Phoebe Cates

Phoebe Belle Cates Kline (born July 16, 1963) is an American former actress, known primarily for her roles in films such as Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), Gremlins (1984), Drop Dead Fred (1991) and Princess Caraboo (1994).

Cates was born on July 16, 1963, in New York City, to a family of television and Broadway production insiders.

She is the daughter of Lily and Joseph Cates (originally Joseph Katz), who was a major Broadway producer and a pioneering figure in television, and who helped create The $64,000 Question.

Her uncle, Gilbert Cates, produced numerous television specials, often in partnership with Cates's father, as well as several annual Academy Awards shows.

Her father was Jewish and her mother was Catholic.

Cates is of Eurasian or mixed European and Asian descent.

Her mother was born in Shanghai, China to a family of Chinese-Filipino heritage.

Cates's father is American and from Manhattan.

Cates attended the Professional Children's School, and the Juilliard School.

At age ten, she started modeling, appearing in Seventeen and other teen-oriented magazines.

A few years later, she wanted to become a dancer, and eventually received a scholarship to the School of American Ballet, but quit after a knee injury at age 14.

She then began a short, successful career as a model.

She said that she disliked the industry: "It was just the same thing, over and over. After a while, I did it solely for the money."

As a teen model, Cates appeared on the cover of Seventeen magazine four times, first on the April 1979 issue.

She appeared inside the magazine as well, on the editorial pages in 1979 and 1980.

Dissatisfied with modeling, Cates decided to pursue acting.

The movie had a plot similar to The Blue Lagoon (1980).

She also sang the film's theme song and recorded an album of the same name.

Paradise was filmed in Israel from March to May 1981.

In the film, Cates performed several full-frontal nude scenes and several rear scenes while still a minor (age 17).

She was offered her first part in the movie Paradise (1982) after a screen test in New York.

She was uncertain about the nudity the role required, but her father encouraged her to take the job.

In a 1982 interview, she recalled having trouble with the career change: As a model, she had to be conscious of the camera; but as an actor, she could not.

She later regretted being in the film: "What I learned was never to do a movie like that again."

She claimed that the film's producers used a body double to film nude close-ups of her character without telling her.

According to her co-star Willie Aames, "She will have nothing to do with the film. She's really upset about it. She won't do any promotion with me."

Later that year, Cates starred in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), featuring what Rolling Stone has described as "the most memorable bikini-drop in cinema history".

She said that she had "the most fun" filming that movie.

The next year, Cates was in the comedy Private School (1983), co-starring Matthew Modine and Betsy Russell, and where she sang on two songs of the film's soundtrack: "Just One Touch" and "How Do I Let You Know".

In 1984, Cates starred in the TV mini-series Lace, based on a novel by Shirley Conran.

She played the role of Lili "to get away from a sameness in her movie portrayals".

During her audition, she so impressed the writer that he wanted to hire her on the spot.

She struggled with the portrayal of a bitter movie star because, despite her character's vicious persona, she wanted the audience to sympathize with her.

She did not read Conran's novel, on which the movie was based, because she did not want to have a "fixed image".

In summer 1984, Cates co-starred in the box office hit Gremlins (1984) for executive producer Steven Spielberg, the highest-grossing film of her career.

In June 1984, Cates made her stage debut in the Off-Broadway play The Nest of the Wood Grouse, a comedy by Soviet writer Viktor Rozov, at the Joseph Papp Public Theater.

Cates said that while doing the play she "felt a certain freedom and a certain connection with acting that I had never really felt before".

She reprised her role of Kate Beringer in the sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990).

Her best-known line in the film, "Which one of you bitches is my mother?", was named the greatest line in television history by TV Guide in 1993.

She also starred in the sequel mini-series Lace II.