Uma Karuna Thurman

Thurman was born in Boston, to model Nena von Schlebrügge and professor Robert Thurman. She and her siblings spent time in the Himalayan town of Almora, Uttarakhand, India, during childhood, and the Dalai Lama, to whom Robert Thurman has long been close, once visited their home. She grew up mostly in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she went to Amherst Regional Middle School and then moved to Woodstock, New York. While her father gave his children a Buddhist upbringing, she has the same name as one of the Hindu goddess Parvati's alternate names, "Uma", which means "Light" in Sanskrit. Regarding religion, she now calls herself agnostic. She has three brothers, Ganden (b. 1968), Dechen (b. 1973), and Mipam (b. 1978), and a half-sister named Taya (b. 1960), from her father's previous marriage. She is described as having been an awkward and introverted girl who was teased for her tall frame, angular bone structure, enormous feet and unusual name (sometimes using the name “Uma Karen” instead of her birth name). When she was 10 years old, a friend's mother suggested a nose job. As a child, she suffered bouts of body dysmorphic disorder, which she discussed in an interview with Talk magazine in 2001. She attended Amherst Public Schools. In the 8th grade she discovered her love for acting. Talent scouts noticed her performance as Abigail in a production of The Crucible and offered her the chance to act professionally. Thurman attended Northfield Mount Hermon School, a preparatory school in Massachusetts, before dropping out to pursue a career in acting.
• Family background
Thurman's father, Robert Alexander Farrar Thurman (b. August 3, 1941), was born in New York City, to Elizabeth Dean (Farrar), a stage actress, and Beverly Reid Thurman, Jr., an Associated Press editor and United Nations translator. Robert Thurman was professor of religion at Amherst College from 1973 to 1988, when he accepted a position at Columbia University, where he was a professor of Tibetan Buddhism. Robert is of English, German, Scottish, and Irish ancestry.
Uma Thurman's mother, Nena von Schlebrügge, was a model born in Mexico City, Mexico, in 1941. Uma's maternal grandfather was Colonel Baron Friedrich Karl Johannes von Schlebrügge, a German cavalry officer in the first World War, in business in Berlin during the '20s and '30s; he left for Mexico when the Nazis were seeking to jail him, after he refused to continue in the army to train younger soldiers. Uma's maternal grandmother was Swedish-born Birgit Holmquist, from Trelleborg, who in 1930 modelled for a nude statue that overlooks the harbor of Smygehuk, Sweden (Birgit's father was of Swedish descent and Birgit's mother was of German and Danish descent). Thurman's mother was previously married to LSD guru Timothy Leary.