Kathleen Turner rose to fame in the 1980s with her strength and attractiveness – many consider her one of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood.
It is this fortitude that has helped her through the many goods and bad times the actress has experienced over the years.
Kathleen Turner had a rough childhood and was raised in a family with four children. She and her siblings grew up in London and Venezuela. Tragedy befell her at a young age when her father unexpectedly passed away while mowing the lawn of their Hampstead home.
A month after his death, Kathleen and her family were kicked out of the UK by the foreign service. Turner and her family settled in Springfield, Missouri, all still grieving their father and former home.
As an adult, Tuner finally found peace after moving to New York to pursue an acting career. She had some luck on the stage – but her biggest break came when she was given the role of the femme fatale in 1981’s “Body Heat.”
Three years after starring next to William Hurt, Turner was given a chance to co-star with Michael Douglas in the famous “Romancing the Stone.” Douglas was in a rocky separation from his wife Diandra at the time of filming, and he and Turner developed some feelings for each other.
“We were in the process of falling in love – fervent, longing looks and heavy flirtation. Then Diandra came down and reminded me he was still married,” Kathleen said.
She eventually married the property developer from the film, Jay Weiss, in 1984. The two had their only daughter together soon after. Rachel Ann Weiss was born on October 14, 1987.
Unfortunately, the couple’s relationship began to fracture as they started raising their daughter.
“I’d make the movie companies give me long weekends or provide extra tickets so my daughter and husband could come to me. But there was a sense in the marriage the effort was all on his side, which made me feel guilty. It was one of the reasons it ended. I started to feel very oppressed. I thought, ‘Hang on a minute, you’ve done very well out of being married to me also,’” Kathleen explained.
In 2005, Turner starred as Martha in the Broadway revival of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and it was then that their marital problems came to a head. Turner became incredibly busy while acting in eight shows a week, and it appeared that Weiss wanted no time with her when she was home.
The two divorced amicably during that time, and Turner earned a Tony award nod for her time as Martha.
The star had also earned an Oscar nomination back in 1987 for her role in “Peggy Sue Got Married.” Her film career was alive and well during the 80’s, and she starred in a variety of blockbusters–three of which were with Michael Douglas.
However, in the 90’s, Kathleen experienced a medical setback when her neck locked, not allowing her to turn her head. In addition, her hands swelled to the point where she stopped being able to use them.
“It was crippling,” Kathleen said. “You stop taking things for granted when you lose them, even temporarily. What I took for granted – my athleticism, my ability to throw myself around, and just be able to move however I wanted to. When I lost that, that was a real crisis of self: who am I if I cannot do this?”
The culprit of her misfortune wound up being rheumatoid arthritis, a condition characterized by the swelling of the lining in our joints. This condition causes chronic pain that can be difficult to manage.
“When it was first diagnosed, I was terrified because they said I’d be in a wheelchair,” Kathleen explained. “I thought, ‘If I can’t move, I can’t act.’ Acting isn’t just what I want to do. I was born to do it. It’s at every point of my living. The idea of not being able to do it was the most frightening part – that and the constant pain.”
Kathleen turned to pills and alcohol to manage her pain. While these helped her to work, the habit of drinking vodka led to her passing out during rehearsals for shows like 2002’s stage production of “The Graduate.”
The actress actually went to rehab after the show stopped running, only to find out that she was not an alcoholic. Instead, she was told she simply needed to better track when she was taking her medications and their side effects.
Today, the actress does yoga and pilates to help manage the pain and remain nimble.
While better managing her pain, the star really began to focus on her stage career. While she did still occasionally work in film and television, she returned largely to her roots as she got older, even starring in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” on stage in her forties.
“Because I knew that the better roles as I got older would be in theatre, which is absolutely true, so that was a little foresight on my part of which I am justly proud,” Kathleen said.s
Focusing on theatre has also allowed the star the time to focus on her passions of hers, such as volunteering at Amnesty International and working for Planned Parenthood of America.
