Michelle Pfeiffer

Explore about the Famous Movie Actress Michelle Pfeiffer, who was born in United States on April 29, 1958. Analyze Michelle Pfeiffer’s net worth, age, bio, birthday, dating, height-weight, wiki. Investigate who is Michelle Pfeiffer dating now? Look into this article to know how old is Michelle Pfeiffer?

Michelle Pfeiffer Biography

Actress who starred in Batman Returns, Wolf, and What Lies Beneath. She also appeared in Hairspray and The Witches of Eastwick.

She won the Miss Orange Beauty Pageant in 1978.

She received much attention for her role in Scarface, which was released in 1983.

She was married to Peter Horton from 1981 to 1988. She has a son named John and a daughter named Claudia.

She played the wife of Al Pacino in Scarface.

Michelle Marie Pfeiffer was born in Santa Ana, California, on April 29, 1958, the second of four children of Richard Pfeiffer, an air-conditioning contractor, and Donna (née Taverna), a housewife. She has one elder brother, Rick (born 1955), and two younger sisters, Dedee Pfeiffer (born 1964), a television and film actress, and Lori Pfeiffer (born 1965). Her parents were both originally from North Dakota. Her paternal grandfather was of German ancestry and her paternal grandmother was of English, Welsh, French, Irish, and Dutch descent, while her maternal grandfather was of Swiss-German descent and her maternal grandmother of Swedish ancestry. The family moved to Midway City, another Orange County community around seven miles way, where Pfeiffer spent her first years.

Michelle Marie Pfeiffer (/ˈ f aɪ f ər / ; born April 29, 1958) is an American actress and producer. She has received many accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, and three nominations for Academy Award.

Pfeiffer attended Fountain Valley High School, graduating in 1976. She worked as a check-out girl at Vons supermarket, and attended Golden West College where she was a member of Alpha Delta Pi sorority. After a short stint training to be a court stenographer, she decided upon an acting career. She won the Miss Orange County beauty pageant in 1978, and participated in the Miss California contest the same year, finishing in sixth place. Following her participation in these pageants, she acquired an acting agent and began to audition for television and films.

Pfeiffer made her acting debut in 1978, in a one-episode appearance of Fantasy Island. Other roles on television series followed, including Delta House, CHiPs, Enos and B.A.D. Cats. Pfeiffer transitioned to film with the comedy The Hollywood Knights (1980), with Tony Danza, appearing as high school sweethearts. She subsequently played supporting roles in Falling in Love Again (1980) with Susannah York and Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (1981), none of which met with much critical or box office success. She appeared in a television commercial for Lux soap, and took acting lessons at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, before appearing in three 1981 television movies – Callie and Son, with Lindsay Wagner, The Children Nobody Wanted and Splendor in the Grass.

Pfeiffer began to pursue an acting career in 1978 and had her first leading role in the musical film Grease 2 (1982). Frustrated with being typecast as the token pretty girl, she actively pursued more serious material and had her breakthrough role as gangster moll Elvira Hancock in the crime film Scarface (1983). Further success came with leading roles in the fantasy feature ‘’Ladyhawke’’ (1985) and later The Witches of Eastwick (1987) and the comedy Married to the Mob (1988). Her roles in Dangerous Liaisons (1988) and The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989) garnered her two consecutive Academy Award nominations, for Best Supporting Actress and Best Actress, respectively; her portrayal of lounge singer Susie Diamond in the latter is one of the most acclaimed of her career.

