Michelle Pfeiffer

Michelle Pfeiffer

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Birth name: Michelle Marie Pfeiffer
Date of birth: 29 April 1958
Place of birth: Santa Ana, California, USA
Nickname: Michelle
Height: 5′ 7½” (1.71 m)
Spouse: David E. Kelley (13 November 1993 – present) 2 children, Peter Horton (1981 – 1989) (divorced)

Famous Quote: “Because I am a bad girl, people always automatically think that I am a bad girl. Or that I carry a dark secret with me or that I’m obsessed with death. The truth is that I am probably the least morbid person one can meet. If I think more about death than some other people, it is probably because I love life more than they do.”

Contact Address and Autograph: Addresses and fan mail information

Michelle Pfeiffer
3737 Magnolia Blvd. #300
Burban
CA 91505-2018, USA 

Biography:  Michelle Marie Pfeiffer (born April 29, 1958) is a Golden Globe- and BAFTA-winning and Academy Award-nominated American actress. In a career spanning more than 25 years, she has starred in films such as Scarface, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Batman Returns, One Fine Day, Dangerous Minds, I Am Sam, What Lies Beneath, Hairspray, Stardust, and Grease 2. While fame had certainly been good to her, actress Michelle Pfeiffer rarely went out of her way to revel in her celebrity. Aside from her film and television roles, Pfeiffer had been famously known for remaining aloof and private in person much like many of the characters she had played on screen, most notably the icy Elvira, mistress to a Cuban drug smuggler (Al Pacino), in the iconic “Scarface” (1983). 

Even her desire to subvert her timeless, ethereal beauty – mostly off-screen, where she often appeared in public dressed in jeans, T-shirt and baseball cap – failed in the face of twice making People magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People” list. Luckily for Pfeiffer, she possessed acting talent to match her stunning good looks, giving Oscar-nominated performances in “Dangerous Liaisons” (1988), “The Fabulous Baker Boys” (1989) and “Love Field” (1992). But it was her offbeat turn as Catwoman in “Batman Returns” (1992) that firmly established Pfeiffer, elevating her from a strong supporting actress to bona fide A-list star.

Pfeiffer was born in Santa Ana, California, the daughter of Donna (née Taverna), a homemaker, and Richard Pfeiffer, a heating and air conditioning contractor. She is of Swiss, Swedish, Dutch and German descent. She was raised in Midway City, Orange County, California, about thirty miles southeast of Los Angeles. Pfeiffer is the second of four siblings: an older brother, Rick Pfeiffer, and two younger sisters, Dedee Pfeiffer (b. 1964, also an actress) and Lori Pfeiffer (b. 1965). Pfeiffer was raised by her demanding father, Richard, a heating-and-air conditioning contractor, and her mother, Donna, a homemaker. Pfeiffer often described herself as being “out of control” in her youth, wrecking her first car (a ’65 Mustang), skipping classes from Fountain Valley High School (though she maintained a solid B average) to hang out with surfers at Huntington Beach, and failing at bagging groceries for a local supermarket. 

After high school, Pfeiffer studied to be a courtroom stenographer and entered a beauty pageant, emerging as Miss Orange County in 1978. As a result, she landed a bit part on the hit 1970s show, “Fantasy Island” (ABC, 1977-1984), then at 20-years-old, she landed her first regular series role, playing a buxom college undergrad named Bombshell in the short-lived “Animal House” rip-off, “Delta House” (ABC, 1978-79). Without really trying, Pfeiffer had launched her acting career.

Pfeiffer attended Fountain Valley High School, graduating in 1976. She was Alice in Wonderland at Disneyland during her tenure, performing in the Main Street Electrical Parade. She briefly pursued a career as a court reporter at local Golden West Community College before dropping out to pursue a career in acting. In 1978, Pfeiffer entered and won the Miss Orange County beauty pageant, and then entered the statewide competition for Miss California USA. Although unsuccessful in winning the title, Pfeiffer acquired an agent, who helped her secure TV commercial parts and small movie and television roles before making her mark in Hollywood.

Her first major screen role was in 1980 in the films The Hollywood Knights and Falling in Love Again. However, both films failed to get her widespead notice. She tried a TV career when she starred in Great Yellow Bird, Fantasy Island, Callie & Son, Splendor in the Grass, and The Children Nobody Wanted. She returned to film in Grease 2; it was weakly received by critics and audiences, despite gaining a cult following.

After a couple more small roles on television and in film – notably the police drama “B.A.D. Cats” (ABC, 1980-81) and the teen comedy “Falling in Love Again” (1980) – Pfeiffer began taking her newfound career seriously. Her personal life, however, remained as chaotic as ever. While taking acting classes in Los Angeles, the insecure actress was lured by a seemingly friendly couple that operated a vegetarian cult where, according to Pfeiffer, “[S]ome brainwashing did go on.” She was rescued by fellow actor and classmate Peter Horton, whom she married in 1981. 

Even decades after her induction in the veggie cult, Pfeiffer refused to elaborate on the details of what happened. Meanwhile, she pursued her career in earnest, landing roles in long-forgotten features like “Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen” (1981) and the ill-advised “Grease 2” (1982). But Pfeiffer’s fortunes turned when she was cast opposite Al Pacino in Brian De Palma’s giddily violent “Scarface,” making a memorable impression as the jaded, cokehead mistress of a Cuban refugee (Pacino)-turned-imperial drug lord. Though not onscreen for very long, Pfeiffer nonetheless made her mark with critics and audiences, giving the still-fledgling actress the opportunity to play bigger and better parts.

