Playboy predicted Kim Basinger's big-screen potential in a 1983 cover story, a photo essay Kim herself has often hailed as "a stupendous success... you can't imagine what happened to my career because of Playboy." Back then, judging the merits of this Georgia-bred honey seemed such a daunting task that we recruited a panel of experts to appraise her prospects. They judged them hot. Federico Fellini called her "the prototype of a galactic New Woman," while the late Bob Fosse cited "a mouth that would turn a leader of the Moral Majority into a heavy breather."
No argument, guys, she's the steamiest screen blonde since Turner, Monroe and Bardot.
OK, looking good came easy for Kim, a former top model but so shy as a schoolgirl that she'd faint if called on to recite before a class. Even so, Kim insists she saw the future burning bright: "I've always been on a roll.... I had my ups and downs, yes, but I just knew everything would come."
Basinger has dared... and bared... plenty in a series of controversial career moves.
Recalling the challenge of her striptease in 9-1/2 Weeks, she notes, "I figured I was only going to do this once in my life, so I gave it all I've got." Nadine director Robert Benton sums up: "She's so beautiful, it's hard for many people to accept her immense talent as an actress."
Poised as a movie star or posed as a top model, Kim Basinger becomes a legend most.
Kim, who rarely minces words, often tells interviewers that she prefers animals to people. And when her first unveiling here was criticized by a cosmetics exec whose products she had hyped, she replied "There's more of the essential truth of me in the Playboy layout." Amen.
