Phoebe Cates

Phoebe Belle Cates Kline, born July 16, 1963, is an American businesswoman and retired actress and model. She is best known for her roles in feature films such as Paradise, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Gremlins, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Drop Dead Fred, and Princess Caraboo. In addition to her career in entertainment, she founded the Blue Tree boutique in 2005.

Cates was born in New York City into a family involved in Broadway and television production. Her father, Joseph Cates, was a major Broadway producer and television figure who helped create The $64,000 Question, while her mother, Lily, was born in Shanghai to a family of Chinese-Filipino heritage. Cates grew up with a sister and is of Eurasian descent. She attended the Professional Children's School and the Juilliard School, and she pursued dancing at the School of American Ballet until a knee injury at age 14 ended her training.

At age ten, Cates began modeling, appearing in teen-oriented magazines such as Seventeen, where she was featured on the cover four times starting in April 1979. Despite achieving early commercial success as a model, she disliked the repetitive nature of the industry and chose to transition into acting.

Cates secured her first film role in the 1982 movie Paradise after a screen test in New York. For the film, she performed the theme song and recorded an album under the same name. Later that year, she starred in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, followed by the 1983 comedy Private School, for which she sang two songs on the soundtrack.

In 1984, Cates starred in the television mini-series Lace, playing the role of Lili, and later reprised the character in Lace II. That same year, she co-starred as Kate Beringer in the box office hit Gremlins, executive produced by Steven Spielberg, which became the highest-grossing film of her career. She later returned to the role in the sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch.

Alongside her film and television work, Cates performed on stage, making her Off-Broadway debut in 1984 in The Nest of the Wood Grouse. She later appeared in the Off-Broadway play Rich Relations in 1986 and made her Broadway debut in a 1989 revival of The Tenth Man. Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, she appeared in films including Bright Lights, Big City, Drop Dead Fred, and Princess Caraboo.

In March 1989, Cates married actor Kevin Kline, changing her name to Phoebe Cates Kline. Following her role in Princess Caraboo in 1994, she shifted her focus away from acting to raise her two children, Owen and Greta. She briefly returned to acting for the 2001 film The Anniversary Party, and in 2005, she opened the Blue Tree boutique on Madison Avenue in New York.