2002). However, her role as Bracken managed to give her something she didn’t yet have: an Oscar. After “Confidential,” Basinger’s star power would drop off a bit. She would go on to portray Eminem’s mom in the semi-autobiographical flick “8 Mile” (which reunited her with her “Confidential” director Curtis Hanson) and would star alongside Chris Evans and Jason Statham in “Cellular.” Her last film was 2010’s “Charlie St. Cloud.”
Where did it all go wrong? After sizzling up the screen alongside – of all people – Mickey Rourke in sex drama 9½ Weeks and then landing the coveted role of Vicki Vale in Tim Burton’s Batman, Kim Basinger appeared to have the world at her feet. But a string of bad choices, including the forgettable likes of The Marrying Man, Cool World and The Real McCoy, left her in nowhereland for the better part of seven years!
Comeback role: Critics hailed Basinger’s performance in Curtis Hanson’s crime masterpiece LA Confidential as one of the best of her career. Lynn Bracken was a true femme fatale, who cleverly wrapped Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce around her little finger. She was subsequently named best supporting actress at the Oscars.
What happened next? Her career back on the up, Basinger made notable appearances alongside Eminem in Hanson’s 8 Mile, as a damsel in distress in slick thriller Cellular, and alongside Jeff Bridges in the moving drama The Door In The Floor. She will next be seen in an adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis novel The Informers alongside, you guessed it, Mickey Rourke (among other people).
Kim Basinger won the Best Supporting Oscar for her portrayal of a prostitute in “LA Confidential.” Since her win, she has literally done nothing of note and, for the most part, has disappeared from the limelight. She is best known nowadays for her acrimonious split from Alec Baldwin and for their contentious custody battle over their daughter Ireland.
With six Razzie nominations to her name, there's no denying that Kim Basinger's relationship with Hollywood has always been troubled. But the actress seemed to have an especially tough time landing on her feet following her big Oscar win for LA Confidential back in 1997. Her much-anticipated follow-up performance in I Dreamed of Africa was critically panned, and playing Eminem's mom in 8 Mile didn't exactly do her any favors, either. One glimmer of hope: She's got a role in the upcoming '70s police drama The Nice Guys opposite Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe, which could give her career the boost it so desperately needs.
Kim Basinger was one of the big stars during the ‘80s and ‘90s; however, her big demands on set may have cost her the promising career she once had. During filming for “The Marrying Man,” where she met her ex husband Alec Baldwin, her demands were excessive. She insisted that the director of photography be replaced because she didn’t look like how she looked in the test shots that he had taken. That wasn’t all. Four weeks into filming, she asked to change the dialogue, telling the screenwriter, “Whoever wrote this scene doesn’t understand comedy.”
Basinger also kept production waiting on the set of “The Marrying Man.” One reason for this was her elaborate morning routine, which included washing her hair with only Evian water and shampoo. We’re not entirely sure if her excessive demands were what derailed her career. All we know is that she doesn’t get those high-paying roles anymore.
Kim Basinger is probably better known for being married to Alec Baldwin then for her budding acting career, but she used to be a bright spot in Hollywood. She had been in the scene since the '70s, before 1997 came along and she landed a role in "L.A. Confidential," which earned her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Apparently that honor was so much that she had to take a three year hiatus, successfully ensuring any hype she had fizzled out. Now it seems that she's back to acting in projects no one's ever heard of just like before.
Vicki Vale is an on-again-off-again character in the Batman comics, with an on-again-off-again love interest in Bruce Wayne. For Batman, it was definitely in the on-again phase, and supermodel-turned-actress Kim Basinger was cast to fill the shoes of the character allegedly originally based on Marilyn Monroe. While her performance was panned by critics, the character remains a mainstay of Batman fandom.
Kim Basinger was born into a show-business family, and her striking looks kept her busy as one of the world’s top models in the 1970s. Cast as Bond girl Domino in the questionable 1983 non-EON James Bond movie Never Say Never Again, she remained one of Hollywood’s hottest commodities in the 1980s and 1990s. Basinger won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 1997’s L.A. Confidential, she still works consistently. Basinger will feature as Christian Grey’s ex-lover in 2017’s Fifty Shades Darker.
There was no one more glamorous than Kim Basinger as she stepped up to the podium to receive her Best Supporting Actress award in 1997 for "L.A. Confidential." Wearing a gold dress, it looked as if Oscar herself had come to fruition. Graciously she thanked "everyone I have ever met in my entire life." Following "Confidential," Basinger made the big-budget "I Dreamed of Africa," which tanked at the box office. From that point on, her career has been on a slow decline with few notable hot points. Bassinger gained more notoriety for her continued domestic and family struggles with ex-husband Alec Baldwin. Her last film, the 2013 boxing movie "Grudge Match" grossed only $42M at the box office.
Basinger was part of Curtis Hanson’s truly terrific L.A. Confidential back in 1997. She did a fantastic job, even if the part wasn’t as fleshed-out as it could have been. Basinger had been around for awhile before she won the Oscar but post-award, her career hasn’t taken off as many had predicted.
She followed up Confidential with the abysmal I Dream of Africa (remember that one?). Then it was 8 Mile with Eminem, a well-regarded and successful film.
Sadly, it dwindled after that. She popped up in Cellular, The Sentinel and other little-seen films. Her next role will be in Fifty Shades Darker, which will (probably) be her first hit in nearly fifteen years. Let’s hope Basinger makes a comeback.
Then: Kim was cast as photojournalist and love concern to Bruce Wayne Vicki Vale after sean young was contrived to drop out of the film following an onset horse riding injury. After working as a former fashion model transformed herself as the leading lady through films like “The Naturals’ , ‘The Blind Date’ & ‘ Nine 1/2 Weeks’.
