Fast Times at Ridgemont High star Phoebe Cates forged a quiet — yet very successful — life outside of Hollywood while married to Oscar winner Kevin Kline.
Cates got her big break at age 17 when she played teen queen Linda Barrett in the 1982 high school comedy Fast Times — a movie that would make her an ‘80s icon. Cates worked steadily throughout the 1980s with appearances in the Gremlins franchise, the 1987 rom-com Date With an Angel and cult classic comedy Drop Dead Fred.
By the end of the ‘80s, Cates was mostly focused on stage work, having told the Chicago Tribune that there were “simply not that many good parts in film” in Hollywood. Cates came from a family of theater performers and made her Off-Broadway debut in 1984 in the Cold War comedy The Nest of the Wood Grouse.
“I think of theater as what I like to do most. … I’ve only felt happy as an actress for about two years. I rarely watch my film work,” she admitted in 1988.
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Cates stopped acting entirely by the mid-1990s, although she came out of retirement briefly in 2001 for her longtime friend (and Fast Times costar) Jennifer Jason Leigh’s acclaimed comedy The Anniversary Party.
The one-time teen idol kept busy personally and professionally after retiring from acting. She met future husband Kline during an audition for The Big Chill in 1982, with the couple eventually tying the knot in New York in 1989. Kline and Cates share two children: actor and filmmaker Owen, born in 1991, and musician Greta, born in 1994.
While Owen and Greta are now grown, Kline told Parade in 2015 that his two children always make time to spend with their parents.
“We have dinner all together once a week at least,” Kline said. “The kids haven’t banished us from their lives.”
Phoebe Cates and Kevin Kline in March 1989. Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images
The Klines have rarely discussed their marriage in public, though Kevin did tell Red Carpet TVin 2024 that moving from Los Angeles to New York City was a crucial decision.
“If your marriage lasts more than six months, you’re already in the Guinness Book of World Records, if you’re a Hollywood marriage,” he joked.
The French Kiss actor suggested that one of the couple’s strengths is that Cates always has “her head on her shoulders.”
“Unlike me, I usually have my head on her shoulders, too,” he added. “She’s a great wife, a great mother, great person, and she keeps me honest.”
After Cates relocated to the Upper East Side in New York City in the 1990s, she frequented the Penny Whistle gift store and chose to replicate its understated elegance when the shop closed. Cates’ own boutique Blue Tree launched in October 2005 to sell a hand-picked selection of signature gifts, from perfume and candles to stuffed animals and photography.
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The New York Times profiled Cates following Blue True’s 2005 grand opening and credited her with creating “a version of [shopping district] Elizabeth Street for the [affluent] Carnegie Hill crowd.” A year after opening her own boutique, Cates revealed that she’d modeled Blue Tree’s charming decor on an old-time general store.
“I always wanted to have a general store,” she told USA Today in 2006. “If I could have had a photo booth and sold candy, I would have.”
Cates credited her husband with naming Blue True, explaining: “It’s a gentle reference to the blue trees in the Fauvist paintings. It’s the idea that this is not a natural thing to find in this neighborhood.”
Phoebe Cates in 1986. Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images
The former actress was very hands-on in selecting the products for sale at Blue Tree, as she wanted each item she sold to feel “true” to her personality.
As for customers recognizing Blue Tree’s famous owner, Cates joked: “If they don’t [recognize me], they tell me I look like Phoebe Cates, and I say, ‘I get that a lot.’”
