Kim Basinger, the sexy icon behind ‘Nine and a Half Weeks’, turns 70: Her greatest moments

The American actress was a true phenomenon in the 80s and 90s thanks to her performance in a film that made cinema history and today she celebrates her 70th birthday.

Many happy returns to Kim Basinger! The iconic actress and former fashion model, who rose to fame with her roles in films including Batman, L.A. Confidential and 9 1/2 Weeks. The Oscar-winning star has had an illustrious career as well as a fascinating personal life, so we’re taking a walk down memory lane to find out more about the star’s life and achievements as she turns 70…

Kim was a ballet dancer and a cheerleader as a teenager, and won Athens Junior Miss in a Miss Scholarship Pageant. Following that, she became a model with Ford Modelling Agency, and was on the album cover for the band Survivor, as well as appearing in many adverts. Despite her success, she admitted that she wasn’t a fan of the job. She said: “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.”

She eventually quit modelling to go into acting, and had her breakthrough role in the James Bond movies Never Say Never Again, where she played Domino Petachi.

Kim’s two marriages

Kim has been married twice, once to makeup artist Ron Snyder-Britton in 1980, who she met while filming Hard Country, and a second time in 1990 to Alec Baldwin.

Kim and Ron were together for nine years, and divorced in 1989. According to Ron’s memoir, Ron discovered that Kim was having an affair with Pretty Woman actor Richard Gere in 1986 after finding love letters, and followed her to a restaurant where he allegedly saw them kissing. The pair worked out their issues before splitting a few years later. Kim paid $9,000 monthly in alimony for eight years.

Kim’s relationships after first marriage

During that time, Batman producer Jon Peters claimed to have had an affair with Kim, explaining to The Hollywood Reporter: “Kim had a husband who was abusive. And one day I grabbed him, and she connected with me because I protected her, and we became friends and ended up having a big affair.

“Michael Keaton had the eye for Kim Basinger. I remember he got mad at me when she and I hooked up. He felt rejected ’cause he was the star. He’s Batman. Yeah. I was a hairdresser who could talk to women. We lived together on the set. She helped me write the third act.”

Relationship with Prince

After her relationship with Jon Peters, Kim dated Prince as well as fashion designer Alexio Gandara and trainer Phil Walsh. Following Prince’s death in 2016, she told the Daily Beast: “I don’t really have boundaries, so I enjoyed that time of my life. It was a really special moment in time, and I have great memories. I don’t put a lot of restrictions on myself, let’s just put it that way.”