A few years later, she wanted to become a dancer, and eventually received a scholarship to the School of American Ballet, but quit after a knee injury at age 14.

"[16] Later that year, Cates starred in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), featuring what Rolling Stone has described as "the most memorable bikini-drop in cinema history".

[13] The next year, Cates was in the comedy Private School (1983), co-starring Matthew Modine and Betsy Russell, and where she sang on two songs of the film's soundtrack: "Just One Touch" and "How Do I Let You Know".

In the summer of 1984, Cates co-starred in the box office hit Gremlins for executive producer Steven Spielberg, the highest-grossing film of her career.

In June 1984, Cates made her stage debut in the Off-Broadway play The Nest of the Wood Grouse, a comedy by Soviet writer Viktor Rozov, at the Joseph Papp Public Theater.

[23] Cates appeared Off-Broadway again two years later in Rich Relations, written by David Henry Hwang, at the Second Stage Theatre.

[24] In December 1989, Cates made her Broadway debut in a revival of Paddy Chayefsky's The Tenth Man at the Vivian Beaumont Theater.

These include Date with an Angel (1987), Bright Lights, Big City (1988), Shag (1988), Heart of Dixie (1989), Drop Dead Fred (1991) and Bodies, Rest & Motion (1993).

[28] Cates was set to play Steve Martin's daughter in the successful comedy Father of the Bride (1991), but her pregnancy with her first child forced her to drop out.

[28] In 2001, Cates briefly returned to acting for one film, The Anniversary Party (2001), as a favor to her best friend and former Fast Times at Ridgemont High castmate Jennifer Jason Leigh, who directed it.

[12] In 1983, during her audition for a role (awarded to Meg Tilly) in The Big Chill, Cates met actor Kevin Kline.

[33][34] They moved to the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York, across Fifth Avenue from Central Park, where they raised their two children, son Owen Joseph Kline (b.

Owen also appeared in the 2005 film The Squid and the Whale, and made his directorial debut with the coming-of-age black comedy Funny Pages.