It was not until 1983, when Pfeiffer co-starred with Al Pacino in Brian De Palma’s gangster classic Scarface, that she caught the attention of Hollywood. In 1985, she starred in the fantasy romance Ladyhawke, which gave Pfeiffer good reviews, but failed to become a box office success. In 1987 she starred in The Witches of Eastwick, which was a box office smash and a critical success. Through 1988 and 1989, Pfeiffer earned worldwide critical acclaim in Married to the Mob, Dangerous Liaisons, and The Fabulous Baker Boys; those films also earned her Oscar, BAFTA, and Golden Globe award wins and nominations.

Through the 1990s, she continued her Hollywood stardom: The Russia House, Frankie and Johnny starring Al Pacino, Batman Returns starring Michael Keaton & Danny Devito, The Age of Innocence, Wolf starring Jack Nicholson, Dangerous Minds, and One Fine Day starring George Clooney. She received her third Oscar nomination in 1993 for Love Field. In 1992, Pfeiffer gave one of her more unusual performances, playing an insulated Texas woman determined to comfort Jacqueline Kennedy after her husband’s assassination, in “Love Field.” The actress earned her third all-time Academy Award nomination and her second for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Also that year, Pfeiffer reached superstardom with her amusingly over-the-top performance as the feline Catwoman in “Batman Returns.” With her relationship with Stevens ending in 1991, Pfeiffer began to feel that maybe her chances for a lifelong partnership – one including children – was becoming an impossibility. So Pfeiffer adopted a biracial baby in 1993, long before the likes of Angelina Jolie and Madonna made it glamorous. Back on screen, Pfeiffer gave a fine turn as a scandalous woman who reacquaints herself with an upper-class gentleman (Daniel Day-Lewis) who is marrying her bland and genteel cousin (Winona Ryder) in Martin Scorsese’s deft adaptation of Edith Wharton’s “The Age of Innocence” (1993). Then on Nov. 13, 1993, Pfeiffer married screenwriter and producer David E. Kelley, and have since lived happily ever after.

Like most established stars wanting to try something new – and earn a nice paycheck – Pfeiffer lent her voice to “The Prince of Egypt” (1998), DreamWorks’ animated take on the life of Moses (Val Kilmer), as told in the Book of Exodus. By this time, Pfeiffer had stepped into the role of producer (her first credit as such being “One Fine Day”) and had formed her own company, Via Rosa Productions. After a turn as Titania in “William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (1999), she starred opposite Bruce Willis in “The Story of Us” (1999), a romantic comedy about a couple with everything who discover that they no longer love each other and wonder if it is enough to save their marriage. Following an emotional turn as a mother trying to re-bond with her abducted son (Ryan Merriman) in “The Deep End of the Ocean” (1999), she played the beautiful wife of a genetic scientist (Harrison Ford) finally getting over his past extramarital affair, only to be haunted – literally – by his mistakes anew in Robert Zemeckis’ taut thriller, “What Lies Beneath” (2000).

In 2000, she starred with Harrison Ford in one of the biggest box office hits of the year, Robert Zemeckis’s supernatural thriller What Lies Beneath. In 2001, she starred opposite Sean Penn in I Am Sam and in 2002 alongside Renée Zellweger and Robin Wright Penn in White Oleander, which earned her a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress.

Though she continued acting once the 1990s segued into the new century, Pfeiffer’s output decreased significantly, appearing in only a handful of films in seven years. She gave perhaps her best performance in years in “I Am Sam” (2002), playing an obsessive, hard-driving attorney who takes the pro bono case of a mentally-challenged father (Sean Penn) fighting to retain custody of his seven year-old daughter (Dakota Fanning). For “White Oleander” (2002), Pfeiffer was nominated for Best Supporting Actress by the Screen Actor’s Guild for her performance as an artist mother sent to prison for murder. After trying her hand again with animation in “Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas” (2003), Pfeiffer took four years off from filmmaking, returning in 2007 with “Hairspray,” the fun and light-hearted adaptation of the Tony Award-winning play – itself an adaptation of John Waters’ 1988 feature. 

She then took a lengthy hiatus from the spotlight but returned to acting in 2006. Her first projects teamed her with director Amy Heckerling in the romantic comedy I Could Never Be Your Woman (2007, opposite Paul Rudd), as well as opposite Robert De Niro, Claire Danes, and Sienna Miller in the fantasy epic Stardust. Pfeiffer co-starred in the film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical Hairspray as Velma Von Tussle. She will make a cameo appearance in The Prince and the Pauper, a film in which her sister Dedee stars. Pfeiffer received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on August 6, 2007, in front of the Hollywood & Highland Center. On her return to acting, she has said, “Now that I’m working again, I realize I really like this stuff.

Pfeiffer’s recently completed work on the romantic drama, Personal Effects with Ashton Kutcher, due in 2009. Pfeiffer stars in her next film, Chéri, the French-period drama. Kathy Bates, and Rupert Friend, will co-star. The film will be directed by Stephen Frears. This is Frears’ and Pfeiffer’s second outing together. Frears’ directed Pfeiffer in, Dangerous Liaisons. Filming is set to begin in April 2008.

In 1981, Pfeiffer married Thirtysomething actor Peter Horton but they divorced in 1988 at the height of her career. She has been romantically linked with actors Val Kilmer, John Malkovich, Michael Keaton, and Fisher Stevens. In 1993, Pfeiffer married writer/producer David E. Kelley (creator of The Practice and Ally McBeal).

Earlier that year, before meeting Kelley, Pfeiffer adopted a daughter Claudia Rose, who was then later adopted by Kelley following their marriage. The adopted baby was the daughter of an African American nurse living in New York who already had four children. On August 5, 1994 Pfeiffer gave birth to a son, John Henry. Pfeiffer’s influences that persuaded her to act were Oscar-winning actresses Anne Bancroft and Ingrid Bergman.

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