Now: Following ‘Batman’ Basinger was notably sued for dropping of the racy film ‘Boxing Helena’ and became a tabloid fixture thanks to her public custody clash with ex-husband Alec Baldwin. Despite everything she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for ‘L.A. Confidential.’ We haven’t seen that actress lately – her last big role was in 2010’s Charlie St Cloud–that should change soon as she’s slated to appear in the DeNiro/Stallone comedy ‘Grudge Match’ and the star-studded eseble piece’ The third person’.
Kim Basinger has been a household name since the early 80s, though many households can’t agree on how to pronounce it. Since rising to prominence with her portrayal of Domino Petachi in the 1983 James Bond film Never Say Never Again, and again with 1997’s L.A. Confidential, Basinger (that’s “bay-singer”, not “bass-injure,”) has had a prolific career, with her films often gaining notoriety, if not critical acclaim. Yet in recent years, there’s been little public buzz about her career. What is she doing today, and what are her plans for the future?
In the early 2000s, Basinger separated and eventually divorced Alec Baldwin. During that time, Basinger performed as Kuki Gallmann in I Dreamed of Africa, in 2000, and as Eminem’s mother in the 2002 film 8 Mile, which was also directed by L.A. Confidential’s Curtis Hanson. Featured in another half-dozen films throughout the 2000s, Basinger was slowly moving toward more independent feature films. The Burning Plain was featured at multiple film festivals, and in 2009, her film The Informers premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
Kim Basinger Today
Since 2010, Kim Basinger has starred in Charlie St. Cloud and Grudge Match, and has two films, 4 Minute Mile and I Am Here, on the film festival circuit, with several more upcoming pieces.
The Internet talks about the Bond Girl Curse, which highlights the tendency of actresses who play the romantic interest in a Bond film to never go further in their career. Kim Basinger managed to defy the supposed curse with L.A. Confidential, but since 1997, the 80s sex symbol’s career has been slowly declining. Most recently, Basinger made headlines by platonically reuniting with Alec Baldwin to support their daughter Ireland, who was struggling with her own modeling career and personal life. Professionally, Basinger has two upcoming films, The Nice Guys and Nocturnal Animals, both slated for limited festival runs.
People have largely ignored Kim Basinger’s career post the turn century, perhaps because she was getting older, perhaps because her personal life kept blowing up in the tabloids. Whatever the case, it’s a sad state of affairs, considering that she’s only gotten better as an actress, in some cases turning out performances so flawlessly, you overlook that she’s acting. In 8 MILE, the movie that fictionalized Eminem’s real life, Kim is awesome as a whiny, needy, *beep* up mother who bones her son’s former classmate while her youngest child pretends to cover her ears. It’s horrific when you consider just how commonplace this type of behavior is out in the world.
Kim Basinger hasn't done much since she won that Oscar a million years ago for L.A. Confidential. Sure there was The Door in the Floor and that Africa one and of course who could forget Cellular. But, y'know, that was kind of it. So it feels like somewhat big news that she has been cast in Paul Haggis' new film The Third Person, alongside Adrien Brody, Mila Kunis, Casey Affleck, and Liam Neeson, among others. She'll be playing Neeson's wife, which is a supporting role, but still. Still, this is a role alongside movie stars in a respected (by some, at least, ahem) director's film. Good for Kim Basinger. Maybe this is the beginning of a resurgence. The second coming of the Real McCoy. Or maybe it's just a small-ish role in an indie film. Whichever. [The Hollywood Reporter]
Basinger was good in 8 Mile and The Door in the Floor, so she didn't completely disappear, but I think sort of fitting out of the scene was a combination of a couple of things including her age, her choices, and (and this is just an impression I get) not having a whole lot of support in the industry (probably from being seen as flaky). Reminds me of Winona Ryder, good actress who got her thunder stolen on her own passion project by Angelina Jolie, and then fell off like a *beep* in part because she's flaky and (from what I understand) has some enemies.
It's not quite a comeback. Over the years, Basinger has occasionally turned up in wife/mom roles in movies like Charlie St. Cloud, and Grudge Match, and she toplined a long-gestating passion project called The 11th Hour, which arrived on VOD last summer. But unless you've been actively following Basinger's career over the past decade, it's still a little startling when she suddenly pops up in The Nice Guys—like stumbling into an old friend you rarely think of and never visit.
Hollywood has an exceedingly short memory, so it's easy to forget how omnipresent Basinger was in the 1980s and 1990s. She costarred in a miniseries remake of the Best Picture-winning drama From Here to Eternity. She held her own opposite James Bond and Batman. She worked with directors as varied and talented as Robert Altman, Adrian Lyne, and Robert Benton. She earned a Golden Globe nomination for her supporting turn in The Natural. There were also costly mistakes; at the height of her career, Basinger turned down starring roles in both Thelma & Louise and Sleepless in Seattle.
I think her nasty divorce/custody battle with Alec kinda ruined her public image and her relevancy never really recovered. I think she also filled for bankruptcy at some point too. Plus Hollywood ageism, etc.
Basinger seems to have taken a more laid-back approach since she won her Academy Award for L.A. Confidential. She didn’t retire from acting altogether, but you wouldn’t be crazy for thinking she had. After her sex appeal started to lose its gravitas, Basinger’s roles became limited to playing moms in 8 Mile and Charlie St Cloud, or weak parts in disappointments such as Bless the Child and I Dreamed of Africa. She has now garnered herself an impressive 7 Razzie nominations to date.
The choice of film actress in the 90 remain to this day unexplained. At the height of fame in the late 80’s she makes the series B and movies second class: Hot Blood for murder in cold blood, The Real McCoy case, Wayne’s World 2 (admittedly very funny but it’s not this kind of film that builds you a “cred” in the middle).
