Uma Karuna Thurman was born in Boston, Massachusetts, into a highly
unorthodox and internationally-minded family. She is the daughter of
Nena Thurman (née Birgitte Caroline von
Schlebrügge), a fashion model and socialite who now runs a mountain
retreat, and of Robert Thurman
(Robert Alexander Farrar Thurman), a professor and academic who is one
of the nation's foremost Buddhist scholars. Uma's mother was born in
Mexico City, Mexico, to a German father and a Swedish mother (who
herself was of Swedish, Danish, and German descent). Uma's father, a
New Yorker, has English, Scots-Irish, Scottish, and German ancestry.
Uma grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts, where her father worked at
Amherst College.
She and her siblings all have names deriving from Buddhist mythology;
and Middle American behavior was little understood, much less pursued.
And so it was that the young Thurman confronted childhood with an odd
name and eccentric home life -- and nature seemingly conspired against
her as well. She is six feet tall, and from an early age towered over
everyone else in class. Her famously large feet would soon sprout to
size 11 -- and even beyond that -- and although they would eventually
be lovingly filmed by director
Quentin Tarantino, as a child she
generally wore the biggest shoes in class, which only provided another
subject of ridicule. Even her long nose moved one of her mother's
friends to helpfully suggest rhinoplasty -- to the ten-year-old
Thurman. To make matters worse yet, the family constantly relocated,
making the gangly, socially inept Thurman perpetually the new kid in
class. The result was an exceptionally awkward, self-conscious, lonely
and alienated childhood.
Unsurprisingly, the young Thurman enjoyed making believe she was
someone other than herself, and so thrived at acting in school plays --
her sole successful extracurricular activity. This interest, and her
lanky frame, perfect for modeling, led the 15-year-old Thurman to New
York City for high school and modeling work (including a layout in
Glamour Magazine) as she sought acting roles. The roles soon came,
starting with a few formulaic and forgettable Hollywood products, but
immediately followed by Terry Gilliam's
Die Abenteuer des Baron Münchhausen (1988)
and Stephen Frears'
Gefährliche Liebschaften (1988),
both of which brought much attention to her unorthodox sensuality and
performances that intriguingly combined innocence and worldliness. The
weird, gangly girl became a sex symbol virtually overnight.
Thurman continued to be offered good roles in Hollywood pictures into
the early
'90s, the least commercially successful but probably best-known of which was her smoldering, astonishingly-adult performance as June, Henry Miller's
wife, in Henry & June (1990), the
first movie to actually receive the dreaded NC-17 rating in the USA.
After a celebrated start, Thurman's career stalled in the early '90s
with movies such as the mediocre
Sein Name ist Mad Dog (1993).
Worse, her first starring role was in
Cowgirl Blues (1993),
which had endured a tortured journey from cult-favorite book to
big-budget movie, and was a critical and financial debacle.
Fortunately, Uma bounced back with a brilliant performance as Mia
Wallace, that most unorthodox of all gangster's molls, in Tarantino's
lauded, hugely successful
Pulp Fiction (1994), a role for
which Thurman received an Academy Award nomination.
Since then, Thurman has had periods of flirting with roles in arty
independents such as
Ein Sommer am See (1995),
and supporting roles in which she has lent some glamorous presence to a
mixed batch of movies, such as
Beautiful Girls (1996) and
Lügen haben lange Beine (1996).
Thurman returned to smaller films after playing the villainess Poison
Ivy in the reviled Joel Schumacher
effort Batman & Robin (1997) and
Emma Peel in a remake of
Mit Schirm, Charme und Melone (1998). She worked with
Woody Allen and
Sean Penn on
Sweet and Lowdown (1999), and
starred in Richard Linklater's drama
Tape (2001) opposite Hawke. Thurman also won
a Golden Globe award for her turn in the made-for-television film
Hysterical Blindness (2002),
directed by Mira Nair.
A return to the mainstream spotlight came when Thurman re-teamed with
Quentin Tarantino for
Kill Bill - Vol. 1 (2003), a
revenge flick the two had dreamed up on the set of
Pulp Fiction (1994). She also turned
up in the John Woo cautioner
Paycheck - Die Abrechnung (2003) that same year. The
renewed attention was not altogether welcome because Thurman was
dealing with the break-up of her marriage with Hawke at about this
time. Thurman handled the situation with grace, however, and took her
surging popularity in stride. She garnered critical acclaim for her
work in
Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) and
was hailed as Tarantino's muse. Thurman reunited with
Pulp Fiction (1994) dance partner
John Travolta for the
Schnappt Shorty (1995) sequel
Be Cool - Jeder ist auf der Suche nach dem nächsten großen Hit (2005) and played Ulla in
The Producers (2005).
Thurman had been briefly married to
Gary Oldman, from 1990 to 1992. In 1998, she
married Ethan Hawke, her co-star in the
offbeat futuristic thriller
Gattaca (1997). The couple had two
children, Levon and Maya. Hawke and Thurman filed for divorce in 2004.
