Phoebe Belle Cates Kline (born July 16, 1963) is an American businesswoman and retired actress and model. She appeared in the films Paradise (1982), Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), Gremlins (1984), Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990), Drop Dead Fred (1991) and Princess Caraboo (1994). In 2005, she founded the Blue Tree boutique.

Cates was born on July 16, 1963, in New York City, to a family of television and Broadway production insiders. She is the daughter of Lily and Joseph Cates (né Katz), who was a major Broadway producer and a pioneering figure in television, and who helped create The $64,000 Question. Her uncle, Gilbert Cates, produced numerous television specials, often in partnership with Cates's father, as well as several annual Academy Awards shows. Her father was Jewish and her mother was Catholic. Cates is of Eurasian or mixed European and Asian descent. Her mother was born in Shanghai, China to a family of Chinese-Filipino heritage. Cates's father was Russian Jewish from Manhattan. Cates has a sister.

Cates attended the Professional Children's School and the Juilliard School. 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.

At age ten, Cates started modeling, appearing in Seventeen and other teen-oriented magazines, and began a short, successful career as a model. She said that she disliked the industry: "It was just the same thing, over and over. After a while, I did it solely for the money." As a teen model, Cates appeared on the cover of Seventeen magazine four times, first in the April 1979 issue. She appeared within the magazine as well, on the editorial pages in 1979 and 1980. Dissatisfied with modeling, Cates decided to pursue acting.

Cates was offered her first part in the movie Paradise (1982) after a screen test in New York. She was uncertain about the nudity the role required, but her father encouraged her to take the job.

Paradise was filmed in Israel from March to May 1981. In the film, Cates performed several full-frontal nude scenes and several rear scenes aged 17. The movie had a plot similar to The Blue Lagoon. She also sang the film's theme song and recorded an album of the same name. In a 1982 interview, she recalled having trouble with the career change: As a model, she had to be conscious of the camera; but as an actress, she could not. She later regretted being in the film: "What I learned was never to do a movie like that again." She claimed that the film's producers used a body double to film nude close-ups of her character without telling her. According to her co-star Willie Aames, "She will have nothing to do with the film. She's really upset about it. She won't do any promotion with me."

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". She said that she had "the most fun" filming that movie.

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