Against all odds, she finally gets recognition (an Oscar and a Golden Globe) for the role of the fatal Lynn Bracken in the very dark LA Confidential, based on the novel by James Ellroy.
In 2002 he is against total employment by embodying the alcoholic mother of Eminem in 8 Mile, but once again, she moves with mediocre films that go mostly unnoticed. In 2010 she even plays in a movie with Zac Efron, Charlie St. Cloud. In other words, the “vortex of lose”.
But Kim Basinger has accustomed us many twists and it would not be crazy to see it reborn from the ashes soon. Besides, she is currently filming the next film from Tom Ford with Jake Gyllenhaal and Amy Adams. It promises.
Sometimes, being beautiful can be a curse. Case in point: Kim Basinger. Although early performances showed talent for both comedy and drama, the actress was often cast in roles that emphasized her sex appeal. 9 1/2 Weeks, for example, was one big sex-a-palooza. Blind Date found her playing Bruce Willis’s dream girl, and My Stepmother Is an Alien had her portraying an extra-terrestrial who comes to Earth in the guise of a ridiculously attractive woman. You get the picture. (At least she got to be Vicki Vale in Tim Burton’s Batman.) Director Curtis Hanson saw something else in Basinger. He cast her as an old-school femme fatale in his 1997 classic, L.A. Confidential. It was a role that made great use of both her beauty and her talent. The Academy agreed, naming her the year’s Best Supporting Actress.
Basinger didn’t take the va-va-voom roles afterward, but her attempts to continue proving herself as a serious actress fell flat. Turkeys such as I Dreamed of Africa, Bless the Child, and Cellular did nothing to advance her career. The only really decent role she got after winning the Oscar was playing Eminem’s mom in 8 Mile — a movie directed by Curtis Hanson. These days, Basinger turns up mostly in supporting roles (Grudge Match, Fifty Shades Darker). She needs another collaborator like the late Hanson who understands how to tap into the substance underneath the beauty.
Kim Basinger won an Academy Award, divorced Alec Baldwin, ditched a coveted acting career and vanished from the screen before you could scratch your head and ask, “Huh?” Now she’s making a comeback. This would ordinarily prompt applause, but a thing called The 11th Hour, the vehicle she’s making her comeback in, is such a creepy, pretentious hunk of junk that she should have stayed in bed.
This former A+ list mostly movie actress doesn't even really act any longer. She still has a name though and one of the more memorable movie roles of all-time. She has had some very famous relationships too. Oh, and some celebrity offspring. Anyway she discovered this morning that she wasn't given a front row seat to a show and stole a seat in the front row. When she was asked to vacate it by the person who it had been assigned to, our actress said, “I don't think so.” The person backed down and our actress sat right in front.Kim Basinger
This former A list mostly movie actress who kind of fell off the planet when she and the A list mostly television actor got divorced more than a decade ago has had her chances to work. Really famous for one iconic movie, the actress recently got a chance to star in an independent movie with a small budget and a great script. The budget was tiny but our actress wanted two separate trailers and cakes, yes cakes, delivered three times a day each day of shooting and had specific dimensions and flavors for each cake. Yeah, the producers passed and ended up landing two Academy Award winners/nominees for the lead roles.Kim Basinger/Vera Farmiga/Andy Garcia
This 80’s A+ list actress is now barely in demand for any movies. She used to be married to an A+ lister who has been A list for a few decades. Our actress stopped getting roles after she fired multiple directors and directors of photography because they were not shooting her the way she wanted. She also fired writers who didn’t give her enough dialogue.Kim Basinger/Alec Baldwin
After LA Confidential many expected Kim Basinger's career to go into some sort of revival, but with I Dreamed of Africa and Bless the Child being the two films that followed, those expectations didn't turn out to be the case. Her career seems to have pretty much fizzled out into making trashy films (the one notable exception being 8 Mile), and so along comes Cellular, a film with a joyously daft premise whereby Basinger is kidnapped and her only hope of survival is to stay on her cellphone to a complete stranger - if she loses the signal, she loses her life! My, the tension.
https://lebeauleblog.com/2012/02/05/...-kim-basinger/
Feb 5, 2012 - Costner's not had a hit in ages despite many fans so his name shall remain first in the credits, Kim Basinger doesn't get right front billings anymore though, think her film BLESS THE CHILD sank quickly and I'd imagine it's her last big solo vehicle but killed her career not so sure. Demi Moore, no hits in ages ...
Desperate to break away from the bombshell roles, Basinger chose projects that put her talents as a serious actor front and centre. This proved disastrous, starting a string of duds like Bless This Child and I Dreamed of Africa. Her last high-profile role was in Fifty Shades Darker and I think we can all agree that no-one deserves that.
It’s difficult to know whether Kim Basinger’s rather sporadic film appearances over the last few year are more to do with choice or simply because not that many people have roles for her. She was last seen in 2010’s Charlie St. Cloud, but has now signed up for a part in Crash writer/director Paul Haggis’ new drama, Third Person.
LA Confidential is full of great performances - it is, after all, the film that basically gave us Russell Crowe - but Kim Basinger's Lynn Bracken was the real stand-out. Which is why she won an Oscar for it and which is why we should have then got a period of her rising to become one of the most prominent leading ladies in Hollywood.
Remember that? Well, no, you wouldn't, because it didn't happen. Instead, Basinger went on holiday from film-making for three years, letting everyone forget about the goodwill she'd built with the win and then making I Dreamed Of Africa. A truly awful, dull film. She's not awful in it, but the film is woefully bad.