Encyclopædia Britannica writes that the actress is “noted for her beauty and air of vulnerability”. Pfeiffer has also been regularly called one of the most beautiful women in the world. Ranking the actress among history’s most beautiful, talented and famous actresses, Glamour dubbed Pfeiffer “Possibly the most perfect face on the silver screen”. The same magazine ranked Pfeiffer among the greatest style icons of the 1980s, calling her “the go-to girl in the 80s for the major studios” and “one of our all-time favourite movie goddesses”. Vogue contributor Alice Newbold considers her “ash-blonde hair, piercing blue eyes and porcelain skin” to be her trademark features, traits she has maintained throughout her career. For Interview magazine, Peter Stone described Pfeiffer as a “Blond, sultry, and ethereal” woman with an “unforgettable” face. Harper’s Bazaar ranked Pfeiffer the fourth most glamorous “beauty icon” of the 1980s. Complex ranked Pfeiffer 49th on their list of “The 80 Hottest Women of the ’80s”. During the 1990s, Pfeiffer attracted significant comment in the media for her beauty; in 1990, she appeared on the cover of People magazine’s first 50 Most Beautiful People in the World issue. She was again featured on the cover of the annual issue in 1999, having made the “Most Beautiful” list a record six times during the decade (1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1999). Pfeiffer is the first celebrity to have appeared on the cover of the annual issue twice, and the only person to be featured on the cover twice during the 1990s. Men’s Health ranked Pfeiffer the 45th on their list of “The Hottest Woman of All Time”.

During the 1980s, Pfeiffer typically played smart, funny, sexually attractive and strong female characters. Adam Platt of New Woman observed that Pfeiffer’s characters tends to “play the world at a distance, mostly, and are often wise beyond their years. They get romanced, but are not overtly romantic. They may be trashy … but they all retain an air of invulnerability, a certain classical poise.” In a film review for the Miami New Times, director and film critic Bilge Ebiri observed that Pfeiffer “often played women who were somewhat removed from the world”, elaborating, “It wasn’t so much unapproachability or aloofness that she conveyed, but a reserve that suggested … melancholy, pain, dreams deferred”, even in some of her more comedic performances. Comparing her resumé to actress Barbara Stanwyck, Elizabeth Kaye of The Daily Beast wrote that Pfeiffer’s vulnerable characters share a common theme: “the only reasonable expectation is to not expect much.” Pfeiffer was one of the most popular actresses of the 1980s and 1990s. In 2002, Amy Longsdorf of The Morning Call dubbed Pfeiffer “one of the most popular and critically acclaimed movie stars in the world.” Apart from The Witches of Eastwick, few of the actress’ films during this period had been box office successes, an observation Pfeiffer never mentioned to studio heads in fear that they would stop hiring her altogether. However, her performances continued to garner consistently positive reviews despite lackluster ticket sales and several films that critics dismissed as “forgettable”. Pfeiffer has managed to establish herself as a “major star” despite having yet to receive top-billing in a blockbuster film. Despite this, by 1999 Variety ranked Pfeiffer “the female movie star most likely to improve a film’s box-office appeal”.

At an acting class taught by Milton Katselas in Los Angeles, she met fellow budding actor, Peter Horton, and they began dating. Pfeiffer and Horton married in Santa Monica in 1981, 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 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 on their marriage.

Pfeiffer obtained her first major film role as the female lead in Grease 2 (1982), the sequel to the smash-hit musical film Grease (1978). With only a few television roles and small film appearances, the 23-year-old Pfeiffer was an unknown actress when she attended the casting call audition for the role, but according to director Patricia Birch, she won the part because she “has a quirky quality you don’t expect”. The film was a critical and commercial failure, but The New York Times remarked: “[A]lthough 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, her agent later admitted that her association with the film meant that “she couldn’t get any jobs. Nobody wanted to hire her.” On her early screen roles, she asserted: “I needed to learn how to act … in the meantime, I was playing bimbos and cashing in on my looks.”

Director Brian De Palma, having seen Grease 2, refused to audition Pfeiffer for Scarface (1983), but relented at the insistence of Martin Bregman, the film’s producer. 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 titled “Blonde Ambition”, wrote, “[s]he is on the verge of stardom. In the parlance of the industry, she is hot.”

