50 facts about Kim Basinger

Basinger has said that even as a model, when others relished looking in the mirror before appearing, she abhorred it and would avoid mirrors out of insecurity. Learn 50 facts about Kim Basinger.
1. Her full name is Kimila Ann "Kim" Basinger.

2. She is an American actress and former fashion model.

3. Has appeared in 38 feature films.

4. She began her acting career on television in 1976.

5. Made her film debut in the 1981 drama Hard Country.

6. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Lynn Bracken in the 1997 film L.A. Confidential.

7. Basinger came to prominence playing Bond girl Domino Petachi in the 1983 film Never Say Never Again, opposite Sean Connery.

8. Went on to receive a Golden Globe nomination for her role as Memo Paris in The Natural.

9. She also starred as Elizabeth in the controversial erotic drama 9½ Weeks, and as Vicki Vale in Batman.

10. For her role in L.A. Confidential, she also won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress and the SAG Award for Best Supporting Actress.

11. Her other films include Final Analysis, I Dreamed of Africa, 8 Mile, The Door in the Floor, Cellular, and the upcoming The Nice Guys.

12. Her father, Donald Wade Basinger, was a big band musician and loan manager.

13. She is the third of five children.

14. Has two brothers, James Michael "Mick" and Skip, and two sisters, Ashley and Barbara.

15. Basinger's ancestry includes English, German, French, Swedish, and Scots-Irish.

16. She was raised a Methodist.

17. Her relationship with her parents was tenuous, and her father's critical nature affected her emotionally from a young age. She has said, "I just couldn't please him enough. He never complimented me ever. And I saw a lot of silence. Children always read into silence as something terrible."

18. Basinger has described herself as extremely shy and lonely during her childhood, and has stated that she faced many hardships during her school years as a result.

19. Basinger studied ballet from about age three to her mid-teens.

20. By her mid teens, she grew in confidence and successfully auditioned for the school cheerleading team.

21. When Basinger was 16, she started modeling.

22. At 17, she entered the America's Junior Miss Scholarship Pageant, won at the city level and was crowned Athens Junior Miss.

23. Although she lost in the state pageant to Sue Whitted, who competed as "Georgia's Junior Miss, her beauty was profiled in the national program.

24. She had competed at the state level for the Breck Scholarship and was featured in an ad for Breck in a joint portrait with her mother.

25. She was subsequently offered a modeling contract with the Ford Modeling Agency. She turned it down in favor of singing and acting, and enrolled at the University of Georgia, but soon reconsidered and went to New York to become a Ford model.

26. Despite earning $1,000 a day, Basinger never enjoyed modeling, saying "It was very hard to go from one booking to another and always have to deal with the way I looked. I couldn't stand it. I felt myself choking."

27. Basinger has said that even as a model, when others relished looking in the mirror before appearing, she abhorred it and would avoid mirrors out of insecurity.

28. Not long after her Ford deal, Basinger appeared on the cover of magazines.

29. She appeared in hundreds of advertisements throughout the early 1970s, most notably as the Breck Shampoo girl.

30. She alternated between modeling and attending acting classes at the Neighborhood Playhouse, as well as performing in Greenwich Village clubs as a singer.

31. Basinger has received an Academy Award, a Golden Globe award (out of two nominations), a Screen Actors Guild Award (out of two nominations), an award from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, and an award from the Southeastern Film Critics Association.

32. For her lifetime achievements in the cinematic arts, she received the Athena Award at the Kudzu Film Festival, and has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

33. She has also been nominated for the British Academy Film Awards, the People's Choice Awards, the Saturn Awards (three times) and the MTV Movie Awards (four times).

34. On October 12, 1980, Basinger married makeup artist Ron Snyder-Britton.

35. Basinger and Snyder-Britton had met on the film Hard Country.

36. Basinger filed for divorce on December 15, 1988 and it was finalized a year later.

37. Britton later wrote a memoir titled Longer Than Forever, published in 1998, about their time together.

38. She met her second husband, Alec Baldwin, in 1990 when they played lovers in The Marrying Man.

39. Basinger and Baldwin married on August 19, 1993.

40. They appeared together in the remake of The Getaway and played themselves in a 1998 episode of The Simpsons, in which Basinger corrected Homer Simpson on the pronunciation of her last name and polished her Oscar statuette.

41. Basinger and Baldwin have a daughter, Ireland Eliesse Baldwin.

42. Basinger and Baldwon separated in December 2000 and divorced on February 3, 2002.

43. In 2008, Baldwin wrote a book which dealt with the contentious custody battle with Basinger over their daughter.

44. Basinger developed agoraphobia some time after the birth of Ireland.

45. Basinger is a vegetarian.

46. She is an animal rights supporter.

47. She has posed for anti-fur advertisements by PETA.

48. In 1976, after five years as a cover girl, Basinger quit modeling and moved to Los Angeles to act.

49. After appearing in small parts on a few TV shows such as McMillan & Wife and Charlie's Angels, her first starring role was in a made-for-TV movie, Katie: Portrait of a Centerfold (1978) in which she played a small town girl who goes to Hollywood to become an actress and winds up becoming a famous centerfold for a men's magazine.

50. She appeared in the miniseries remake From Here to Eternity (1979) with Natalie Wood and William Devane.