After the break and then the pretty appalling comeback, it's testament to how her profile changed that her biggest roles have probably been in two Fifty Shades sequels. And they're unwatchable. She just let relevance slip out of her grip.
Uh, Kim Basinger was in the "Angels in Chains" episode of Charlie's Angles during the first season (before anybody actually knew who she was mind you) so it kind of does of count! I guess according to you, there's an unwritten law in which you can't go in depth about the subsequent career path of one particular guest star on Charlie's Angels (let alone a future Academy Award winner)!?
Now of course, in 1977 (about a year after Charlie’s Angels debuted), Kim Basinger starred in what would become a short-lived cop show called Dog & Cat. So in that regard, Ms. Basinger wasn’t being entirely truthful with her reluctance to do television even during the earliest stages of her career.
I’ve come to the conclusion that Kim and her ego were uncomfortable w/ the concept of more than likely having to play the third wheel to Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith and not be the proverbial “star” like on Dog & Cat.
I thought Kim's career fizzled out because she was mentally ill. I remember reading stories about her having social anxiety and not being able to leave her house.
Kim also seems to use her anxiety/shyness (or Alec Baldwin’s alleged abuse during their relationship) issues as a cop out for why she’s gone so down the food chain so to speak in Hollywood. Granted, her anxiety issues and apparent lack of humility within themselves likely interfered with any chances she had for any true longevity in the business.
The real problem is that Kim Basinger seems to be the type of woman who wants the stardom without putting in the work. In effect, she’s lazy. I think one of if not thee biggest fallacy regarding Kim Basinger as a person is that she seems to take herself way too seriously. Kim always quite flippantly makes it out to sound like her life is utterly boring (thus, why should we care what she does day in and day out), too embarrassing to discuss in reasonably great detail, and a downright drag. She’s the type of person who tends to build a bubble around herself.
As the daughter of a jazz musician and a ballet dancer, Kim Basinger was destined for a career in the performing arts. At age 17, the Georgia native moved to New York City and started working as a model. She famously posed for Playboy in 1983, and that same year appeared opposite Sean Connery in the James Bond movie Never Say Never Again. Playing a Bond girl was only the beginning for Basinger — she became a full-fledged Hollywood sex symbol in the '80s and early '90s, pushing the boundaries of the era with movies like 9½ Weeks, an erotic drama in the same vein as Fifty Shades of Grey.
Of course, Basinger appeared in the Fifty Shades franchise many years later, portraying the woman who introduced kinky businessman Christian Grey to the world of BDSM when he was an impressionable teenager. 2017's Fifty Shades Darker remains Basinger's most recent feature film appearance. She popped up in critically acclaimed Amazon series Comrade Detective a few months later, but hasn't been seen on either the big or the small screen since. How did this Oscar-winning star manage to fall off the radar? Here's why Hollywood won't cast Kim Basinger anymore.
I didn't know Kim Basinger was on some episodes of Charlie's Angels. Mood Ring, you can't be serious that you don't think she's attractive hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Kim is hot and always has been. She's aged very well and she's 61. I've seen several of her movies like No Mercy, Final Analysis, The Getaway, Nadine, The Door In The Floor, The Burning Plain, Blind Date, While She Was Out, Cellular. I can't believe she wasted her time being in Grudge Match with Sylvester Stallone and Robert Deniro LOL.
Kim was in only one episode of Charlie's Angels. It was the first season's "Angels in Chains."
__________________
"Shorter of breath and one day closer to death." -- Pink Floyd
I thought Kim's career fizzled out because she was mentally ill. I remember reading stories about her having social anxiety and not being able to leave her house.
I'm going go out on a limb and say, that I strongly believe that Kim may suffer from bipolar disorder. I know that I'm making an armchair diagnosis and just speculating over what may be "wrong" (psychologically) with a celebrity but please hear me out. Look at the way that Kim *allegedly* behaved on the set of The Marrying Man, that sounds awfully consistent with a person going through a manic episode. Remember when Mariah Carey was behaving quite strangely on MTV's TRL and it later turned out that she was going through a manic episode fueled by bipolar disorder?
The long time cover is that Kim suffers from "social anxiety disorder". But people who are bipolar also tend to be anxiety ridden. If you don't believe me, take a look at when Kristy McNichol (who is also bipolar) appeared on The Arsenio Hall Show:
Also, people who are bipolar can also struggle with PTSD. There's little doubt that Kim went through hell while being married to Alec Baldwin, which in this regard, likely made her situation must worse:
Kim's periodic hiatuses (she seemed to really start to slow down after she had her daughter with Alec Baldwin back in '95) could be in part because she simply doesn't want to. It could be due to being unable to keep up with the pace or putting together simple tasks:
Now, besides mental health issues, if I were to guess, I think the downfall of Kim Basinger's career was due to the following: 1. She has no franchise - Batman was the closest Kim had to a franchise to hang her hat when her other ventures failed to do well or completely flopped. Unfortunately, Kim wasn't invited back for what would become Batman Returns and by the time the third movie rolled around, Michael Keaton and Tim Burton were out of the door.
2. Her terrible PR machine - Kim has openly admitted that due to her struggles with social anxiety, she doesn't like to go out and promote her stuff or keep her face too visible in the public eye. The bottom-line is that if you aren't willing to do a lot of self-promotion then your chances of securing work and assessing new fans will start diminishing. It's a necessary evil because you want potential production companies or casting directors to come knocking at their door. Kim seems to be one of those actors, who feels that the work should speak for itself and she doesn't have to play the Hollywood BS game. Kim also ruined her reputation to the general public with her antics such as spending $20 million on a small Georgia town (which she soon ran into bankruptcy), her and Alec Baldwin's unprofessional behavior on the set of The Marrying Man, hijacking Cool World from Ralph Bakshi so that she could make it more "kid friendly", and being successfully sued out of backing out of Boxing Helena. She also quite frankly, can in general personally rub people the wrong way due to her habitual aloofness, awkwardness, her high-profile marriage to Alec Baldwin, and dare I say, militant animal rights activism.