A staunch feminist for most of her life, Turner has turned her doubtless strength to uplifting other women throughout her life. Her ideologies are represented clearly in Gloria Feldt’s 2008 memoir of the star, Send Yourself Roses.
“We are the first generation of women who are financially independent. Women are going back to work,” Kathleen said. “They’re reinventing themselves. I thought I could support that, even increase that. So it has got a lot of philosophy in it and a lot of my beliefs.”
Woman Goes on Labor Mid-flight, Pilot Reroutes but Not to the Airport — Story of the Day
A pregnant woman went into labor while aboard a commercial airplane which forced the pilot to reroute the plane, but not to the airport.
Rose hated flying. She was a young woman who never had the opportunity to be on a plane for most of her life. Indeed she only started riding one when she started making visits from her town in Omaha to the city of Texas where her husband, Bill, worked as a miner.
The job brought in decent pay which was why he did it, but it separated them for a long long time. Bill was always gone all year long and he only got a break between Christmas and the New Year.
Rose went into labor on a plane during a flight back from visiting her husband | Source: Shutterstock
When she got tired of having to live without seeing her husband for long periods, she got Bill to agree to her making a monthly trip to see him.
Bill was initially not enthused about the idea, but in the end, the weekends he spent with her at the small apartment he stayed in were some of the best in their marriage.
It was one of those long romantic nights that brought about the pregnancy Rose now carried in her belly. Bill was aware of the child and could not wait to meet his youngster.
He had even promised to retire from mining and start a farm where they could grow crops to sell. Everyone knew farmers made a lot of profit in Omaha if they had the know-how, and Bill descended from a long line of farmers.
One day, Rose, heavy with child, was flying to Texas to see Bill even though he had asked her to remain in their Omaha home. Flying to him for their weekend getaways had become a habit and she could not stand not seeing him that weekend.
Rose got pregnant after several visits to Bill | Source: Pexels
“You are nine months pregnant Rose,” he told her the last time they spoke.
“Oh, thank you for pointing that out, I had no idea my stomach started swelling nine months ago,” Rose replied drily.
“You shouldn’t be moving around so much now that you’re this close to giving birth but you want to make a whole journey? That’s absurd my dear.”
“I need to see you, be with you, I’ve missed you,” Rose cooed. She had let him convince her to remain at home for two months before she put her foot down.
“I know baby,” he said. “Hey, it’s September and I get to come home in December and never leave again, just be patient hon.”
Rose let him believe he had gotten through to her again but as soon as it was Friday, she got on a flight headed to Texas. She surprised him, and even though he claimed to be angered by it, they enjoyed their time together.
As soon as it was Friday, Rose got on a flight headed to Texas | Source: Pexels
By Sunday evening, when Rose got on a plane bound for Omaha, she was glowing — she really did enjoy her husband’s refreshing company.
It wasn’t until the plane hit turbulence as it gained altitude that she was reminded how much she did not enjoy flying — it was nothing personal, she just preferred to have feet on solid ground where her fall to the ground, if it ever happened, would be a short distance.
Another rattle shook the plane and sent her overactive imagination into overdrive. She thought of everything from a hijacking to a plane crash and it got her stressed out. And it was as she mentally listed things that could go wrong that her water broke.
Caught up in her head, Rose wasn’t even aware that her water already broke. When she noticed the wetness, she turned red in the face, embarrassed thinking she could not control her bladder. It never occurred to her that her water had broken because it was not supposed to for another three weeks. Then the contractions began.
Rose got on a plane bound for Omaha by Sunday | Source: Pexels
Rose started to scream, catching the attention of the flight attendant who rushed over to find out what was wrong. “I’m having a baby!!” Rose yelled.
The attendant quickly let the pilot know and he immediately connected with the nearest airport to request permission to land. Meanwhile, the flight attendant tried to calm Rose down by talking to her in between each contraction.
