Phoebe Cates is most widely remembered for portraying Kate Beringer — a role that made her instantly familiar to millions of American teens at the time.
After appearing in several of the biggest teen films of the 1980s, she quietly stepped away from the entertainment world in the mid-1990s. Here’s what happened to her after her movie-star years, and why she chose to leave Hollywood behind.
Phoebe Belle Cates was born in New York City on July 16, 1963. Over the next 12 years, she appeared in 16 films, ranging from teen favorites like Fast Times at Ridgemont High to later projects such as 1991’s Drop Dead Fred. Then, in the mid-1990s, her name suddenly stopped appearing in movie credits, leaving fans wondering where she went.
Cates grew up in a family closely tied to show business. Her uncle, Joseph Katz, was a Broadway producer involved in Academy Awards productions and major television specials. Her heritage was also diverse — her maternal grandfather was Chinese-Filipino and born in Shanghai, while both of her grandmothers were Russian-Jewish.
The family also had ties to the art world. The late Andy Warhol, who died in 1987, was known to be a family friend.
Cates attended respected schools, including Juilliard, the Professional Children’s School, and the Hewitt School. She began modeling at just 10 years old and quickly became a familiar face in teen magazines even before acting entered the picture. Still, modeling was never her real goal — she originally dreamed of becoming a dancer.
That dream ended when she suffered a serious knee injury at age 15, forcing her to leave ballet training. Around that same time, she leaned more into modeling, though she later admitted she didn’t enjoy it and found it repetitive, saying she mostly did it for the paycheck.
Her film career began in 1982 with Paradise, after she was discovered during a screen test in New York. The movie later earned a reputation as a Blue Lagoon-style copy, and reports suggest Cates was uncomfortable with how it turned out.
Later that same year, she broke through with a standout performance as Linda Barrett in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Both early films included nudity, but Cates explained in a 1982 interview that Paradise felt much harder because she was barely 17 and the scenes were more serious and difficult to justify. By contrast, the topless moment in Fast Times was intended as a joke and felt less emotionally heavy.
Fast Times featured several young actors who would later become major stars, including Nicolas Cage, Sean Penn, Eric Stoltz, and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Penn later admitted that none of them understood at the time that the film would become so iconic. Its cultural impact was eventually recognized when it was added to the U.S. National Film Registry.
In 1983, Cates appeared in the comedy Private School and also contributed vocals to the soundtrack, singing songs such as “Just One Touch” and “How Do I Let You Know.”
She then played Kate Beringer in the hugely successful 1984 horror-comedy Gremlins, and returned for the sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch in 1990. In 1987, she starred in the fantasy romantic comedy Date with an Angel, which was met with poor reviews.
Even though she came from a theater-connected family, Cates didn’t start stage acting until the mid-1980s. During that period, she performed in off-Broadway productions such as Rich Relations and The Nest of the Wood Grouse, and later made her Broadway debut in The Tenth Man.
Over the years, Cates often said that theater was what she truly loved. She felt stage work offered more interesting and varied roles for women than film. In 1988, she said she considered theater her strongest work and admitted she rarely watched her own movies.
Even so, she continued acting in films throughout the late 1980s, appearing in comedies like Shag and Big City alongside Bridget Fonda. Unfortunately, many of those films performed poorly and received negative reviews.
In 1994, she starred in Princess Caraboo, a historical comedy based on the real story of Mary Baker, a woman who pretended to be a foreign princess in 19th-century England. The film included a notable cast, including Jim Broadbent, Wendy Hughes, John Lithgow, Stephen Rea, and Kevin Kline.
She also starred in Drop Dead Fred (1991), playing a lonely young woman dealing with a chaotic imaginary friend. While the movie was criticized when it first came out, it later gained a loyal following, helping Cates earn a cult-classic reputation.
Not long after, she stepped away from Hollywood — not because of scandal or controversy, but because she chose a quieter life focused on family.
Phoebe Cates is married to actor Kevin Kline. The two met in 1983 during auditions for The Big Chill. They married in 1989, and she became known as Phoebe Cates Kline. They have two children: Owen Joseph Kline (born in 1991) and Greta Simone Kline (born in 1994).
Kline, an Oscar winner, is best known for A Fish Called Wanda.
After leaving Hollywood to raise her children, Cates eventually moved into a new career. In 2005, she opened a boutique called Blue Tree on Madison Avenue in New York City, near her home. The shop sells a variety of items, including clothing, jewelry, books, stuffed animals, and fragrances.
Although she has occasionally returned to acting, she hasn’t appeared in a major film since 2001’s The Anniversary Party. She made a small appearance in the film as a favor to director Jennifer Jason Leigh — her former Fast Times co-star — and appeared alongside her husband and children.
In 2015, she also voiced her Gremlins character again for the video game Lego Dimensions.
Phoebe Cates’ story is unusual in the best way: she walked away from fame on her own terms and built a stable, fulfilling life afterward. In an industry where many former child and teen stars face difficult paths later in life, her journey feels refreshing — calm, grounded, and deeply personal.
And it’s hard not to hope she and her family continue to enjoy that happiness for years to come.
