Send Yourself Roses: Thoughts on My Life, Love, and Leading Roles

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
From her film debut as the sultry schemer in Body Heat to her award-winning role as Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, actress Kathleen Turner's unique blend of beauty, intelligence, and raw sexuality has driven her personal and professional life. Now, in this gutsy memoir, the screen icon tells us of the risks she's taken and the lessons she's learned-sometimes the hard way.

For the first time, Turner shares her childhood challenges-a life lived in countries around the world until her father, a State Department official whom she so admired, died suddenly when she was a teenager. She talks about her twenty year marriage, and why she and her husband recently separated, her close relationship with her daughter, her commitment to service, and how activism in controversial causes has bolstered her beliefs. And Turner reveals the pain and heartbreak of her struggle with rheumatoid arthritis, and how, in spite of it, she made a daring decision: to take a break from the movies and relaunch her stage career.

Along the way, Turner describes what it's like to work with legends like Jack Nicholson, Michael Douglas, William Hurt, Steve Martin, Francis Ford Coppola, John Huston, John Waters, Edward Albee...and, with characteristic irreverent humor, shares her behind-the-screen stories of dealing with all types of creative, intimidating, and inspiring characters.

Kathleen Turner has always known that she would play the lead in the story of her life. It's impossible not to take her lessons on living, love, and leading roles to heart. And it won't be long until you'll be sending yourself roses!

Customer Reviews: Read 24 more reviews...

3 out of 5 stars

Interesting read :-) February 13, 2008
57 out of 59 found this review helpful

Kathleen writes about her experiences on screen and stage in this interesting memoir. She's always been a favourite of mine, so it was a no brainer to read this. She needed some convincing to write this, feeling it was egotistical to write it, but I'm glad it got done and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
There is plenty of information in here that I never knew. One of those things, is that when she had just finished her debut film role Body Heat, and while waiting for it to be released, she went back to waitressing as she was broke. She talks about her co-stars like Danny DiVito, Jack Nicholson and Burty Reynolds. She writes about Nicholas Cage and how he caused so many problems and drunk driving and the theft of a dog. She talks about her rhumetoid arthritis and her alcoholism. She uses strong language here and there and goes into great detail about how she feels onstage throughout perfomances. She talks about her joy of motherhood and the sadness of infertility.
I bought this because as a fan, I wanted to read about her life and see more of what she's like as a regular everyday person rather than only a character. I have to say, it's interesting if not a little self-congratulatory in parts. I'm glad I bought it, but I just couldn't give it the 5 stars I'd have liked to because I felt it was a little over the top in parts and it's (as she says) the truth as she remembers it, while I've read and heard about some of her fellow actors swearing that what she wrote isn't true at all.
I think it's a good book to read as a fan, although not the best biography/memoir I've ever read.

4 out of 5 stars

Kathleen spills all February 14, 2008
39 out of 42 found this review helpful

When I was younger, Kathleen was one of my favorite actresses and I was keen to read her take on her Hollywood career. What I liked about this book is that she is very frank and actually dishes the dirt, which is quite rare in a Hollywood autobiography! Because let's face it, we want to know what really went down rather than the glossed over version you usually get in celebrity autobiographies.

I enjoyed reading about her positive experiences with her co-stars (including Jack Nicholson, Michael Douglas and Danny de Vito) and also the not so positive (Burt Reynolds, Nicolas Cage). I hadn't realized that she and Michael had an affair while filming "Romancing the Stone" - although I guess, given Michael's reputation, that shouldn't have come come as a surprise to me! When she filmed "Peggy Sue got married" with Nicolas Cage, she claims that he was frequently drunk, was in fact arrested twice for drunk driving and also stole a chihuahua. Perhaps that explains the lack of chemistry that they had in the movie. She and Burt Reynolds also took an instant dislike to one another and their working relationship was extremely acrimonious. Again, Kathleen is more than happy to give specifics.

Kathleen also talks about her battles with rheumatoid arthritis and alcohol, which is interesting because at the time I just thought that she had let her career go and piled on the weight, rather than there being reasons behind it.

