Her reluctance to go the facelift route is due in part to her hunch that, with a face like hers, it would look too obvious; but it also has a lot to do with the fact that her arthritis has put simple vanity into perspective.
Turner grew up in Canada, Venezuela and London because her father, whom she adored, was in the foreign service. When she was 17, however, he died suddenly and her mother took her four children back to their grandparents in Springfield, Missouri. Turner hated it: she thought she would die of boredom and slept with her return ticket to London under her pillow. Escape finally came when she was offered the opportunity to finish her theater studies course at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. In 1977, she graduated and promptly set off for New York, where she worked as a waitress while she went up for auditions. It wasn't long before she had a regular gig in a daytime soap The Doctors.
Two years later, she auditioned for the role that made her famous: Matty in Body Heat. "My daughter [Rachel, who is at now at university] only saw it for the first time last year. She said I was so hot!" This is certainly so, but it was a mixed blessing. "The sex in that film was groundbreaking. But suddenly I was the new girl in town. I very quickly learned to drive myself everywhere." Why? "Because in LA you can't walk, you can't take taxis. So if someone doesn't want to leave, to take you back to your hotel, you're stuck. It was all very flattering, but it was scary, too." Is that why she didn't marry another actor? "I was never going to marry an actor. I have never seen an actor walk past a mirror without checking himself out. Who needs two of those in a family?"
She met Jay when she was trying to buy an apartment. He proposed in the middle of Second Avenue on one knee; their daughter was born four years later. Weiss coped well with being Mr Turner.
As she was completing work on John Waters' Serial Mom in 1994, her body packed up on her. Literally. She saw a specialist, was prescribed steroids and her weight ballooned. Finally, she saw a doctor who told her to exercise. This she did, though it was agony, and it helped. Gradually, using pilates, the gym and surgery when things get really desperate, she has got her arthritis under control. Is she in pain now? "Yes, but it's not acute. It's a question of putting up with it."
So now, at 53, she finds herself with a different kind of career. Illness being taboo in Hollywood, she has returned to her first love, the theater - and is single to boot.
Is she an intimidating prospect? "It's my voice; I don't think it's me. I'm a pussycat. I would love to have a man take care of me." She raises her voice a few notes: "Will you take it off my hands, darling? Will you find out which restaurant we're going to?" But let's be clear: she is not complaining. She has her friends, her family, her work. Which reminds her - she has a meeting to attend. Moments later, she is gone.
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