Kim Basinger Pictures

Georgia-born Kim Basinger studied dancing and singing from childhood, intending to make her professional bow as a musical comedy performer. While still a high schooler, Basinger left for New York to pursue a career as a model; her blonde hair and beautiful, pliable features were equally suited to the demureness of Breck's home-permanent ads and the more revelatory requirements of Playboy magazine. After studying acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse, she made her starring debut in the 1978 TV-movie Katie: Portrait of a Centerfold. The reviews were kind but condescending, noting that as an actress, Basinger was very pretty.

Kim Basinger countered her critics with an excellent performance as prostitute Lorene Rogers in the 1979 TV miniseries From Here to Eternity, which led to plum acting assignments in theatrical features. She became best-known during the 1980s for her work in such films as the Bond flick Never Say Never Again (1983), The Natural (1984), Batman (1989), and, perhaps most infamously, in Adrian Lyne's 9 1/2 Weeks (1986). Successfully dissipating the standard "dumb blonde" onus often attached to models-turned-actresses of the decade, Basinger was an active environmentalist offscreen, and in 1989 she endeared herself to the Georgia chamber of commerce by purchasing a small village not far from her home town of Athens and attempting to pump up the local economy.