HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — The Daily Mail has published excerpts of a tell-all memoir by Kathleen Turner in which she takes aim at Burt Reynolds and Nicolas Cage, among others.
In her new book, Send Yourself Roses: Thoughts on My Life, Love, and Leading Roles, Turner writes that her worst experience as an actress was the film “Switching Channels,” thanks to Reynolds being her co-star. First thing he told her, she writes, was, “I’ve never taken second billing to a woman.”
Turner, 53, also has some discouraging things to say about Cage, her co-star in “Peggy Sue Got Married,” who “left a lot to be desired.” The film was directed by Cage’s uncle, Francis Ford Coppola, and Turner says he was “absolutely determined to prove that he wasn’t there as the result of nepotism.”
“Oh, that stupid voice of his and the fake teeth! Honestly, I cringe to think about it,” Turner says of Cage. “He caused so many problems. He was arrested twice for drunk-driving and, I think, once for stealing a dog. He’d come across a chihuahua he liked and stuck it in his jacket.”
Cage has already fired back on the accusations, insisting the book is inaccurate. He told New York Post gossip column Page Six, “While I recall Kathleen Turner being a great lady and wonderful actress, the credibility of her biography and her memory is at stake. … Fact credibility should have been exercised on (her) part.”
Another target for Turner in the book is model Christie Brinkley, who kept reserving tickets to see the actress in a play, only to keep on cancelling.
“Finally, she called at five o’clock in the afternoon of the closing night, saying that she hadn’t left home yet,” Turner writes. “She never showed up. Then she had a mutual friend buy Waterford crystal tumblers and a beautiful bottle of bourbon, which she sent to me as an apology.
“I sent it all back because it was the fourth or fifth time she had cancelled to see my show. And I said: ‘I can’t accept this kind of gift to secure a friendship.’ “
In the book, Turner also recounts how painful it was to appear in the “powerfully sexual” scenes of “Body Heat.” It felt “emotionally intrusive,” she said of the classic thriller that helped propel her to fame.
Turner’s tome will hit bookshelves in February.
