Must be terrible to age in hollywood for a woman

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She is dynamite on the stage - such presence.

Thomas, if you is a mouse catcher, I is Lana Turner - which I ain't...

Normally yes, but Kathleen Turner suffered from crippling RA and also had to take steroids for the pain. Those steroids made her more masculine (I know some women who have to take steroids for medical conditions and it dramatically changes you and makes you more 'manly' and some of these women were former models :( )

So it's not just age. Helen Mirren is still working and is aging wonderfully IMHO. Poor Kathleen. I can't imagine the ordeal of living with such a bad case of RA. Imagine feeling agonizing pain in your joints whenever you move or do anything. That must be Hell :(

Those Steroids AND the Alcohol Abuse were the primary factors. Those more than mere 'aging' really affected poor Kathleen :(

I am glad that once people know the backstory, so many are supportive.

Dr. Kila Marr was right. Kill the Crystalline Entity.

Turner's problem was not really aging though, it was the fact that she got ill and this in turn greatly altered her looks through the drugs, alcahol and general stress, she only got the disease in her 30s remember so it's not really fair to say her downfall came with age when it actually came more so with a terrible deliberating disease that would also have greatly restricted her ability to work.

Had Turner not gotten ill it's certain she'd have held on to her looks for longer and had a more durable career.

Believe me I too suffer terrible chronic pain like Turner did and it is a living hell to go through and you will do absolutely anything to stop it and nothing else begins to matter in life other than managing your pain, things that used t be important suddenly become trivial and the pain become the prime concern.... so for Turner her changing looks and failing movie career would really be of little concern for her simply because she would have been far too consumed with physical pain to care about such things.

The fact she has recovered is a blessing in itself, it really puts things into perspective and she's realise things like looks and fame aren't everything.

Let's be honest, people. Long before her RA, the physical deterioration from the steroids prescribed to treat it, and her alcohol abuse took their toll on her appearance, Turner's reputation for being incredibly difficult to work with did the same to her career.

Like with Faye Dunaway and Debra Winger, it's simply not possible to maintain an A-list status in films when no other A-list actors or directors are willing to work with you which is exactly what happened to Turner in the early nineties.

Agreed, there is a terrible shortage of good roles,(and good films for that matter), but that holds true for every man, woman, child and four legged animal trying to work in Hollywood.

i thought debra winger's problem was that she had the christopher reeves complex and turned down all the good roles that she was offered??

With Dunaway, yea she might have been difficult but she may too have had the Demi Moore complex of choosing terrible scripts like 'Mommie Dearest' which damaged her career, that and she too got older and younger fresher talent got the roles.

As for Turner she may have been difficult but it still stands that her career downfall came at the same time as the illness-whether been difficult or not who knows where her career would have gone had she not her problems?

What actresses like Dunaway and Turner have in common is that they were both stunning looking women in their younger years [20s-30s] and ultimately that's why they got hired, that's ok for a while but the rot sets in when actresses like this get older and loose their looks. Look at the greats like Meryl Streep, Glenn Close or Signourary Weaver who all have had more durable careers- average looking women yes but none were ever drop dead gorgeous and hence their aging could not hurt their careers as much as people can respect them more as real actresses rather than eye candy. Beauty can be a curse as they say...

right, 20 years ago she was on friends playing Chandlers father
its not a recent development

A cruel business.