Following Scarface, she played Diana in John Landis’ comedy Into the Night (1985), with Jeff Goldblum, Isabeau d’Anjou in Richard Donner’s fantasy film Ladyhawke (1985), with Rutger Hauer and Matthew Broderick, Faith Healy in Alan Alda’s Sweet Liberty (1986), with 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 1987 adaptation of John Updike’s novel The Witches of Eastwick, with Jack Nicholson, Cher, and Susan Sarandon. The film grossed over $63.7 million domestically, the equivalent to $143.5 million in 2019 dollars.

Pfeiffer has received three Academy Award nominations to date: Best Supporting Actress for Dangerous Liaisons (1988), and Best Actress in The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989) and Love Field (1992).

At Demme’s personal recommendation, Pfeiffer joined the cast of Stephen Frears’s Dangerous Liaisons (1988), with 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 was cast against type, as a murdered gangster’s widow, in Jonathan Demme’s mafia comedy Married to the Mob (1988), with 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 Golden Globe Award nomination as Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, beginning a six-year streak of consecutive Best Actress nominations at the Golden Globes. Pfeiffer then appeared as chic restaurateuse Jo Ann Vallenari in Tequila Sunrise (1988) with 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 has ever worked with.

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 for four months, and performed all of her character’s vocals. The film was a modest success, grossing $18.4 million in the US (equivalent to $38 million in 2019 dollars ). Her portrayal of Susie, however, drew rave reviews from critics. Critic Roger Ebert compared her to Rita Hayworth in Gilda and to Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot, adding that the film was “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”. 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 Award for Best Actress and the Chicago Film Critics Association. Pfeiffer’s performance as Susie is considered to be the most critically acclaimed of her career.

Following the formation of her producing company in 1990, Pfeiffer saw a growing professional expansion as a producer. While she continued to act steadily throughout the decade, she and her producing partner Guinzburg experienced a winning streak of producing back to back films next under their Via Rosa Productions header. In the 1994 horror film Wolf, she starred with Jack Nicholson, portraying the sardonic and willful interest of a writer who becomes a wolf-man at night after being bitten by a creature. The film was released to a mixed critical reception; The New York Times wrote: “Ms. Pfeiffer’s role is underwritten, but her performance is expert enough to make even diffidence compelling.” Wolf was a commercial success, grossing US$65 million (equivalent to $112.1 million) at the domestic box office and US$131 million worldwide (equivalent to $226 million).

In 1990, Pfeiffer formed her own boutique film production company, Via Rosa Productions, which ran for 10 years. The company allowed her to produce and/or star in films tailored for strong women. She asked her best friend Kate Guinzburg to be her producing partner at the company. The two met on the set of the film Sweet Liberty (1986) and quickly became friends. Kate was the Production Coordinator on the film and became close with Pfeiffer over the course of the shoot. Via Rosa Productions was under a picture deal with Touchstone Pictures, a film label of The Walt Disney Studios. The first film the duo produced was the independent drama Love Field, which was released in late 1992. Reviewers embraced the film and The New York Times felt that Pfeiffer was “again demonstrating that she is as subtle and surprising as she is beautiful”. For her portrayal of the eccentric Dallas housewife, she earned nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress and the Golden Globe for Best Actress – Drama and won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival.

Pfeiffer took the part of the Soviet book editor Katya Orlova in the 1990 film adaptation of John le Carré’s The Russia House, with Sean Connery, a role that required her to adopt a Russian accent. For her efforts, she was rewarded with a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama. 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 Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama for her performance.

