Uma Thurman Posters and Movies

Who is Uma Thurman?

By Cathy Richey, the Cathy Factor

Uma Thurman

Uma was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on April 29, 1970, Uma Karuna Thurman (named after a Hindu deity that means "bestowed of blessings") spent her childhood in Amherst, Massachusetts, because her father worked at Amherst College. She grew up in an eccentric, multi-cultural family.

Her father, Robert A.F. Thurman, was a professor who taught Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University. Her mother, Nena Thurman, was a Swedish model-turned-psychotherapist who was once married to LSD proponent Timothy Leary. Uma is the granddaughter of Baron Karl von Schlebrugg (maternal grandparent; jailed by Nazis in WWII for not betraying Jewish business partners), Brigit Holmquist (maternal grandparent; famous Swedish beauty who posed for a statue in Trelleborg) and Elizabeth Farrar (actress; paternal grandparent).

Her uncle, John Thurman, is a professional concert cellist who performs with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Uma has three brothers: Dechen Thurman, Mipam Thurman, and Ganden Thurman.

Thurman confronted childhood with an odd name and eccentric home life, and nature seemingly conspired against her as well. Six feet tall, from an early age she towered over everyone else in class. Her famously large feet would soon sprout to size 11. She 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, the family constantly relocated, making the gangly, socially inept Thurman the new kid in class. The result was a awkward, self-conscious, lonely and alienated childhood.

Young Uma Thurman attended Northfield Mount Herman School in Northfield, Massachusetts and Amherst Regional Junior High School in Amherst, Massachusetts. She also studied at the Professional Children's High School in New York.

Uma thrived at acting in school plays. This interest, and her lanky frame, perfect for modeling, led Thurman to New York City for modeling work (including a layout in Glamour Magazine) as she sought acting roles. The roles soon came, starting with a few forgettable Hollywood products, but immediately followed by Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) and Stephen Frears' Dangerous Liaisons (1988), both brought much attention to her unorthodox sensuality and performances that 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, was her smoldering, adult performance as June, Henry Miller's wife, in Henry & June (1990).

Uma was brilliant as Mia Wallace, that most unorthodox of all gangster's, in Quentin Tarantino's hugely successful Pulp Fiction (1994), a role for which Thurman received an Academy Award nomination.

Thurman starred in arty independents such as A Month by the Lake (1995), supporting roles in which she has lent some glamorous presence to a mixed batch of movies such as Batman & Robin (1997), and her role as a martial arts assassin in Tarantino's controversial Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) and Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), a grueling stretch for Thurman which proved her game for virtually any acting challenge.

Thurman had been briefly married to actor 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. Thurman filed for divorce from Hawke in 2004.