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Michelle Marie Pfeiffer (pronounced
/ˈfаifər/; born April 29, 1958) is an American actress. She made her
screen début in 1980, but first garnered mainstream attention with her
appearance in Scarface (1983). She rose to prominence during the late
1980s and early 1990s, during which time she gave a series of
critically-acclaimed performances in the films Dangerous Liaisons (1988),
Married to the Mob (1988), The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), The Russia
House (1990), Frankie and Johnny (1991), Love Field (1992), and The Age of
Innocence (1993), as well as appearing as Catwoman, the feline villainess
of Batman Returns (1992).
Pfeiffer has been nominated for an Academy Award three times: Best
Supporting Actress for Dangerous Liaisons (1988), Best Actress for The
Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), and Best Actress for Love Field (1992). She
won a Golden Globe Award for The Fabulous Baker Boys, a BAFTA Award for
Dangerous Liaisons, and the Silver Bear for Best Actress for Love Field.
She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard.
Pfeiffer appeared on the cover of People's first "50 Most Beautiful People
in the World" issue in 1990, and again in 1999, having made the list a
record six times during the decade.
Pfeiffer was born in Santa Ana, California, the second of four children
born to Richard Pfeiffer, a heating and air-conditioning contractor, and
Donna (née Taverna), a homemaker. She has one elder brother, Rick, and two
younger sisters, Dedee Pfeiffer and Lori Pfeiffer, both actresses. The
family moved to Midway City, California, where Pfeiffer spent her
childhood. She attended Fountain Valley High School and worked as a
check-out girl at Vons supermarket. She then attended Golden West College
where she was a member of the Alpha Delta Pi sorority. After a short stint
training to be a court stenographer, she decided upon an acting career,
and entered the Miss Orange County Beauty Pageant in 1978 (which she won),
and the Miss Los Angeles contest later that year, after which she was
signed by a Hollywood agent who appeared on the judging panel. Moving to
Los Angeles, she began to audition for commercials and bit parts in films.
Pfeiffer's early acting appearances included television roles in Fantasy
Island, Delta House and BAD Cats, and small film roles in Falling in Love
Again (1980) with Susannah York, The Hollywood Knights (1980) opposite
Tony Danza, and Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (1981),
none of which met with much success. Pfeiffer took acting lessons, and
appeared in three further television movies - Callie and Son (1981) with
Lindsay Wagner, The Children Nobody Wanted (1981), and a remake of
Splendor in the Grass (as Ginny) - before landing her first major film
role as Stephanie Zinone in Grease 2 (1982), the sequel to the smash-hit
musical Grease (1978). The film was a critical and commercial failure,
although Pfeiffer herself received some positive attention, notably from
the New York Times, which said "although she is a relative screen
newcomer, Miss Pfeiffer manages to look much more insouciant and
comfortable than anyone else in the cast." Despite escaping the critical
mauling, Pfeiffer's agent later admitted that her association with the
film meant that "she couldn't get any jobs. Nobody wanted to hire her."
Director Brian de Palma, having seen Grease 2, refused to audition
Pfeiffer for Scarface (1983), but relented upon the producer's insistence.
She was cast as cocaine-addicted trophy wife Elvira Hancock. The film was
considered excessively violent by most critics, but became a commercial
hit and gained a large cult following in subsequent years. Pfeiffer
received positive reviews for her supporting turn; Richard Corliss of Time
Magazine wrote, "most of the large cast is fine: Michelle Pfeiffer is
better..." while Dominick Dunne, in an article for Vanity Fair entitled
"Blonde Ambition", wrote, "she is on the verge of stardom. In the parlance
of the industry, she is hot."
Following Scarface, she accepted the roles of Isabeau d'Anjou in Ladyhawke
(1985) opposite Rutger Hauer, Diana in John Landis' comedy Into the Night
(1985) opposite Jeff Goldblum, Faith Healy in Alan Alda's Sweet Liberty
(1986) opposite Michael Caine, and Brenda Landers in a segment of the
1950s sci-fi parody Amazon Women on the Moon (1987), all of which, despite
achieving only modest commercial success, helped to establish her as an
actress. She finally scored a major box-office hit as Sukie Ridgemont in
the supernatural comedy The Witches of Eastwick (1987), alongside Jack
Nicholson, Cher and Susan Sarandon.
