Phoebe Cates participated in a number of films, including Gremlins and Drop Dead Fred, but she is best remembered for her famous, ᴛᴏᴘʟᴇss pool scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982).
But the former actress left Hollywood over 20 years ago, and she now works 9 to 5 doing something she enjoys.
Phoebe Belle Cates was born on July 16, 1963, in New York City. As a child, she attended private schools and studied dance at Julliard.
Phoebe was born with acting in her blood; her father, Joe Cates, was a producer-director, and her uncle was the President of the Director’s Guild. Her brother was a former actor, and her sister, Valerie, also performed on stage.
While Phoebe studied dance in her youth, she was sidelined after a knee ailment caused her to stop.
She began modeling at the age of 14 and was fairly successful. For example, she was featured on the cover of Seventeen magazine four times. However, she had little heart for the job and sought to broaden her horizons instead.
“It was just the same thing, over and over. After a while, I did it solely for the money,” Phoebe said, speaking of her short modeling career.
She eventually met her film agent at a party at New York’s Studio 54, after which she trained with Robert Ravan, the creator of The Actors’ Circle.
“I just knew that I didn’t want to go to college. And that it would be a great way getting out of college if I could get a couple of movies or something. Seriously. It’s true,” she told The Daily Item in 1985.
Cates also studied with Alice Spivack at H.B. Studios before making her acting debut in 1982 as Sarah in Paradise. Not barely a year later, she starred in the film Experienced, followed by the classic Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which featured the legendary swimming pool scene.
The film, which was an adolescent smash, has made significant contributions to pop culture, but it is best known for one frame, which Rolling Stone magazine described as “the most memorable bikini-drop in cinema history.”
According to an acquaintance, that scene caused many teenage boys’ hearts to race faster than they should.
In 1982, Phoebe gave her two cents on it.
“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 has an incredible cast when you look at it today, including now-stars 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.
Phoebe later worked in theatre, playing Christine Ramsey in Private School in 1983 and co-starring in Steven Spielberg’s Gremlins in 1984. Phoebe met Kevin Kline, a critically known theater actor, during an audition for the 1983 film The Big Chill. Cates did not receive the part, although she did eventually marry.
Kline was 16 years older than Cates, yet they did not begin dating until two years after their initial meeting. After hiring Cates’ old assistant, Kline urged the employee to aid him in asking out the actress.
Cates and Kline married in New York City in 1989, when they were 25 and 41 years old. Cates gave birth to their first child, Owen Joseph, in 1991. She gave birth to their daughter, Greta Simone, in 1994.
In 2017, when the pair celebrated 27 years of marriage, many wondered what had kept them so happy and together for so long.
“We take care of the marriage,” Kline said.
Even though she was performing well at the time, Cates opted to take a break from acting once the couple had children. In the 1990s, she began to fade from the entertainment scene.
In 1998, she told Playboy that she and her husband had promised to rotate acting gigs so that their children would never be without a parent.
Kline would add that Cates would still choose to stay at home with the kids when it was her turn to work. While Cates did some acting here and there, she became increasingly visible at red carpet events alongside her husband, who continued to act more routinely.
Cates opened Blue Tree in 2005, not far from the legendary Carnegie Hall. Fragrances, apparel, and presents were available for purchase in the store.
Cates dedicated herself to become a full-time shopkeeper, either working hands-on in the store or researching new things to sell. Today, Phoebe’s store is located at 1283 Madison Avenue in New York City, on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where she also lives.
And just so you know, Phoebe still looks beautiful!
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.”
