All About Kathleen Turner's Daughter Rachel Ann Weiss
‘Romancing the Stone’ star Kathleen Turner has one daughter, Rachel Ann Weiss
1980s movie icon Kathleen Turner has always been outspoken about her beliefs and being a strong woman — lessons she’s passed down to her daughter Rachel Ann Weiss, another creative woman who’s making a career in the performing arts.
“I’m very interested in women’s growth as people,” Turner told Vulture in 2018.
The star of Peggy Sue Got Married, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the cult classic Serial Mom, Turner also had a series of hits with co-star Michael Douglas, including Romancing the Stone, Jewel of the Nile and War of the Roses.
She met Jay Weiss, a property developer, as the shoot for Romancing the Stone was ending in 1983. “He found me an apartment, and to thank him I took him to lunch,” she told PEOPLE in 1986. They married a year later, in 1984. “He’s all the man I want — and all I can handle,” she added at the time.
Unlike the actress, he preferred to stay out of the spotlight. “He keeps me in the real world,” she added. They welcomed daughter Rachel Ann Weiss in 1987, and the family lived in New York. Weiss and Turner eventually divorced in 2007.
In her late 30s, Turner was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease that causes pain and inflammation in the joints. As her illness was treated with chemotherapy and steroids, her appearance led to gossip that she was drinking too much alcohol, according to a 2005 The New York Times article. In 2002, she checked into rehab to give up drinking, "for my husband, my child and my career," she told the Times.
“It was incredibly stupid,” the actor told The Guardian in 2023. “I had this thing in my head where I thought: ‘I’m not taking pain pills — they are addictive and dangerous.’ But it was OK to have that second or third vodka.” Then, one day, things changed. “I thought: ‘I am wasting my entire day with my daughter, with my husband, because I’d close myself down and drink.’ ”
Turner and her daughter have a close relationship; Weiss often posts photos of the two of them on social media, and posts messages in support of her mother’s outspokenness and her work.
In 2018, Weiss posted a clip of Turner doing an interview, recalling what it was like to film a Billy Ocean music video with Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito. “My mom is the coolest person ever,” she captioned the Instagram post, adding various hashtags.
Keep reading for everything to know about Kathleen Turner’s daughter Rachel Ann Weiss.
She’s artistically inclined
Weiss studied music at Hampshire College, according to her Facebook page, and is a singer/songwriter who released an album, Dear Love, in 2012.
She’s also a performer on the stage and screen, who had a small role in the 1989 movie Little Monsters. As she wrote on her Backstage.com profile, “A born and raised New Yorker, I’ve spent years as a professional singer/songwriter and performer, touring internationally, but my semi-secret deepest passion is performing Shakespeare, which, so far, I’ve done only in the context of private events, but intend to do more one day.”
Turner encourages her daughter to be fearless
Turner has long challenged the idea that a woman must always be seen as agreeable to be accepted, especially when it comes to getting jobs in Hollywood. “If a man comes on set and says, ‘Here’s how I see this being done,’ people go, ‘He’s decisive,’” she told Vulture in 2018. “If a woman does it, they say, ‘Oh, f---. There she goes.’ ”
That sense of boldness comes from her own experience. “I do tend to jump in the water and find out if I can swim,” Turner said in her cabaret show “Kathleen Turner: Finding My Voice,” according to The Guardian.
It’s a lesson she passed down to Weiss. “She’s always taught me there is no halfway,” she told Closer Weekly in 2018. “You must invest yourself fully.”
Turner echoed that sentiment when recounting what she felt was the most important piece of advice she’s ever given her daughter. “Be brave,” she said in that same interview. “Speak up.”
Weiss was on an episode of Friends
On Friends, Turner played a now-controversial character: Chandler’s parent who was a transgender woman, but who was referred to as the character's "father" on the show.
The character “Helena Handbasket” was described on the show as “gay” and a “drag queen” but never as a transgender woman. Though Turner has said she wouldn’t take the role now, at the time, "It never crossed my mind that I was taking a role from someone,” she told The Guardian in 2023.
In one of the show’s most famous episodes, “The One Where Monica and Chandler Get Married: Part 2,” Turner plays Helena Handbasket, but Weiss also plays a role — as a wedding guest. She posted a screen grab of the show on Instagram, pointing out her young self seated next to Morgan Fairchild (who played Chandler’s mom) and writing, “I’ll be there for you, cuz you’re there for me tooooo... @rockwoodmusichall TOMORROW 8/7 at 7 pm, stage 2 ✌🏻!!! #music #soloshow #friends #ihavethem.”
Weiss is proud of her mother’s accomplishments
In 2016, Weiss posted a throwback photo of her and her mother at the Olivier Awards in London in 2007, the night that Turner won best actress for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
She captioned the Instagram post: “#tbt mommy and me at the Olivier awards in London!"
In 2018, when Turner brought her one-woman show Finding My Voice to New York, Weiss posted a photo of an ad for the show. “Oh she’s serious... seriously coming to @thecarlylehotel with her show “Finding My Voice”! I suggest getting tickets now; I don’t think they’ll be around for long,” she captioned the shot.
After a performance of that show, a fan wrote Turner a letter about how impactful she found the performance. Weiss posted the letter on her Instagram, writing, in part, in the caption, “An incredible young woman wrote the most wonderful fan letter to my mom!! Reading it made me so proud to be her daughter, and so excited to get on stage again myself.”
Weiss is often her mom’s red carpet date
Weiss has accompanied Turner to many red carpet events, especially openings of stage shows and performances in New York, like opening night of Cirque du Soleil Zarkana at Radio City Music Hall in 2011, the premiere of Priscilla Queen of the Desert The Musical on Broadway that same year and the Broadway re-opening night of It's Only A Play in 2015 in New York City
In 2017, Weiss attended the Ms. Foundation for Women 2017 Gloria Awards Gala with Turner. The women were photographed with comedian Chelsea Handler at the event.
Afterward, Weiss posted the photo to Instagram, captioning it, “Chelsea, my mom, me... one of these things is not like the other ones. At least I get to hang out with some seriously badass women on the regular!”
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