Pfeiffer was cast against type, as a murdered gangster's widowed moll on
the run, in Jonathan Demme's mafia comedy Married to the Mob (1988),
opposite Matthew Modine, Dean Stockwell and Mercedes Ruehl. For the role
of Angela de Marco, she donned a curly brunette wig and a Brooklyn accent,
and received her first of six consecutive Golden Globe Best Actress Award
nominations. Pfeiffer then appeared as chic restauranteuse Jo Ann
Vallenari in Tequila Sunrise (1988) opposite Mel Gibson and Kurt Russell,
but experienced creative and personal differences with director Robert
Towne, who later described her as the "most difficult" actress he's ever
worked with.
At Demme's personal recommendation, Pfeiffer joined the cast of Stephen
Frears's Dangerous Liaisons (1988) alongside Glenn Close and John
Malkovich, playing the virtuous victim of seduction, Madame Marie de
Tourvel. Her performance won her widespread acclaim; Hal Hinson of the
Washington Post saw Pfeiffer's role as "the least obvious and the most
difficult. Nothing is harder to play than virtue, and Pfeiffer is smart
enough not to try. Instead, she embodies it. Her porcelain-skinned beauty,
in this regard, is a great asset, and the way it's used makes it seem an
aspect of her spirituality." She won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a
Supporting Role and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best
Supporting Actress.
Pfeiffer then accepted the role of Susie Diamond, a hard-edged former call
girl turned lounge singer, in The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), which
co-starred Jeff Bridges and Beau Bridges as the eponymous Baker Boys. She
underwent intensive voice training for the role, and performed all of her
character's vocals. The film was a modest success, but Pfeiffer's
portrayal of Susie drew raves from critics. Pauline Kael wrote of the
performance as possessing "the grinning infectiousness of Carole Lombard,
and the radiance of the very young Lauren Bacall," while Roger Ebert
compared her to Rita Hayworth in Gilda and Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It
Hot, and described the film as "one of the movies they will use as a
document, years from now, when they begin to trace the steps by which
Pfeiffer became a great star." Variety singled out her performance of
'Makin' Whoopee', writing that Pfeiffer "hits the spot in the film's
certain-to-be-remembered highlight... crawling all over a piano in a
blazing red dress. She's dynamite." During the 1989–1990 awards season,
Pfeiffer dominated the Best Actress category at every major awards
ceremony, winning awards at the Golden Globes, the National Board of
Review, the National Society of Film Critics, the New York Film Critics
Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the Chicago Film
Critics Association. At the Academy Awards, she was favored to win the
Best Actress Oscar, but the award went to Jessica Tandy for Driving Miss
Daisy in what was considered a surprise upset. The only other major acting
award for which she was nominated that she did not take home for The
Fabulous Baker Boys was the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading
Role, which also went to Tandy.
Pfeiffer continued to build on her A-list status in Hollywood, accepting
(and also turning down) many varied, high-profile roles. She took the part
of Katya Orlova in the film adaptation of John le Carré's The Russia House
(1990) opposite Sean Connery, a role that required her to adopt a Russian
accent. For her efforts, she was rewarded with a third Golden Globe
nomination. Pfeiffer then landed the role of damaged waitress Frankie in
Garry Marshall's Frankie and Johnny (1991), a film adaptation of Terrence
McNally's Broadway play Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, which
reunited her with her Scarface co-star, Al Pacino. The casting was seen as
controversial by many, as Pfeiffer was considered far too beautiful to
play an "ordinary" waitress; Kathy Bates, the original Frankie on
Broadway, also expressed disappointment over the producers' choice.
Pfeiffer herself stated that she took the role because it "wasn't what
people would expect of her." Pfeiffer was once again nominated for a
Golden Globe for her performance.
Pfeiffer earned her third Academy Award nomination and fifth Golden Globe
nomination for her performance as Lurene Hallett in the nostalgic
independent drama Love Field (1992), a film that had been temporarily
shelved by the financially-troubled Orion Pictures. It was finally
released in late 1992, in time for Oscar consideration. The New York Times
review wrote of Pfeiffer as "again demonstrating that she is as subtle and
surprising as she is beautiful." For her portrayal of the eccentric Dallas
housewife, she won the Silver Bear Best Actress award at the Berlin Film
Festival.
