Every once in a while I miss Kathleen Turner so much I could spit. I don't even care that my infrequent posts about her fall on mostly deaf ears. Her superstardom was shortlived but she remains one of my all time favorites.
I accidentally ended up watching that old Steve Martin silliness The Man With Two Brains (1983) the other day and I marvelled first at how funny it still was (I think I had assumed it was more sketch funny than movie-length funny but I was laughing throughout) and then how it accidentally foretold the entire Kathleen Turner Story when the Kathleen Turner Story had only barely begun. The Man With Two Brains was just her second feature, a comic twist if you will of her debut in Body Heat.In this comedy she is introduced as a murderous femme fatale (Body Heat. Check). She's barely been introduced when she's hospitalized (Kathleen's health troubles have plagued her career). She sells SEX with capital letters and laughs about it (Entire First Half of Career. Check). She gleefully commits acts of violence (Serial Mom. Check). She horrifies her lover by trying to feed him something he loves. (The War of the Roses. Check). She upsets her husband by exploiting her body (Crimes of Passion fallout. Check). She makes a weird reference to her balls (Friends cameo. Check) She gets wet and muddy when Steve Martin kicks her out of his house "Into the mud, scum queen!" (Romancing the Stone, Undercover Blues, VI Warshawski. Check!) She is maddeningly difficult (Entire Career. or so some people have said. Check).
And then she gets fat.
"I never told him I was a compulsive eater." I love her so much and I wish someone would give her a role worthy of her gifts again. I'm still pulling for the Mattie Fae Akin role in August: Osage County should they ever film it. From "Matty" (Body Heat) to "Mattie"... what a brilliant final plot twist that would be.