3. Her terrible choice of films - Looking into Kim's filmography, only a handful of her movies have gotten a "fresh" (meaning positive) score on Rotten Tomatoes. She followed up Batman with crap like The Marrying Man, Final Analysis, Cool World, The Real McCoy, and The Getaway. And then she followed her Oscar winning role in LA Confidential with I Dreamed of Africa and Bless the Child, which pretty much killed her career as a top-tier star for good.
4. Her limitations as a performer - Kim built her career off of being a gorgeous, sexy blonde woman who was also sensitive and somewhat childlike (perhaps in effect, a latter-day Marilyn Monroe, who was also like a child-woman who was both innocent and full of sexuality). The problem is that Kim never spent time on stage to hone her craft, and she was never (despite appearing in comedies like Blind Date, My Stepmother is an Alien, and Wayne's World 2) really a comedic actress. And despite her success with LA Confidential, she could never really build upon that to truly prove herself once and for all as a heavy-duty serious actress. In essence, Kim Basinger is arguably one of those performers who isn't charismatic enough or doesn't have enough range (since her personality is naturally, so introverted and sincere) to truly carry an entire movie on her shoulders. In other words, Kim seems to function best when she's part of an ensemble (like in LA Confidential) or if she is the main female in the movie (like in Batman), she isn't the main engine driving the story.
5. Her look - In essence, it's somewhat hard to buy Kim in say, everywoman roles or decidedly grittier roles (like 8 Mile) because of her inherently prim, proper, glamorous appearance. And because Kim is so beautiful, it's naturally difficult to see her as a chameleon-like character actress or somebody who isn't from the "uptown". I think that in a round about way, Kim Basinger's career in a way, may have ran its course. When you're an actress whose whole career was built upon how beautiful and sexy you are instead of your actual acting range and talents, you're not expected to get much millage out of that image once you're over 40. Plus, Kim Basinger is one of those actresses who if you take away her best movie(s) (Batman and later, LA Confidential), she would admittedly have a very mediocre if not downright forgettable career. I think that Kim got into the door just for the sake that she just happened to be so beautiful, but she didn't have the where with all or knowledge to go further than that. I mean, let's be realistic, Kim couldn't rely on her good looks forever (because naturally, people age and get old) if she truly wanted to progress and be taken more seriously as an actress. Kim seems to use her inherent shyness and social anxiety as dare I say a default excuse for why she shouldn't have to play the proverbial Hollywood game.
6. I think another reason for Kim's career decline is that post-Batman and post-LA Confidential, she didn't work with a lot of great or quality filmmakers. In her career leading up to Batman, she worked with Robert Altman, Blake Edwards, Irwin Kershner (who of course, directed The Empire Strikes Back), Barry Levinson, Adrian Lyne, Robert Benton, and last but certainly not least, Tim Burton. Kim simply put in the latter part of her career, started working for dare I say hacks like Russell Mulcahy, Chuck Russell, David E. Ellis, Peter Segal, and of course, E.L. James on Fifty Shades Darker (she didn't officially direct, but her stink is all over it), movies which were inappropriate for her (like I Dreamed of Africa, Bless the Child, and Cellular), or movies where she was purely in it for the quick paycheck like The Sentinel, Charlie St. Cloud, and Fifty Shades Darker.
7. Another thing to take note is that Kim Basinger was never really a box office draw. Her most successful movies financially and/or critically such as Batman or LA Confidential, were ones that didn't exactly rely heavily on her star power or her face and name. When Kim was given the task to carry a movie primarily on her name (such as Nadine, My Stepmother is an Alien, Final Analysis, Cool World, The Real McCoy, The Getaway, I Dreamed of Africa, and Bless the Child), they outright bombed at the box office. Even 9 1/2 Weeks, which is arguably Kim's most noteworthy movie after Batman and LA Confidential, was technically a box office bomb. Blind Date, a movie that she did with Bruce Willis two years before Batman, is probably the only movie of hers in which she was the "star" that was technically a "hit". And even that movie was a base-level hit (meaning it made a profit, but wasn't a run-away success) and is pretty much now seen as "that movie that Bruce Willis did right before Die Hard". Stuff like 8 Mile came out long past Kim's peak years/relevancy.
A sex symbol reluctant for the spotlight. An unfortunate award winner with a passion for animals. And above all, someone who wants people to stop showing their butts on Instagram. Here are some of the reasons why Hollywood won't cast Kim Basinger anymore.
Her last film appearance was in the ‘Fifty Shades’ series.
By Lauren Waters
Last Updated: 12:23 a.m. CST, January 1, 2023
Oscar-winning actor, Kim Basinger, was once the it-girl of Hollywood. It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly 40 years since we watched her in her breakout role as Bond girl Domino in Never Say Never Again. But these days, it feels like we haven’t heard from the leading lady in years. So, what happened to Kim Basinger? Will she be gracing the big screen again anytime soon?
Why She Rarely Acts Anymore
In the ‘80s, Kim Basinger was the ultimate sex symbol, often being compared to Brigitte Bardot and Marilyn Monroe. You’ve probably seen her in hit films like 9 ½ Weeks, Batman, and L.A. Confidential. However, she hasn’t been as active in the 2020s. Basinger’s last acting gig was in her appearances in the Fifty Shades sequels, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed back in 2017 and 2018.
