Janine Turner - Career

Career

In 1978, the fifteen-year old Turner left home to pursue a modeling career with the Wilhelmina Modeling Agency. Turner began her acting career in 1980, appearing in several episodes of Dallas. She continued to make guest appearances on television shows throughout the 1980s before landing the role of Laura Templeton on General Hospital. In 1990, she was cast as Maggie O'Connell on Northern Exposure, a role that earned her an Emmy nomination.

After her breakthrough in Northern Exposure, Turner appeared in the action film Cliffhanger, opposite Sylvester Stallone. Turner next appeared as June Cleaver in a film adaptation of television's Leave it to Beaver.

In 2004, she wrote and directed Trip in a Summer Dress, a film about a strong-willed mother and her children. In 2006, she appeared in a low budget movie filmed in Dallas, The Night of the White Pants. In 2006, Turner was appointed a member of the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation. In 2007, she appeared in a promotional video for 'Christoga,' a "Christian form of Yoga".

In 2008, Turner's book, Holding Her Head High: Inspiration from 12 Single Mothers Who Championed Their Children and Changed History, was released. The book focuses on single mothers through history, such as Rachel Lavein Fawcett, the abandoned single mother of Alexander Hamilton.

That same year, Turner began an eight-episode run on the NBC television series Friday Night Lights. She portrayed Katie McCoy, mother of a talented high school football quarterback.

On May 21, 2011, Turner began hosting a live two-hour talk show on conservative-oriented talk radio station KLIF (AM) in Dallas.

Turner and her daughter Juliette began an organization called Constituting America aimed at educating Americans about the U.S. Constitution.