If you’ve ever wondered why I vanished from the screen when the spotlight was brightest, the answer is simpler than the Hollywood myths suggest. Showbiz was in my blood from the start—I was born in New York City on July 16, 1963, to Lily and Joseph Cates. My father was a Broadway producer and a television pioneer, and my uncle Gilbert produced the Academy Awards. I grew up in a world where the industry was just the family business, and by the age of ten, I was already navigating the world of professional modeling.
As a teenager, I found myself achieving what many would call unprecedented success. I was a regular at Studio 54, appearing on magazine covers before I was even old enough to drive. But I quickly grew to dislike the industry. It didn’t teach me anything; it was just the same thing over and over. After a while, I did it solely for the money. I needed something more, and acting felt like the next logical step, though the transition wasn’t without its challenges.
My first major role was in the 1982 film Paradise, a production designed to capitalize on the “teensploitation” market of the era. I was still a teenager when the script called for explicit nudity. I remember asking my father, “Should I do this?” He looked at me and asked how I could even question a lead role in a feature film. When I brought up the nudity, he simply asked, “What are you going to do, model for the rest of your life? What are you so hung up on nudity for?” That was all the nudge I needed, so I took the part.
Paradise didn’t set the world on fire, but later that same year, everything changed with Fast Times at Ridgemont High. I was only eighteen when I played the “mature” Linda Barrett. People still talk about the red bikini and that pool scene today. Unlike my experience with Paradise, shooting that scene was actually fun. It felt very in character and justified for the story we were telling. Suddenly, I wasn’t just a model; I was a household name.
The roles followed quickly. I starred in Private School, then the 1984 miniseries Lace, where I delivered that infamous line—”Incidentally, which one of you bitches is my mother?”—that seemed to echo everywhere. That same year, I played Kate Beringer in Joe Dante’s Gremlins. It became one of the biggest hits of my career, even with my character’s dark monologue about why she hated Christmas. I kept working throughout the late ’80s and early ’90s in films like Bright Lights, Big City, Shag, and Drop Dead Fred.
But while my career was peaking, my personal life was shifting. I met Kevin Kline in 1982 at an audition for The Big Chill. I didn’t get the part—Meg Tilly did—but I walked away with a connection that I couldn’t ignore. We reconnected a couple of years later at New York’s Public Theater. I was studying acting, and he was performing. Despite our sixteen-year age difference, something just clicked. Kevin later told people he thought I was “too happy” and “too enthusiastic about life” for him, but we married in 1989 and decided to build our life in New York, far from the pressures of Los Angeles.
When our son Owen was born in 1991, and our daughter Greta followed in 1994, my priorities transformed completely. Kevin and I had a pact: we agreed to alternate our work schedules so that one of us was always home with the children. But whenever it was my turn to take a role, I found myself choosing to stay home instead. I loved acting while I was doing it, but I wasn’t driven by it the way Kevin was. My family was my top priority, and the scrutiny of Hollywood didn’t fit the low-key lifestyle I wanted for my kids.
My last starring role was in the 1994 biopic Princess Caraboo, where I played a faux-royal alongside Kevin. After that, I effectively retired. I did step back in front of the camera once more in 2001 for The Anniversary Party, but that was strictly a favor for my best friend and Fast Times castmate, Jennifer Jason Leigh. Aside from some voice work for a Gremlins character in a video game years later, I stayed away from the set.
In 2005, I finally fulfilled a lifelong dream that had nothing to do with scripts or cameras. I opened a boutique called Blue Tree on Madison Avenue. I always wanted to have a general store—a place with a surprise around every turn. It’s my “mom-and-pop store without the pop,” filled with antiques, jewelry, books, and vintage LPs. I’m often there at the register myself. Sometimes shoppers stare and tell me I look like Phoebe Cates, and I just smile and tell them, “I get that a lot.”
Today, Kevin and I have been married for over thirty-five years. Our secret is simple: we didn’t live in Hollywood, and we didn’t treat our lives like a production. Our children have grown into their own as artists, and I’ve found a different kind of fulfillment. Looking back at the girl in the red bikini, I’m grateful for the path that led me here—to a quiet life in the city, a shop of my own, and the family that always came first.
This video provides a visual retrospective of Phoebe Cates’ career and explores the specific reasons she decided to leave the spotlight for a more private life.