One major reason why Basinger isn’t working in entertainment as much these days is that she suffers from agoraphobia and anxiety. According to a 2013 interview with Vanity Fair, she has made the decision to cope with her illness without the aid of medication. She said, “Now I wake up and enjoy life. I didn’t want to live on drugs. I wanted to face everything I was afraid of.”
In addition to Basinger’s struggles with anxiety, the actress has never enjoyed the fame aspect of her job. According to Basinger, “I’m not a big red-carpet girl. But I love the work.” She’s also grateful for how long she’s been able to do the work that she has and feels “blessed because I’ve had such longevity.”
Basinger Wanted To Protect Her Daughter
As Basinger’s daughter Ireland Baldwin (who she shares with ex-husband Alec Baldwin) grew up, she decided it was best to keep Ireland away from the pressures of fame and try to keep a lower profile. “She grew up in the limelight but I tried to provide stability and a quieter world,” Basinger said in the Vanity Fair interview.
Basinger succeeded in giving Ireland a quieter life with a sense of normalcy. However, growing up with a star-studded family tree, Ireland was bound to find her way back to Hollywood. She eventually followed in her mom’s footsteps and became a model signed with Two Management and IMG Models. “She’s doing extremely well,” Basinger gushed. “You just want them to follow their own path, and she totally did this on her own.”
She Has A Passion For Animals
In addition to being her mini-me’s biggest cheerleader, Basinger has dedicated a lot of her time to ending animal cruelty. In 2019, she received an award from Last Chance for Animals for her work investigating animal abuse. She told Extra, “I love my work as an actress, professionally… but this is my heart… and when I stand up for my animals… this is my heart.”
She’s Enjoying The Quiet Life With Her Boyfriend
Taking a step back from the limelight has allowed Basinger to build a beautiful private life. She told Georgian Journal in 2017 that she enjoyed living by the beach in California and taking part in water sports. Animals hold a special place in her home; she has five dogs and puts out feeders to attract hummingbirds.
Basinger shares her life with her boyfriend, hairstylist Mitch Stone. They began dating in 2014, and it sounds like they’re still going strong. They’ve spent a lot of time in Hawaii, which Basinger says is their favorite place.
We hope Basinger continues following her heart, being a great mom, and fighting for things that really matter. And, of course, we hope she has a little spare time to return to the big screen.
For a time, Kim Basinger was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. She won an Oscar, starred as one of the "James Bond" franchise's iconic Bond girls, and was one of the most in-demand actors in the industry. Like many other stars, Basinger eventually faded away from the spotlight. In recent years, it has become rare to hear from her at all, let alone to see her up on the big screen.
So, what happened to Kim Basinger? Let's take a look back at the trajectory of her career, analyze the ups and downs, and break down the most pivotal moments that shaped her current place in Hollywood. From box-office flops to failed side projects and behind-the-scenes scuffles to personal scandals, these are the elements that molded her career over the years into what it is today. Since Kim is a surprisingly controversial figure, there is plenty of sensationalized messiness to sift through, so let's dig into the details.
She aged out of her typecasting
Kim Basinger got her start as a model back in the 1970s. As a teen and later adult fashion model, Basinger found great success. She continued modeling as her acting career took off and even posed for a famous Playboy photoshoot that was released at the same time as her Bond girl role in 1983's "Never Say Never Again."
In Hollywood, Basinger was frequently cast in movies based on her looks first and foremost ahead of her acting abilities. With many of her roles being femme fatales, love interests, and erotic thriller characters, Basinger's physical appearance was key to her success in the industry. The sad reality of Hollywood is that aging often unfairly hurts the careers of women far more than men when it comes to acting. Over the years, Basinger simply aged out of the type of role that she was best known for and was largely typecast in.
As her bread-and-butter roles stopped being an option for her, Basinger began taking on different sorts of characters, but didn't find much success. Many in Hollywood considered her to lack the dramatic acting chops necessary to handle other types of roles, and her big parts became fewer and farther between until they eventually stopped heading her way entirely, leading to a period of low-budget and straight-to-video movies for Basinger.
She has made more than four times as many bad movies as good
Kim Basinger is best known for a handful of hit movies like "L.A. Confidential" and "Batman" that performed extremely well at the box office and were both commercial and critical successes. The trouble was, outside this smattering of beloved movies, Basinger's hit rate was extremely low.
According to Rotten Tomatoes aggregations, Basinger's overall filmography is packed with more than quadruple as many duds as winners. In total, she has just six movies that earned positive scores from both critics and general audiences, one of which was her small supporting role in 2016's "The Nice Guys," which sits as one of her last live-action roles to date. On the other hand, Basinger has had 26 movies that were slapped with rotten scores by critics and audiences alike. These include three movies with single-digit percentage scores from critics. The lowest of all is her 2000 thriller dud "Bless This Child," which just barely avoided a straight-up 0% score.
With so many of her movies being disliked across the board, it is no surprise that Basinger's star power began to wane over time. A film career can only sustain so many bombs before the studios stop handing out extra chances, and Basinger arguably got more chances than most.
Her music career never took off
Alongside acting and modeling, Kim Basinger also had an interest in music, with a particular passion for singing. While her film career was in full swing, Basinger attempted to diversify with music as well. Around the early '90s, she released a handful of singles, which were mostly covers or collaborations with other, more established artists like Ozzy Osbourne and Prince, the latter of whom she was in a highly publicized romantic relationship.
Basinger's love and work relationship with Prince was the most central dynamic at the heart of her foray into music. Together, the two recorded an entire album titled "Hollywood Affair." The album was recorded in 1989, but was never released in any official capacity. The Prince/Basinger relationship supposedly culminated in Basinger leaving Hollywood to be with the musician in Minneapolis, only for her family to show up and forcibly split the couple up.
