Purpose and Passion Hold the Keys to Janine Turner’s Life

Janine Turner. Amy Ciraolo, Janine Turner Picture

Faith, tenacity, and determination are what actress, director, author, and public speaker Janine Turner credits for her successful journey from teenage model, to soap opera star on General Hospital, to prime-time sweetheart on the television series Northern Exposure, to founder and co-president of the non-profit foundation Constituting America.

It was her parents, Turner told The Epoch Times, who both by words and example instilled in her the ambition and fortitude to pursue her passions.

“I remember when I was 14 years of age and auditioning for things here in Texas, and when I wouldn’t get them, my mother would say, ‘Well, when God closes the door, he opens a window,’” said Turner, 62, who grew up in Fort Worth, Texas.

“My mom was also quite the businesswoman. If I called my agents and said, ‘Hey, what’s happening?’ If they said, ‘Oh, it’s a little slow,’ I would hang up the phone and my mom would say, ‘Well, someone’s working and it might as well be you.’”

Turner said her mother, as well as her father, who died in 2014, taught her how to deal with all the ups and downs of life in a healthy way.

“It’s really sort of pulling myself up by the bootstraps and saying, ‘Okay, If I’m still here. What is my purpose?’ And let me try to show up for that. My dad used to always say, ‘I’m still here every day. So if I’m still here, then God has a purpose,’” she said.

Home on the Range

Turner calls her daughter Juliette her “greatest joy and blessing.” She said it took some time until her acting career was firmly established and the most challenging days of single motherhood were behind her, and she began to contemplate a more expansive future for herself.

She said she started to think of how to integrate her love of history and her love of country with her ambitious creativity.

Her father was a graduate of West Point. “He was from Athens, Texas, and an athlete. And they plucked him out of Athens to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point to play football at the time. It was Army Air Force at the time because they didn’t have an Air Force. So I was raised with Air Force jets flying over my head,” said Turner.

“It was just that kind of imbuing of love of country like Reagan talked about. It’s in the air. It’s something that my father talked about for years in his quiet, stoic way.”

Turner was also crafting a return to her home state. And when the opportunity struck, she wasted no time in purchasing a Longhorn Cattle ranch in North Texas as a retreat for her and Juliette.

“When [Northern Exposure] was picked up for 50 episodes, I had this epiphany where I’m sort of like: I want a pickup truck, I want a horse, I want a van, and I want to move back to Texas,” she said.

Turner said she shared a passion for ranch life, as well as horseback riding, with her Northern Exposure co-star Barry Corbin, and they would often show up in spurs with their horses.

“I purchased a horse. I purchased a pickup truck and started searching for the ranch. And then when the show was wrapped in ’95, I moved back to my ranch,” she said.

Educate, Empower, and Inspire

It was on that ranch where the seeds of her nonprofit Constituting America took hold.

“I did a lot of schooling with my daughter at home, even though I took her to schools, public and private. I read the Constitution with my daughter in the hammock and I thought, ‘Wow, what do they really mean by this?’” Turner said. Her daughter recently graduated from Harvard Law School.

“And I called my friend, Cathy Gillespie, and I said, ‘Let’s start a foundation and teach kids why the Constitution matters.’”

Through interactive speeches, classroom instruction and podcasts, Constituting America’s mission is to “educate, empower, and inspire” America’s youth and citizens about the importance and relevance of the U.S. Constitution. And in a nod to the country’s partisan times, noted Turner, they have added a new layer of discussion: How to Have a Civil Civic Conversation.

The Constitution doesn’t care about your political affiliation, Turner said.

“It’s all very nonpartisan. The minute a Republican is elected for president, the House and the Senate love that Constitution, and if you get a Democrat in office, the conservatives love that Constitution.”

Broadway Bound

At the moment, Turner is melding her deep connection to history with her acting life. “I kind of merged that creativity with history,” she said, with the goal of bringing to stage the story of Belva Lockwood, an American lawyer, politician, educator, and author who was active in the women’s rights and suffrage movements.

Turner said she shares a single motherhood bond with Lockwood, and she was inspired by Lockwood’s “tenacity, her unwillingness to hear [or] to accept the word ‘No,’ raising her daughter alone in 1850. When they said she couldn’t get a law degree, she got one. When they said she couldn’t be admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court, she fought for it for five years. And then she ran for president in 1884, actually, on the ballot.”

Ultimately, Turner, who wrote the book and lyrics, hopes to take the musical “Belva—Don’t Give Up Before the Miracle” to Broadway.

“I’ve realized it’s a 10-year process,” she said. “I always joked that I‘d be playing Belva with a cane, and now I think I’ll actually be playing Belva with a cane. I’m meeting with investors ... and the next goal, I think I’m going to do it in my very, very tiny local theater called the State Theater up near where I live in North Texas.”

Always Move Forward

Like Lockwood, Turner’s always prepared for potential challenges in life.

“If you’re going to tell me ‘No,’ well, then [I say], ‘Let’s do that.’ There’s that wonderful t-shirt that says, ‘Go ahead, underestimate me.’”

Back on the ranch, Turner recently moved her 87-year-old mom into her home, giving her even more reason to reflect on how she got where she is today.

“I think we’re all born with innate purposes and gifts, and it’s one or maybe two or three or four or five,” she says. “And we have to hone in on them, listen and hone in.”