Pfeiffer took the role of Catwoman (Selina Kyle) in Tim Burton's Batman
Returns (1992) opposite Michael Keaton and Danny DeVito. For the role of
Catwoman, she trained in martial arts and kickboxing; one co-star stated
that "Michelle had four stunt doubles - but she did all her own whippin'."
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone praised her for giving the "feminist
avenger a tough core of intelligence and wit" and called her a "classic
dazzler." Premiere retrospectively lauded her performance: "Arguably the
outstanding villain of the Tim Burton era, Michelle Pfeiffer's deadly
kitten with a whip brought sex to the normally neutered franchise. Her
stitched-together, black patent leather costume, based on a sketch of
Burton's, remains the character's most iconic look. And Michelle Pfeiffer
overcomes Batman Returns' heavy-handed feminist dialogue to deliver a
growling, fierce performance."
The following year, she played Countess Ellen Olenska in Martin Scorsese's
film adaptation of Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence (1993) opposite
Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder, receiving the Elvira Notari Prize at
the Venice Film Festival, and a sixth nomination for a Golden Globe award.
Pfeiffer's subsequent career choices have met with varying degrees of
success. After The Age of Innocence, she played the role of Laura Alden
opposite Jack Nicholson in Wolf (1994), a horror film that garnered a
mixed critical reception. Her next role was that of high school teacher
and former US Marine LouAnne Johnson in the surprise box office hit
Dangerous Minds (1995). She appeared as her character in the music video
for the soundtrack's lead single, 'Gangsta's Paradise' by Coolio
(featuring L.V.). The song won the 1996 Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo
Performance, and the video won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Rap
Video. She then took the role of Sally Atwater in the romantic drama Up
Close & Personal (1996) opposite Robert Redford; the film's screenplay,
co-written by husband and wife team John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion,
was intended to be a biographical account of the career of news anchor
Jessica Savitch, but the final version had almost nothing to do with
Savitch's life, leading Dunne to write an exposé of his eight-year battle
with the Hollywood producers, Monster: Living Off the Big Screen.
Subsequent performances included the title (but technically supporting)
role of Gillian Lewis in To Gillian On Her 37th Birthday (1996) opposite
Peter Gallagher and Claire Danes, Melanie Parker in One Fine Day (1996)
opposite George Clooney, Rose Cook Lewis in the film adaptation of Jane
Smiley's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel A Thousand Acres (1997) with Jessica
Lange and Jennifer Jason Leigh, Beth Cappadora in The Deep End of the
Ocean (1998) opposite Treat Williams, Titania the Queen of the Fairies in
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999) with Kevin Kline, Rupert Everett and
Stanley Tucci, and Katie Jordan in The Story of Us (1999) opposite Bruce
Willis.
Her next film, the Hitchcockian thriller What Lies Beneath (2000) with
Harrison Ford, was a commercial success, opening number one at the box
office in July 2000. She then accepted the role of highly-strung lawyer
Rita Harrison in I Am Sam (2001) opposite Sean Penn. For her performance
as murderous artist Ingrid Magnussen in White Oleander (2002), alongside
Alison Lohman in her film début, Renée Zellweger and Robin Wright Penn,
Pfeiffer garnered a substantial amount of critical praise. Stephen Holden
of the New York Times wrote that "Ms. Pfeiffer, giving the most complex
screen performance of her career, makes her Olympian seductress at once
irresistible and diabolical." Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times
described her as "incandescent," bringing "power and unshakable will to
her role as mother-master manipulator" in a "riveting, impeccable
performance." She earned Best Supporting Actress Awards from the San Diego
Film Critics Society and the Kansas City Film Critics Circle, as well as a
Screen Actors Guild Award nomination.
Pfeiffer also did voice work in two animated films during this period,
voicing Tzipporah in The Prince of Egypt (1998), in which she introduced
the Academy Award–winning song, 'When You Believe', and Eris in Sinbad:
Legend of the Seven Seas (2003).
After a four-year hiatus, during which she remained largely out of the
public eye and devoted time to her husband and children, Pfeiffer returned
to the screen in 2007 with villainous roles in two major summer
blockbusters, as Velma von Tussle in the film adaptation of the Broadway
musical Hairspray (2007) with John Travolta and Christopher Walken, and as
ancient witch Lamia in fantasy adventure Stardust (2007) opposite Claire
Danes and Robert De Niro.
