How the actress lives today

Kim Basinger turns 70 - How the actress lives today

She played the sex goddess, even though she never felt like it. She undressed even though she would have loved to run away. She mimed a vamp during copulation ¬and burst into tears afterwards.

Kim Basinger (70) was actually only doing her job as an actress during the filming of the movie "9 1⁄2 Weeks" (1986), which was to make her world-famous, namely playing a New York gallery owner who falls for a Wall Street stockbroker. But this story was so hard on her that she only spoke of the agony on set and admitted in an interview with "Studio Magazine": "There wasn't a day when I didn't feel like I was choking on my emotions."

This is the true background of a woman who is still remembered today, decades later, as Hollywood's sex symbol. Kim Basinger turns 70 on December 8. She has largely withdrawn from Hollywood and its relentless hustle and bustle because her health can no longer cope with it.

Kim Basinger suffers from an anxiety disorder

She has had a complicated life, and it is a bitter irony, not to say tragedy, of this story that the young Southerner from Georgia, who desperately wants to become an actress, suffers from a syndrome that is completely incompatible with acting: Kim Basinger, daughter of a jazz pianist and a dubbing swimmer and descendant of German, Swedish and Scottish-Irish ancestors, suffers from agoraphobia, an anxiety disorder that makes public appearances infinitely more difficult.

As a young girl, she was a very successful model after high school, but she is so shy that she can barely speak when strangers are in the room. Moreover, she can hardly look in the mirror because she believes she doesn't measure up.

This fear develops into an illness that goes untreated, because Kim Basinger does not want to face up to her disorders, but wants to achieve the extreme opposite and become an actress with all her might. Before completing her training at the William Esper Studio for the Performing Arts in New York, she appeared on the front pages and in hundreds of commercials. She even performs as a singer in various clubs in Greenwich Village.

Her career takes off

Then she moved to L.A. She gave up modeling, landed smaller roles in well-known TV series such as "McMillan & Wife" and "Three Angels for Charlie" and even got a leading role in the TV film "Katie: Portrait of a Centerfold". Finally, she poses naked for "Playboy" and becomes a Bond girl in 1983 in the last film with Sean Connery (1930-2020) as James Bond in "Never Say Never". This makes her famous - as a sex symbol.

However, the audience has no idea that this seductive young woman suffers from anxiety attacks due to her agoraphobia and at times can no longer leave her apartment because she has panic attacks outside.

After the hype surrounding the Bond film and the "Playboy" photos, she was given leading roles in several films, including alongside Robert Redford (87) in "The Indomitable". Then came the project "9 1⁄2 Weeks" in 1986. It is the film adaptation of a bestseller in which the author writes vividly about her sadomasochistic relationship under the pseudonym Elizabeth McNeill.

Stars such as Isabella Rossellini (71) and Kathleen Turner (69) are vying for the role of this Elizabeth, but director Adrian Lyne (82) opts for Kim Basinger because "she is like a child, she is innocent". This innocence has to be broken, which is essentially the plot of the movie.

It essentially shows "Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke having sex", writes Der Spiegel. "Sex in front of the fridge, on rainy New York basement stairs and in a yuppie apartment as eerie as a haunted house. Sex in high heels and suspenders. Sex with a blindfold. With a whip and handcuffs."

A striptease that will go down in movie history

Kim Basinger, who fled the studio in tears during the casting, perfectly embodies the seductive Elizabeth. To the sounds of Joe Cocker's hit "You Leave Your Hat On", she performs a striptease that will go down in film history - the key scene of "9 1⁄2 Weeks".

The film flops in the USA, but becomes a hit in Europe, grossing 100 million dollars. And Basinger is regarded as the ultimate seductress, while in her private life she barricades herself in her apartment with her fears.

As an actress, she is now playing in the premier league. This is followed by "Batman" (1989) with Jack Nicholson (86) and Michael Keaton (72), her biggest commercial success with profits of 400 million dollars. This is the peak, after which the decline begins, at least the commercial one.

The critics don't mean well for Kim Basinger

Her acting talent, which she displays simply by overcoming her fears in front of the camera, should actually be outstanding. But the critics don't appreciate that. She was nominated six times as the worst actress for the "Golden Raspberry", and in 2018 she received the negative award for worst supporting actress for her role in "Fifty Shades of Grey", her last film to date.

Kim Basinger's greatest personal triumph shows just how much the dictate of absolute unpredictability reigns in Hollywood: in 1998, she was mercilessly dragged through the cocoa as the hottest contender for the "Golden Raspberry" and was awarded the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in "L.A. Confidential".

Who knows what artistic course her career would have taken if she hadn't turned down the lead role in "Basic Instinct" in 1992. She simply doesn't want to (and can't) be a sex symbol any more. So Sharon Stone (65) gets the role - and becomes a global star.

A year later, Kim Basinger has to file for bankruptcy. She had overextended herself with a property investment and had an expensive legal dispute with a production company after her withdrawal from the film "Boxing Helena".

Her private life is also causing a stir

Her private life is similarly turbulent. Her first marriage to make-up artist Ron Snyder (84) ended in divorce in 1990; he received 9,000 dollars a month for eight years. After alleged affairs with producer Jon Peters (78), singer Prince (1958-2016) and fashion designer Alexio Gandara and, according to rumors, Richard Gere (74), she married Alec Baldwin (65) in 1993. Their daughter Ireland was born in 1995 and they divorced in 2002.

The separation turned into a drama in which the world took part and feasted for years on the legal battle for custody of their daughter. In the meantime, the parties involved are said to be getting along again.

Kim Basinger has largely overcome her illness. She is a grandmother, lives away from the hustle and bustle in southern California near her daughter and lives happily with hairdresser Mitch Stone. She is committed to animal welfare and writes a lot, especially children's books. She says she has made peace with her life and her career. This means that a great, misunderstood woman of Hollywood has finally found peace too.