Ultimately the book kind of lost me though because I got tired of Kathleen telling us how wonderful she is all the time. Confidence is good, but she doesn't seem to have a modest bone in her body! Yes, she's had an interesting life, but any interest that I ever had in meeting her has gone.

Nevertheless, if you enjoy Hollywood biographies, there is still a lot of juicy material in here and it is a very entertaining book to read.

2 out of 5 stars

Well, okay, but less than I expected February 19, 2008
28 out of 34 found this review helpful

I love Kathleen Turner, love what she's done and her films and certainly appreciate all she's gone through. God knows, I've got crippling arthritis as well and know how bad and painful it is.
But. And I really hate to say this. I found the book soft. Maybe dull. I think a whole lot of emotion was left out of it, and I know that emotion had to have been there but wasn't explicated. It was made bland.
Maybe it's just me, I dunno. Not a bad book, certainly, but berift of the kind of emotion I expected to find in such a memoir. Maybe Kathleen should have just written it on her own, with all the explitives she wanted to use and all the violence she felt. As it is, I felt it kind of a cheat. I know there is more to her than this Kodachrome, and I really wish she had talked about it.

Compare this to Sybil Shepherd's bio, which is an absolute hoot. Sybil just tells all, and tells it with great brio and lots of laughs.I know this is all there in Kathleen Turner's life, but it is missing in the book.

This is kinda hard. I don't want to not recommend the book. It's okay, as a kind of "just the facts, ma'am" kind of bio." In that way, it works. But it is not literature, not emotional, not something spectacular. I figure Kathleen Turner can do much better, if she does it on her own and just goes her own way.

I don't really like my review, but, so it goes. I don't really like saying the things I said, but it is how I feel. I really wish I had liked this book better than I did.

2 out of 5 stars

She becomes less and less interesting February 15, 2008
21 out of 26 found this review helpful

I've always loved Kathleen Turner, but as another reviewer has already noted, BOY does she love herself. Every sentence in this increasingly tedious book seems to begin, "Of course, I've always been beautiful," or, "I'm a very good speechwriter, people tell me I should publish them," or, "Ever since I began volunteering at the age of 12 ..." She's in love with herself, and since there's not much else in the way of commentary or insight, the only thing left of interest would be the "dirt." But there isn't much of that, either, and what little there is has been disputed by the other people involved.
Might be worth a flip through, but don't get your hopes up.

2 out of 5 stars

Pathetically Revealing February 29, 2008
15 out of 23 found this review helpful

I couldn't wait to order this book. Several years ago, Kathleen Turner was on the cover of Arthritis Today & I remember the article as an honest, inspirational portrait of a powerful woman dealing with a dibilitating illness - Rheumatoid Arthritis, not Osteoarthritis, but a serious auto-immune disease. I'm a woman who was diagnosed with a crippling form of RA with vasculitis in the 90's & in many ways, it's had a devastating impact on my life & my family. I own my own business & have a "strong" personality. Thankfully I've also been sober for 28 years; my husband for 35 years.

Very quickly into this book, I realized I was reading a self-aggrandizing portrait of an untreated alcoholic - an egomaniac with an inferiority complex. Poor Ms. Turner is neither enlightened nor informed. A spiritual person doesn't need to tell what they do for others & the world. Anonimity is not to protect the alcoholic's identity (it's too complicated to explain here). Be assured that most people around her know about her drinking problem.

And politics! What a great thinker! She spouts words she's heard without understanding the consequences. What does she think is going to happen to RA sufferers who get these great biologics now being developed by horrible drug research - companies excoriated by her friend Michael Moore? How available are they going to be? She tells a story about England's universal healthcare & a friend who would have to wait months for an MRI & surgery until she & 3 fellow actors swept in & paid for it? Then she trashes systems in the U.S. that she has no knowledge about. She babbles about issues with far-reaching consequences that may not affect an elitist like herself.

Loved some of her movies, but this is a painful & boring read of a woman in transition. No inspiration for me here.

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