Pfeiffer then accepted the roles of Rosie in Amy Heckerling's I Could
Never Be Your Woman (2007) with Paul Rudd and Saoirse Ronan, and Linda in
Personal Effects (2009) opposite Ashton Kutcher. Her next film, an
adaptation of Colette's Chéri (2009), reunited her with the director
(Stephen Frears) and screenwriter (Christopher Hampton) of Dangerous
Liaisons (1988), a film for which all three were nominees for (and, in
Hampton's case, recipient of) an Academy Award. Pfeiffer played the role
of Léa de Lonval opposite Rupert Friend in the title role, with Kathy
Bates as his mother. Chéri premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in
February 2009, and received a nomination for the Golden Bear award. The
Times of London reviewed the film favorably, describing Hampton's
screenplay as a "steady flow of dry quips and acerbic one-liners" and
Pfeiffer's performance as "magnetic and subtle, her worldly nonchalance a
mask for vulnerability and heartache." Roger Ebert in the Chicago
Sun-Times wrote that it was "fascinating to observe how Pfeiffer controls
her face and voice during times of painful hurt." Kenneth Turan in the Los
Angeles Times praised the "wordless scenes that catch Léa unawares, with
the camera alone seeing the despair and regret that she hides from the
world. It's the kind of refined, delicate acting Pfeiffer does so well,
and it's a further reminder of how much we've missed her since she's been
away."
In 1989, Pfeiffer made her stage début in the role of Olivia in Twelfth
Night, a New York Shakespeare Festival production staged in Central Park.
Other film actors appearing in the play included Jeff Goldblum as Malvolio
and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as Viola. Frank Rich's review in the New
York Times was extremely critical of the production, stating "Ms. Pfeiffer
offers an object lesson in how gifted stars with young careers can be
misused by those more interested in exploiting their celebrity status than
in furthering their artistic development." Rich praised Pfeiffer's
performance in what was then her most recent film, the screwball comedy
Married to the Mob, but stating it was "unfortunate that the actress has
been asked to make both her stage and Shakespearean comic début in a role
chained to melancholy and mourning."
At the start of her career, Pfeiffer met Peter Horton at an acting class
taught by Milton Katselas in Los Angeles. They married in Santa Monica
when Pfeiffer was 22, and it was on their honeymoon that she discovered
she had won the lead role in Grease 2. Horton directed Pfeiffer in a 1985
ABC TV special, One Too Many, in which she played the high school
girlfriend of an alcoholic student (Val Kilmer); and in 1987, the
real-life couple then played an on-screen couple in the 'Hospital' segment
of John Landis's comedy skit compilation, Amazon Women on the Moon.
However, they decided to separate in 1988, and were divorced two years
later; Horton later blamed the split on their devotion to their work
rather than their marriage.
In 1993, Pfeiffer was set up on a blind date with television writer and
producer David E. Kelley (creator of Chicago Hope, Picket Fences, Ally
McBeal, Boston Public, The Practice and Boston Legal), but it became a
group event and they barely spoke to each other. The following week,
Kelley took her to the movies to see Bram Stoker's Dracula, and they began
dating seriously. They married on November 13, 1993. Since then, she has
made an uncredited cameo appearance in one episode of Kelley's television
series Picket Fences and played the title character in To Gillian On Her
37th Birthday, for which Kelley wrote the screenplay.
In between her marriages to Horton and Kelley, Pfeiffer had a three-year
relationship with Fisher Stevens (Early Edition, Hackers and Short
Circuit). They met when Pfeiffer was starring in the New York Shakespeare
Festival production of Twelfth Night, in which Stevens had the part of Sir
Andrew Aguecheek.
Pfeiffer and Kelley have two children, one adopted daughter and one
biological son. Pfeiffer, who was by her own admission desperate to start
a family, had entered into private adoption proceedings before she even
met Kelley. The biracial baby girl she adopted had been born in March
1993, to a young nurse in New York who could not afford to support all of
her children; she was christened Claudia Rose in November 1993, on the
same day that Pfeiffer and Kelley were married. Pfeiffer soon became
pregnant, and in August 1994, gave birth to a son, John Henry. |
