Uma Thurman Bio

 

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About Uma Thurman

It’s difficult to imagine that beautiful Uma Thurman’s passion for acting stemmed from her need to escape into a world of make believe from her childhood reality as a tall, awkward, socially inept girl with big feet.  But Uma was all those things, and her eccentric homelife, although stimulating and undoubtedly rife with experiences that would serve her well in later life (the Dalai Lama was a frequent dinner guest), didn’t make it any easier to fit in with the other kids in 1970’s Amherst , Massachusetts .  Throw in frequent relocations, always being the new kid in class, and it’s no wonder 15-year-old Uma left boarding school and followed her dreams to New York.  

At first Uma washed dishes to get by, then came some modeling jobs, and eventually even a Glamour layout, but it wasn’t what the aspiring actress wanted.  The wait wasn’t too long for Thurman, who first appeared on film as a vampire in Kiss Daddy Goodnight (1987), and then took on the equally forgettable Johnny Be Good the following year.   A role in Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen was definitely a step up, but it was the role of Cecile de Volange in Dangerous Liasons (1988) that provided the breakthrough Thurman needed.

After a brief dalliance as a bisexual in Henry & June (1990), Thurman’s success was sealed in Quentin Tarantino’s blockbuster Pulp Fiction (1994).  Thurman earned an Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of quirky, coke-snorting gangster moll Mia Wallace opposite John Travolta.  The mutual admiration Thurman and Tarantino share is said to have resulted in the pair’s collaboration on the Kill Bill films. 

Thurman’s success in Pulp Fiction was followed by roles in The Truth About Cats & Dogs and Beautiful Girls (both 1996) which received moderate attention.  Next came Gattaca (1997), which at least provided an introduction to Ethan Hawke, who would become Thurman’s second husband (she was briefly married to Gary Oldham in the early 90’s) and the father of her two children, Maya and Roan.

When the film Batman & Robin (1997), in which Thurman portrayed villainess Poison Ivy received scathing reviews, the actress returned to smaller films, including Woody Allen’s well received Sweet and Lowdown (1999).  She also starred opposite Hawke in the drama Tape (2001). The two would file for divorce in 2004.    The Kill Bill movies garnered much success in 2003 and 2004, and the Get Shorty sequel Be Cool (2005) reunited Thurman with her Pulp Fiction co-star John Travolta.  

Thurman continues to manage the difficult task of balancing an acting career with raising her two children, and she will likely succeed, doing it her own way.  She comes from a long line of those who refused to be pigeonholed.  Her father, Robert Thurman, is a professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University , and was the first westerner to become a Tibetan Buddhist monk.  Her mother, Nena, is a Swedish model turned psychotherapist.  The artist Salvador Dali introduced Nena to her first husband, LSD proponent and activist Timothy Leary.  Uma’s maternal grandmother, a famous beauty and baroness, is honored in Trelleborg , Sweden with a nude statue.  Uma has three brothers, Ganden, Mipam and actor Dechen Thurman.  All four names are derived from Buddhist theology.

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