Though it was never officially released, the "Hollywood Affair" album eventually wound up receiving an underground release in 1997 in Germany, of all places. The album subsequently made its way onto the internet, where it can still be found today, but this all happened long after Basinger left music behind. When she was motivated in attempting to carve out a career for herself as a singer, she didn't make much progress, and she stopped actively pursuing that dream pretty quickly.
She got an Oscar but also nine Razzies
Kim Basinger's single most acclaimed performance can be found in 1997's "L.A. Confidential." She plays an archetypal femme fatale of the film noir genre as Lynn Bracken, a Hollywood prostitute who looks suspiciously like real-life noir movie star Veronica Lake. The role earned Basinger a BAFTA nomination, plus a Golden Globe and Oscar win. The role also proved to anyone who doubted her talents that Basinger was capable of delivering an excellent performance when given the right script.
Unfortunately, Basinger had plenty of roles both before and after her Oscar win that called her acting talents into question. Throughout her entire career, she has repeatedly been a guest of dishonor at the Razzies, the cynical inverted version of the Oscars highlighting the worst of cinema each year. Countering her single Oscar nomination and win are her nine Razzie nominations and one win. Prior to her Oscar, she was Razzie nominated for "9 ½ Weeks," "The Marrying Man," "The Getaway," and a double nomination in 1993 for both "Cool World" and "Final Analysis." Just a couple of years after winning her Oscar, she was again double-nominated for Worst Actress at the 2001 Razzies for the dud combo of "Bless This Child" and "I Dreamed of Africa."
For her numerous Razzie nominations, Basinger was also given a special nomination for the worst actress in the history of the Razzies when looking at her entire filmography. Finally, in 2018, Basinger was awarded the Worst Supporting Actress Razzie for her performance in "Fifty Shades Darker," which is currently her final credited live-action performance, though she did reprise her role for a brief uncredited appearance in "Fifty Shades Freed."
The Cool World controversy
The title "Cool World" might not ring many bells today, but this largely forgotten movie caused a major controversy when it was released in 1992. In an effort to be the next "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," "Cool World" is a hybrid between live-action and animation that presents another film noir storyline at the intersection between humans and cartoons. Unlike "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," "Cool World" was a total failure, and many of the film's shortcomings can be directly attributed to Kim Basinger's actions behind the scenes.
Basinger appears in both animated and live-action form as the character Holli Would, a femme fatale archetype who attempts to break out of her cartoon world by seducing the human cartoonist who drew her and the titular "Cool World." The film was made by Ralph Bakshi, who was known for making adult animated films that frequently landed hard-R and X ratings. "Cool World" was meant as another gritty, violent, and sexually charged film aimed at adults. The only problem was that Kim Basinger changed her mind about the film's tone and content after the project was well underway. Basinger wished to be able to show the film to children in hospitals specifically, which was completely at odds with the established plans for the film. This led to extreme infighting behind the scenes that reached such a boiling point that a fistfight broke out between Bakshi and one of the producers.
The script was re-written behind Bakshi's back, and the production was a notorious disaster, resulting in a terrible film that bombed at the box office. The financial loss was exacerbated by the huge advertising push the film had, which even included Paramount's pricey marketing move of attaching Basinger's character to the Hollywood sign.
The Boxing Helena controversy
For as much of a mess as it was, "Cool World" wasn't Kim Basinger's biggest film controversy, nor was it even her most controversial film of the early '90s. Basinger's biggest scandal was actually for a film that she wasn't in. "Boxing Helena" is a 1993 erotic thriller and was the debut film from Jennifer Lynch, daughter of filmmaker David Lynch. Trashed by critics, "Boxing Helena" is considered by most to be a total failure, but it's possible that things may have turned out differently had Basinger not thrown a major wrench into the production.
"Boxing Helena" was a notorious disaster and was mired in controversy before it was even released as the subject of multiple protests against its taboo subject matter of a surgeon removing a woman's limbs. One of the people who was vocally against the content of the film was Kim Basinger. On its own, this would have been fine, except Basinger had previously agreed to star in the film, only to later change her mind, drop out of the project without warning, and even bad-mouth the script publicly. This abrupt change of face led to a high-profile court case in which the studio, Main Line Films, sued Basinger for breaching her agreement to star in the film to the tune of around $8.1 million. After dealing with serious financial troubles, Basinger eventually settled with the studio and paid the lower sum of $3.8 million. The role Basinger refused was also turned down by Madonna before going to star Sherilyn Fenn.
A messy divorce caused career troubles
Kim Basinger married fellow actor Alec Baldwin in 1993 after first becoming acquainted while making the 1991 music-centered rom-com "The Marrying Man." The couple had a daughter together, but ended up divorcing nine years later. With a child in the mix, an amicable divorce proved impossible, and the two battled it out over custody in the courts in a case that practically became a media circus for frenzied paparazzi. The experience was tough on Basinger, whose public reputation was damaged as a result of the case. Although Baldwin's career seemed relatively unscathed by the ordeal, Basinger's career began its downward trajectory in the immediate aftermath of their 2002 divorce.
Cut to a few years later, and the fallout from this messy divorce was still affecting Basinger. In 2006, Baldwin took Basinger back to court for allegedly violating their child-custody terms, as reported in People Magazine. Basinger pled not guilty while facing a fine of up to $12,000 and other legal ramifications.
With a second marriage that ended in divorce already behind her, a salacious romance with the musician Prince, and a string of other short-lived, highly publicized romances, Basinger looked to Hollywood like a messy public figure not worth the headache that would follow when casting her in a film. Basinger is a prime example of the unfair double standard that plagues women in Hollywood, while a male actor with a similar dating history would almost certainly find their career unaffected by the drama.
