Biography
Michelle Pfeiffer was born in Midway City, Orange County, California,
near Huntingdon Beach, on the 29th of April, 1958. Her father, Richard,
was a heating and air-conditioning contractor. Her mother, Donna,
was a housewife, looking after Michelle, her elder brother Rick,
and two younger sisters, Dedee and Lori.
Richard and Donna had moved to California from North Dakota to escape
the fall-out of post-WW2 depression. Their heritage makes Michelle
a mix of Swedish, German, Dutch, Irish and Swiss ("I'm kind of a
mutt", she's said).
At Fountain Valley High School, Michelle was known as "Michelle
Mudturtle" for having big lips and walking like a duck, and she became
the school bully there. She bashed everybody, including the boys. "I
was a rotten kid," she said later "just rotten. If
anyone needed anyone beaten up they would come and get me".
Michelle lied about her age to get paid work and started as a check-out
girl in a supermarket age 14.
During her time as student, Michelle mostly hung out with the surfers
on Huntingdon Beach - she was a Beach Bunny, into drugs and wrecking
her first car, a red '65 Mustang, before she was 16.
Her hairdresser had told her that one route to getting an agent
was through Beauty Pageants. She didn't want to play on her looks
- after all, she had big lips and walked like a duck - but took his
advice, had some model shots done, and entered and won the Miss Orange
County competition.
She moved to Hollywood, attended all the cattle-call auditions and
finally scored a debut in Fantasy Island ("Eet's
the plehn, boss!") as a pretty, dumb blonde with one line - "Who
is he, Naomi?"
Trouble was, Pretty Dumb Blonde was all she ever got,
this terrible period culminating in the TV series Delta House, which
sprang from the hit movie Animal House. Michelle, credited as Bombshell,
got very few lines, at one point weeping down the phone to her agent
- "They're putting me in hot-pants again!"
Work was beginning to come with small roles, but her personal
life was down the pan. Michelle had turned to a cult for guidance.
Dealing in metaphysics and demanding vegetarianism, they'd certainly
helped clean her up - she no longer drank, smoked or did drugs. But
she was also handing over control of her life and prospects to them. "I
was brainwashed," she said later "I gave them an enormous amount
of money" - though she did add that she'd rather have depended on
a cult than on drugs or "some lecherous man". She wanted to leave
but, having no confidence in her ability to live without them, she
couldn't.
Michelle found help in director Peter Horton. They started dating
and he wanted to help her. Coincidentally, he was to appear in
a movie called Split Image, where a kid is enrolled in Peter Fonda's
cult then ruthlessly de-programmed by James Woods. Researching the
part, he travelled to San Francisco, taking Michelle with him to
meet some real-life de-programmers. Recognising what they told her
to be the truth, she found the strength to leave the cult. But she
did cling to Horton, marrying him in 1981 at the Santa Monica court
house. She was 22, he was 26. Due to dad Richard's strict regime,
Michelle said Peter was "practically my first proper boyfriend".
Now work really began to pick up, some of it good. In a remake
of Splendour In The Grass, she played Ginny, bad-girl sister of Bud
Stamper (originally played by Warren Beatty), the object of Melissa
Gilbert's affections. Then came her first stand-out performance,
in The Children Nobody Wanted. Here she played the helpful girlfriend
of Tom Butterford, a fellow who keeps adopting kids to save them
from the perils of the orphanage.
Next, Michelle got the leading role in Grease
2, but it turned out
to be not the great success that was expected, and Michelle was once
again typecast as a sassy blonde.
Then she played Elvira in Brian de Palma's Scarface with Al Pacino,
Into The Night by John Landis with Jeff Goldblum and Ladyhawke with
Rutger Hauer and Matthew Broderick - where she was
mostly required to be beautiful - something she actively loathes. "Just
standing around looking beautiful is so boring," she's
complained "really boring, so boring".
And then came her big breakthrough - with Jack Nicholson, Susan
Sarandon and Cher in The Witches Of Eastwick. During that time, her
marriage with Peter Horton was breaking up.
Then came Married to the Mob which brought her a Golden Globe nomination,
and Dangerous Liaisons an Oscar nomination. Another Golden Globe
and Oscar nomination followed for The Fabulous
Baker Boys.
Keen for yet more of a challenge, Michelle now took to the stage.
Despite having only done it once, in a small role in a 1981 production
of Playground In The Fall, she appeared as Countess Olivia in Twelfth
Night, alongside her former co-stars Jeff Goldblum (Into The Night)
and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (Scarface). There were crowds of
2000, scathing reviews, and she kept on till she was excellent.
Michelle also found anew love with actor
Fisher Stevens. They'd remain a couple for some three years.
Another Golden Globe nomination followed for The
Russia House, but
Michelle Pfeiffer also turned down a lot of successful movies: Bugsy,
Thelma and Louise, Lorenzo's Oil, Silence
Of The Lambs, Basic Instinct,
Sleepless in Seattle and Evita.
Instead she made Love Field and got another Oscar nomination, and
another Golden Globe nomination for Frankie and
Johnny, again with
Al Pacino. And then came Batman Returns with Michelle Pfeiffer grabbing
the much-wanted role of Catwoman, and another Golden Globe nomination
for Scorcese's The Age Of Innocence.
In November 1993, Michelle adopted a baby girl, married David Kelley,
and soon got pregnant herself. Wolf with Jack Nicholson and Dangerous
Minds were her next films.
Michelle takes her children on set with her, finishing work early
to ensure she can make their dinner. She works on her family life,
recognising that it is the most important thing to her. Having had
a niece who suffered leukemia for ten years (and having smoked herself
for many years), she supports the American Cancer Society, as well
as the Humane Society. |
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