The true story of 9 1/2 Weeks is the story of this woman and what happened.
Photo: NOTICIAS DEL ESTE
“THE MAIN THING IS NOT TO ADULT IN THE MIDDLE OF A SONG”
The “9 1/2 Weeks” star grew up as a very modest and shy child. She could faint from excitement when she was called to the school blackboard. She sang in the church choir with her father. By the way, she was a musician, she played trumpet and piano all her life and also fought in World War II and landed with her fellow Americans in Normandy. She passed on her love of music to her daughter: Kim learned to play the piano and composed compositions for the guitar. But her own father finally had to give up music: he had to feed five children.
Well, the mother was a model and actress and, in turn, tried to develop the girl in this direction. At three years old she sent Kim to ballet school. Her parents took her to the movies and the girl memorized all the dialogues and arias from “My Fair Lady.” And one day she plucked up the courage to go up on stage in front of the whole school and sing “Would’t It Be Loverly?” As she recalled, her main task was not to faint in the middle of the song. She was helped by her father, who bet with her that everything would turn out well. Many years later, Kim recalled in an interview that all of her classmates were literally speechless about her: they considered her a recluse, it seemed to them that she couldn’t speak, but it turned out that she knew how to sing very well.. .
By the way, shyness and anxiety have not disappeared over the years, but have acquired pathological forms. Granted, Kim rarely watches the movies she’s starred in (“It’s strange because a lot of actors run to the monitor as soon as they finish filming a scene and watch it again. If I went near the monitor at that moment, I would just die.”) . But she developed real medical problems. In the 1980s, she suffered a panic attack in a grocery store and then did not leave the house for six months, suffering from agoraphobia. “I couldn’t go out to dinner,” she admitted in 2022. “I had to learn to drive again and for many years I didn’t drive a car through tunnels. Anything could make me nervous, for example, sliding glass doors, the question “Where should I step to open the door?”
Would you think that Batman’s lover in Tim Burton’s film is 36 years old and not 26?
Photo: NOTICIAS DEL ESTE
“THE TEST WITH MICKEY ROURKE IS THE WORST THING THAT HAPPENED TO ME IN MY LIFE!”
One way or another, at a tender age, Kim was somehow able to cope with her shyness. She participated in a beauty pageant and even became a cheerleader. She and then she followed in her mother’s footsteps and became a model. She earned $1,000 a day, very serious money for the 70s. But she didn’t like the job. He found it exhausting to rush through photo shoots and constantly think about how she looked: “I was out of breath.” And besides, she hated standing in front of the mirror, admiring herself and preening herself.
However, Kim has appeared in hundreds of advertisements and on dozens of magazine covers. She and then she starred in several television movies. And, once again overcoming her shyness, she starred in nude Playboy…
He came late to big cinema: he played his debut role when he was already 28 years old. And she became a star when she was over thirty years old. However, Basinger has the talent of looking ten years younger than his actual age (would you think that Batman’s lover in Tim Burton’s film is 36 years old and not 26?)
The role after which everyone paid attention to her was in “Never Say Never Again”, the last film in which Sean Connery played James Bond. Basinger played her girlfriend, Domino Petachi. Kim entered the film almost by accident: Connery’s wife, Micheline, noticed her and advised her husband to take a closer look at the aspiring actress. It’s a paradox, but before filming Basinger had not seen a single James Bond movie! In a meeting with the producers, she began suggesting other actresses: “I don’t look like what you want, okay?” At that time, she was tired of portraying sex bombs in magazines and she thought: “In life I wear denim overalls, I don’t wear underwear like the Bond girls, deep down I’m a barefoot Rastafarian.” But the producers stubbornly said: “Sean wants to meet you in London”…
The role after which everyone paid attention to him was “Never Say Never Again.”
Photo: NOTICIAS DEL ESTE
Well, a few years later 9 1/2 Weeks came out. At that time she seriously refused. “When Adrian Lyne called me for an audition, he looked at I don’t know how many girls. They told me to come and do a screen test with Mickey. [Рурком]. She did not know what to do. I remember it was a wild sex scene and these tests did not make me happy. I got in the car, called the agent and said, “This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me in my life. Never, never… It wasn’t about Mickey, it was just that the scene itself disturbed me, it upset me very much. I cried in the car the whole way home. I was furious. And then they called my agent and said, “We found Elizabeth.” Because Adrian wanted me to react on camera exactly how I reacted during the auditions. That was my heroine, Elizabeth: she didn’t play these games, she was naive, subtle. The real plot of 9 1/2 Weeks is the story of this woman and what happened. [В конце концов] They sent me roses, I don’t know, probably a hundred, and they very kindly asked me to star in this movie. I went for a walk on the seashore, I walked and I thought: “Should I film or not film?”
Of course, she eventually agreed. And entire generations watched with bated breath the “wild sex scenes” performed by Basinger and Mickey Rourke. Ironically, the film was a huge hit in Europe but flopped in the United States, which, according to Kim, “shows how prudish Americans are about sex, sexuality and nudity.”
Entire generations watched with bated breath the “extravagant sex scenes” performed by Basinger and Mickey Rourke.
Photo: NOTICIAS DEL ESTE
PLAYBOY AND Óscar
One success followed another, but few thought the star of comedies and action films would ever receive an Oscar. And she received it for her role as a glamorous prostitute, reminiscent of movie star Veronica Lake, in the movie “LA Confidential.” Naturally, she also rejected this photo, because she had shortly before given birth to her daughter Ireland and wanted to concentrate on raising her. But she was convinced. And to this day, Kim remains the only Oscar winner to have posed nude for a Playboy centerfold.
Ireland’s father was actor Alec Baldwin, to whom Kim was married from 1993 to 2002. Before Baldwin, with whom she repeatedly acted in films, she had affairs with model Tim Saunders, photographer Dale Robinett, football player Joe Namath , the producer Jon Peters, the actor Richard Gere, the musician Prince, the physical trainer Phil Walsh, the fashion designer Alexio Gandara… There was also a failed legal marriage with the makeup artist Ron Snyder-Britton. After her divorce in 1989, she was forced to pay him alimony (!) of $9,000 a month. (After her divorce, however, there were problems with Baldwin: Basinger spent a million and a half dollars to legally prohibit him from seeing her daughter.)
Now she seems happy with her stylist Mitch Stone. But they did not get officially married. They simply exchanged gold rings and live together.
Alec Baldwin, to whom Kim was married from 1993 to 2002.
Photo: NOTICIAS DEL ESTE
THE MOST FAMOUS FILMS
“Never Say Never” (1983)
“9 and a Half Weeks” (1986)
“Blind Date” (1987)
“Batman” (1989)
“The Marriage Habit” (1991)
“Final Analysis” (1992)
“The Real McCoy” (1993)
“Los Angeles Confidential” (1997)
“8 Miles” (2002)
“Fifty Shades Darker” (2017)
