Kimila Ann “Kim” Basinger ( /’be?s???r/ bay-sing-?r, often mispronounced /’bæs?nd??r/ bass-in-j?r; born December 8, 1953) is an American actress and former fashion model. Basinger also acted in the movies 9½ Weeks (1986) and 8 Mile (2002). Her father, Donald Wade Basinger, was a big band musician and loan manager who as a U.S. Army soldier landed in Normandy on D-Day (June 6, 1944). Basinger played the same character in a 13-episode TV spinoff in 1980.

Basinger received a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture nomination for her work in The Natural (1984). She won an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in L.A. Confidential (1997). Basinger was born in Athens, Georgia. She then won the title “Junior Miss Georgia”. She competed in the national Junior Miss pageant and was offered a modeling contract with Ford Modeling Agency. Not long after the Ford deal, Basinger was on the cover of magazines. After guest roles on TV shows such as Starsky and Hutch and Charlie’s Angels in 1976, and a starring role on the short-lived series Dog and Cat (1977), her first feature-length role was in a made-for-TV movie, Katie: Portrait of a Centerfold (1978) in which she played a smalltown young woman who goes to Hollywood to become an actress and winds up a famous centerfold for a men’s magazine. She made her theatrical film debut in Hard Country (1981) with Jan Michael Vincent, followed by Mother Lode (1982) with Charlton Heston.