Born on Apr. 29, 1970 in Boston, MA, Thurman was raised in an atypical home with a storied family history. Her maternal grandfather, Baron Karl von Schlebrugge, was a Swedish nobleman who was jailed by the Nazis during World War II for refusing to betray his Jewish business partners, and her maternal grandmother, Brigit Holmquist, was a famous model in Sweden who, in 1930, posed nude for a statue that overlooked the harbor in Smygehuk. Thurman was raised by her father, Robert, a professor of Eastern religious studies at Columbia University, who became the first American to be ordained as a Tibetan monk. Meanwhile, her mother, Nena von Schlebrugge, was a fashion model born in Mexico City who was introduced by Salvador Dalí to Timothy Leary, whom she married before Thurman's father. Though born in Boston, Thurman spent time at the family's bohemian summer retreat in Woodstock, NY and also traveled to the Far East, including several stops in India.After leaving the Northfield Mount Herman School, where she performed in plays, and Amherst Regional Junior High School, she moved to New York on her own to attend the Professional Children's School and earn a substantial amount of money as a model. By the time she was 16, Thurman left school to pursue an acting career, making her film debut in "Kiss Daddy Goodnight" (1987), a low-budget thriller in which she played a young seductress who lures unsuspecting men with the promise of sex,
only to drug and rob them. She immediately followed up with another lowball indie, "Johnny Be Good" (1988), a raunchy teen comedy starring Anthony Michael Hall as a hotshot high school quarterback being recruited by top colleges. Thurman received widespread attention for her performance in Stephen Frears' "Dangerous Liaisons" (1988), playing the virginal Cecile de Volanges, who becomes the initial target for seduction by the misogynistic Vicomte de Valmont (John Malkovich) as the result of a cruel wager between him and his former lover, the Marquise de Merteuil (Glenn Close).
Well on her way to becoming an established actress, Thurman upped her profile as the Goddess of Love in Terry Gilliam's madcap opus, "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" (1989). But it was her portrayal of June Miller, wife of famed author Henry Miller (Fred Ward) in Philip Kaufman's "Henry and June" (1990), that revealed her to be an actress with considerable depth and ability. Thurman exuded charm and allure as June, who allows her husband to get involved with author,
Anaïs Nin (Maria de Medeiros), while also having her own affair with the struggling writer. After playing Maid Marion in a gritty take on "Robin Hood" (1991), she turned in another strong performance as a blind woman targeted by a serial killer in Bruce Robinson's dark "Jennifer 8" (1992), which she followed with a performance as a sultry patient under the care of a San Francisco psychiatrist (Richard Gere) in "Final Analysis" (1992). Around this time, Thurman was getting a divorce from actor Gary Oldman, whom she met while visiting the set of "State of Grace" (1990) when she was 18. The short marriage lasted only two years, ending in 1992.
Back on the big screen, Thurman played an indentured servant to a cop (Robert De Niro) and gangster (Bill Murray) in the unusual gangster romance "Mad Dog and Glory" (1993). In Gus Van Sant's lumbering "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" (1994), a long-awaited, but unsatisfying adaptation of the popular Tom Robbins novel, Thurman's talents were virtually wasted in the leading role of hitchhiker Sissy Hankshaw.
But Thurman was catapulted into the limelight with a strong turn as the drug-taking wife of a Los Angeles gangster (Ving Rhames) in Quentin Tarantino's phenomenon-creating crime noir, "Pulp Fiction" (1994). Though the time-jumping film focused on several characters, including two philosophizing hit men (John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson) and an aging boxer (Bruce Willis)
looking for one last score, Thurman and her severe black wig entered pop culture history, thanks to her memorable dance with Travolta in a 1950s-style diner. After doing the twist, her fearless character overdoses and in a truly shocking and disturbing scene, Travolta plunges a needle in her chest to shock her back to life. Among the many other accolades and award nominations "Pulp Fiction" received, Thurman earned an Oscar nod a Best Supporting Actress and perhaps even more important - the unabashed admiration and loyalty of director Tarantino, who would later refer to the actress as his creative muse.
While Thurman garnered praise for her turn as a young coquette flirting with Edward Fox in John Irving's "A Month by the Lake" (1995), the film stumbled at the box office. She fared better in Ted Demme's ensemble drama "Beautiful Girls" (1996), playing an outsider visiting a small town.
Thurman played against type as a less-than-intellectual blonde helping friend Janeane Garofalo win a handsome beau in the comedy "The Truth About Cats and Dogs" (1996). Shifting gears, she offered a scene-stealing turn as villainess Poison Ivy to George Clooney's Dark Knight in the otherwise abysmal "Batman & Robin" (1997). Thurman returned to a more conventional role as the upright, somewhat frosty and passive worker in a futuristic space program who is romanced by a co-worker (Ethan Hawke) in the futuristic thriller "Gattaca" (1997). Thurman and the intellectual Hawke embarked on an off-screen romance that resulted in marriage the following year while seven months pregnant with their daughter, Maya Ray. Meanwhile, she followed with a highly-praised performance as Fantine in Bille August's remake of "Les Miserables" (1998) before teaming with Ralph Fiennes as Emma Peel to his John Steed in a big screen version of the hit 1960s television show "The Avengers" (1998), which was poorly received by critics and audiences alike.
There was a noticeable slowing down of Thurman's career, as she settled into her new role as wife and mother. She did, however, find time to take roles which appealed to her, appearing to good effect in small parts in non-mainstream projects, including Woody Allen's "The Sweet and the Lowdown" (1999), the Merchant-Ivory production "The Golden Bowl" (2000) and her husband's high-minded art film "Chelsea Walls" (2001). In 2002, she received positive reviews for her role in the cable film "Hysterical Blindness" (HBO) in which she successfully played against type as a desperately insecure working-class girl from New Jersey who, along with her best friend from high school (Juliette Lewis), spends her nights patrolling the local bars for love.