”In this business, if a girl wants a career, she has to be willing to strip. If you’ve got a good body, then why not show it?,” she said.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High had a pretty impressive cast when you look at it today – it included now-stars like like Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Eric Stoltz, and Forest Whitaker
“Well, it was a funny thing because we were all so young when we made it. And then it came out and it was this big hit, you know, where you’d go to the theater and people would say the lines with it, and people had obviously seen the movie over and over again,” Jennifer Jason Leigh told The Daily News.
Later, while also working in theatre, Phoebe starred in Private School as Christine Ramsey in 1983 and co-starred in Steven Spielberg’s Gremlins in 1984. Phoebe met Kevin Kline, a critically acclaimed theater actor while auditioning for the 1983 film The Big Chill. While Cates did not get the role, she did gain an eventual husband.
Kline was 16 years older than Cates, but they did not start dating until two years after they first met. After Kline hired Cates’ former assistant, he asked the employee to help him to ask out the actress.
In 1989, Cates and Kline–25 and 41, respectively–married in New York City. Cates gave birth to their first child, Owen Joseph, in 1991. In 1994, she had their daughter, Greta Simone.
In 2017, as the couple celebrated an impressive 27 years of marriage, many wondered what kept them so happy and together for so long.
“We take care of the marriage,” Kline said.
Even though she was doing well at the time, Cates had decided to take a step away from acting after the two had their children. In the 1990s, she started to vanish from the entertainment industry.
In 1998, she explained to Playboy that both she and her husband had agreed to alternate acting jobs so that the children would never be without a parent.
Kline would add that Cates still would choose to stay home with the children when it was her turn to work. While Cates did some acting here and there, she began to be seen more at red-carpet events with her husband, who continued acting more consistently.
It was in 2005 that Cates opened Blue Tree not far from the famous Carnegie Hall. At the store, products like fragrances, clothing, and gifts could be purchased.
Cates devoted herself to becoming a full-time shopkeeper, typically working hands-on in the store or finding new products to sell. Today, you can find Phoebe’s store at 1283 Madison Avenue in New York City, it’s located on Manhattan’s Upper East Side where she also lives.
And just so you know; Phoebe still looks amazing!
What comes to mind when you think of Phoebe? I always thought that she was a pretty good actress, but my first two thoughts of her are usually the shower scene (in the cave) in “Paradise” and the bikini scene in “Fast Times At Ridgemont High.”
