Kathleen Turner

Born June 19, 1954, in Springfield, Missouri, to Patsy (née Magee) and Allen Richard Turner, a U.S. Foreign Service officer who grew up in China (where Turner's great-grandfather had been a Methodist missionary), Turner is the third of four children, and the only one to be born in the United States. She has a sister, Susan, and two brothers.

Raised in a strictly conservative Christian home, Turner's interest in performing was discouraged by both of her parents: "My father was of missionary stock", she later explained, "so theater and acting were just one step up from being a streetwalker, you know? So when I was performing in school, he would drive my mom [there] and sit in the car. She'd come out at intermissions and tell him, 'She's doing very well.'"

Owing to her father's position with the Foreign Service, Turner grew up in Canada, Cuba, Venezuela, and London, England. She attended high school at The American School in London, graduating in 1972. "The start of real acting for me began during high school in London", she stated in her 2008 memoir. "There were seven of us who were sort of a theater mafia. We produced, directed, acted, chose the plays, got one teacher fired and another one hired." Her father died of a coronary thrombosis one week before her graduation, and the family returned to Springfield, Missouri. At the age of 19, Turner began volunteering at a local Planned Parenthood office.

She attended Southwest Missouri State University for two years, studying theater. During this period, director Herbert Blau saw her performance in The House of Blue Leaves, and invited her to spend her senior year at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1977. During that period, Turner acted in several productions directed by film and stage director Steve Yeager.