“Why are you traveling alone pregnant?” the kind-looking woman asked Rose.
“I was with my husband and I’m returning home,” Rose answered.
“He let you travel like this, how irresponsible!” the flight attendant exclaimed. “Okay, do you have family we can call? Besides your husband?”
“No, I’m an orphan,” Rose said. The flight attendant noticed that she had a temperature and was getting spent from enduring the contractions so she informed the pilot that the labor could get dangerous for Rose without a professional doctor to help.
The attendant informed the pilot and he immediately connected with the nearest airport to request permission to land | Source: Pexels
A dispatcher informed the pilot, a man named Drew, that the nearest airport was not ready to receive their plane due to weather conditions.
Time was running out and in her feverish state, all Rose could manage was call out her husband’s name. That’s when Drew decided to turn the plane around to return to Texas.
“Keep her stable for thirty more minutes,” he told the attendant. Unfortunately, the weather in Texas was also terrible so their plane was denied access to land at the airport.
Luckily, Drew knew the area so he was aware of an abandoned airfield not far from the airport. The only problem was the runway was too short to land their large plane. Still, it was the closest town to where Rose could get medical help.
“Let’s land at the abandoned airstrip,” Drew told his co-pilot, a rookie who went by the name Stan.
“Sir with all due respect, landing there is against the rules,” Stan said.
“Sometimes to save a human being, you need to act according to your conscience, not the rules!” Drew replied.
Rose caught the attention of the flight attendant telling her she was having a baby.| Source: Pexels
He got the attendant to call Rose’s husband as they circled the abandoned airstrip getting ready to land. Drew knew every move had to be planned down to the last degree.
They circled once, twice, each time steadily getting closer to the ground. Meanwhile Rose was starting to lose consciousness because of her contractions.
The plane got closer to the ground and with a leap of faith, because there was no control tower to navigate their path, Drew took the plane down.
His co-pilot who was still a rookie was just one step away from panicking but he followed Drew’s lead and several tense minutes later, the aircraft touched the ground.
As they opened the hatch to get Rose out, an ambulance carrying EMTs and Rose’s husband sped through the clearing. It was followed by media vans and some civilians who feared there would be a crash and had come to help.
When the plane finally landed in the airfield, Bill and the ambulance crew were waiting | Source: Pexels
Bill carried his wife, pregnant as she was to the ambulance and they raced to the hospital. All the shocked man could do was pray that his wife, who did not look very good, would be alright.
At the hospital, the doctors got her a private room and a quick check of her vitals revealed that she was already too weak to push her baby out. It would have to be done via a C–section.
Bill was not allowed to remain in the room but after long moments of waiting, he was ushered in to see his new child and his recuperating wife. He could not believe how close he had gotten to losing them.
He quit his job that day so that when they returned to Omaha, it was to stay. Bill found out the name of the thoughtful pilot who took the risks to get his wife help and named their child after him. Rose was all in favour.
Still, she did not get on another airplane for years.
Rose was too weak to push in the hospital, so they did a C-section on her and their child was born | Source: Pexels
What did we learn from this story?
- Human life is very precious. Drew was right when he decided to land the plane at the abandoned airstrip so as to save not just Rose’s life but the baby’s as well. That’s because human life is very precious and should be guarded well.
- Overthinking is not your friend. Rose may have made the flight back to Omaha easily had she not started to overthink things because the plane shook from turbulence. However, once she got herself worked up enough, her body went into hyperdrive, and her water broke. It only goes to show that most times, overthinking does not help.
Share this story with your friends. It might brighten their day and inspire them.
If you enjoyed this story, you might like this one about a pregnant woman who went into labor in a traffic jam and couldn’t get access to an ambulance.
This account is inspired by our reader’s story but written by a professional writer. All names have been changed to protect identities and ensure privacy. Share your story with us; maybe it will change someone’s life. If you would like to share your story, please send it to
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