She bought an entire town
One of the most bizarre nuggets from Kim Basinger's past is the time she decided to buy an entire town. The town in question was Braselton, Georgia, a rural town with a population of just 500 residents and a total size of around 1,800 acres, which is less than three square miles. Basinger wasn't born in Braselton, but she was born in the nearby city of Athens, Georgia, which is more than 250 times larger by population and was not on the market when Basinger decided she wanted to own a piece of her home state.
After spending a year and a half negotiating the terms of the sale with the town's board of directors, Basinger purchased Braselton for the whopping sum of $20 million. For the price, Basinger bought not only all of the land in the town, but also all of the real estate and businesses included within it. At first, Basinger planned to put Braselton on the map by turning it into a tourist destination, complete with a theme park and a full remodel of the town's buildings. There was even talk of forming a movie studio and establishing a film festival in the town. Despite all of the pie-in-the-sky ambitions, none of her plans ever came to be. Braselton remained much the same as it was when she purchased it for a few years until Basinger wanted out of the arrangement altogether and sought another buyer for the town. After paying $20 million for Braselton, Basinger ended up selling the town for just $1 million, losing the vast majority of her investment.
She declared bankruptcy
Kim Basinger might have realized too late that she bit off more than she could chew when she decided to purchase an entire town for $20 million. While this massive money pit was undoubtedly the start of her monetary downfall, the straw that broke the camel's back was actually tied to her "Boxing Helena" scandal.
When Main Line Films sued Basinger for breaching her agreement to star in "Boxing Helena," a jury ordered her to pay the studio several million dollars. Unable to pay, Basinger instead filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. After the amount had already been reduced, Basinger was still required to pay $7.4 million, plus another three-quarters of a million dollars in attorneys' fees. Meanwhile, her attorneys estimated her net worth to only be a little over $5 million in total. It is worth noting that this was all happening while Basinger still owned the town of Braselton, Georgia, which she ended up selling that same year at a 95% loss. It is also worth noting that this bankruptcy filing did not mark the end of Basinger's movie star career, as she went on to headline many large films over the next several years, including her Oscar-winning turn in "L.A. Confidential" four years later.
Her mental health struggles
Kim Basinger has always described herself as shy, even shy to a fault for someone leading a career in the spotlight. Beyond a general sense of shyness, Basinger has always dealt with mental health struggles that could be fully debilitating at times. Her troubles with anxiety began when she was just a child, which she considers the result of having a deeply troubled mother about whom she was constantly worried. She was anxious on a regular basis and would make up excuses to stay home from school so she could be around her mother.
This intense desire to stay at home followed Basinger into adulthood and gradually blossomed into a case of full-blown agoraphobia, which made her work in the film industry extremely difficult. She described being shaky and exhausted at all times, struggling to complete everyday tasks as simple as driving a car or even opening a sliding glass door, and developing an eating disorder as an extension of the anxiety. Though this has been a struggle of Basinger's for most of her life, her divorce from Alec Baldwin has been pinpointed as the period in her life that severely exacerbated her mental health struggles and led to an extreme downward spiral.
Her one attempt at producing was a massive failure
After her roles had been shrinking for a while since her heyday, Kim Basinger made an attempt to broaden her horizons in the film industry in 2008. For the first and last time in her career, Basinger served as an executive producer. The film in question was "While She Was Out," a low-budget thriller from filmmaker Susan Montford, who never wrote or directed another movie. Basinger also starred in the film as a woman out shopping on Christmas Eve who leaves a note on a car windshield admonishing the drivers for taking up two parking spots. The owners of the car, a group of young thugs, then inexplicably spend the rest of the movie trying to murder her over the minuscule offense. With a nonsensical premise and low production values, "While She Was Out" ends up feeling like a failed vanity project designed to turn Basinger into an aged action hero, similar to how "Taken" turned Liam Neeson into an aged action star earlier that same year.
Not only did Basinger fail to impress with her over-the-top performance or action chops but the film was also a colossal financial failure. With a budget of around $6 million, "While She Was Out" brought in a shameful return of just $29k and was pulled from theaters after just a brief run before hitting DVD a few months later. Basinger continued acting on a less consistent basis moving forward, but never tried her hand at producing again.
These days, she only gives vocal performances
At 69 years old, Basinger still acts every now and then, but it has likely been quite a while since you saw her in anything. She hasn't appeared on screen directly since her brief uncredited role in 2018's "Fifty Shades Freed," with her last credited live-action appearance coming in the preceding year's "Fifty Shades Darker." Her last couple of roles have all been vocal performances, and it is looking like she may stick to voice acting only for the foreseeable future with no announced projects on the horizon.
The first of her recent forays into voice-over work arrived in one episode of the Amazon Prime series "Comrade Detective," which is a live-action series that uses American stars to dub over its Romanian characters in English. Basinger also lent her voice to "Back Home Again," which is an animated short film that toured the film festival circuit but didn't receive much in terms of a mainstream release. Basinger can be heard as Mother Bear alongside other recognizable voices like those of Norm MacDonald, Bill Burr, Martin Short, Michael J. Fox, Howie Mandel, and Jeremy Renner. Basinger's latest acting gig to date was as the voice and likeness of a character in the video game "Crime Boss: Rockay City" releasing in 2023. She appears in the game alongside the voices and likenesses of other waning celebrities like Vanilla Ice and Chuck Norris.
11-23-2016, 07:41 PM
And who's being dramatic, buy complaining about whom, what or who not I can't discuss in this forum and elsewhere!? 
I guess according to you, there's an unwritten law in which you can't go in depth about the subsequent career path of one particular guest star on Charlie's Angels (let alone a future Academy Award winner)!? 