Pfeiffer maintains that she has never received formal acting training. Instead, she credits director Milton Katselas with teaching her how to recognize the difference between how an actor thinks a character would behave during a particular scene, and then how the actor themself would behave during that same scene. Vulture.com’s Angelica Jade Bastién described Pfeiffer as “an actress of such depth, breadth, and tenacity” that “she obliterates the argument that an untrained actor has less capability than her trained counterparts.” In 1992, Rolling Stone’s Gerri Hirshey identified Pfeiffer as a “character actress” who is comfortable wearing unflattering costumes, with The Fabulous Baker Boys’ Susie Diamond being a notable exception at the time of the film’s release. Pfeiffer claims that she rarely accepts traditionally glamorous roles because she finds few of them interesting, opting to play characters that “move” her instead: “I know that if I can hear the character as I’m reading, it’s made some connection [with me].” A film critic once summarized the actress as “a character actress in a screen siren’s body”, a sentiment with which her Scarface co-star and friend Al Pacino agrees. Often commended for her ability to mask her true feelings and emotions, Pfeiffer frequently uses this technique to her advantage in period films, a genre that has become a trademark of hers. Pfeiffer herself has admitted to being skilled in this particular area but at the same time believes that disguising one’s feelings is not uncommon, speculating, “that’s how most people behave. We may not be as mannered or as proper as people were in the 19th century, but very rarely are we talking about what we’re really thinking.” Pfeiffer has referred to acting as a “sadomasochistic” profession due to how “brutal” she finds the process can be at times.

Pfeiffer took the role of Catwoman in Tim Burton’s superhero film Batman Returns (1992), with Michael Keaton and Danny DeVito, after Annette Bening withdrew due to pregnancy. For the role of Catwoman, she trained in martial arts and kickboxing. Pfeiffer has received universal critical acclaim for the role, and her performance is consistently referred to as the greatest portrayal of Catwoman of all time by critics and fans, and is also one of the best regarded performances of her career. 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.” Batman Returns was a big box office success, grossing over US$266 million worldwide (equivalent to $484.6 million).

Pfeiffer went on to star as Catwoman / Selina Kyle in Tim Burton’s superhero film Batman Returns (1992), following which she won the Silver Bear for Best Actress and earned a third Academy Award nomination for playing a troubled housewife in Love Field (1992). She continued to gain praise for her performances in the dramas The Age of Innocence (1993) and White Oleander (2002), and the horror films Wolf (1994) and What Lies Beneath (2000). During this time, she also produced a series of films under her production company Via Rosa Productions. After a hiatus from acting in 2002, she returned with the musical Hairspray (2007). She received her first Emmy Award nomination for portraying Ruth Madoff in the HBO television film The Wizard of Lies (2017), she went on to feature in the ensemble films Murder on the Orient Express (2017) and debuted to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the original Wasp starting Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018).

In 1993, Pfeiffer married television writer and producer David E. Kelley. She made a brief 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. Pfeiffer had entered into private adoption proceedings before she met Kelley. In March 1993, she adopted a newborn daughter, Claudia Rose, who was christened on Pfeiffer and Kelley’s wedding day. In 1994, Pfeiffer gave birth to a son.

In Martin Scorsese’s period drama The Age of Innocence (1993), a film adaptation of Edith Wharton’s 1920 novel, Pfeiffer starred with Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder, portraying a Countess in upper-class New York City in the 1870s. For her role, she received the Elvira Notari Prize at the Venice Film Festival, and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress – Motion Picture. Also in 1993, she was awarded the Women in Film Los Angeles’ Crystal Award for outstanding women who, through their endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry.

Pfeiffer’s next role was that of high school teacher and former United States Marine LouAnne Johnson in the drama Dangerous Minds (1995), which was co-produced under her company Via Rosa Productions. 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. While Dangerous Minds received negative reviews, it was a box office success, grossing US$179.5 million around the globe. Pfeiffer portrayed Sally Atwater in the romantic drama Up Close & Personal (1996), with Robert Redford.

Pfeiffer took the role of Gillian Lewis in To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday (1996), which was adapted by her husband David Kelley from Michael Brady’s play of the same name. Under their Via Rosa Productions header, Pfeiffer and Guinzburg produced the films One Fine Day (1996), A Thousand Acres (1997) and The Deep End of the Ocean (1998). She voiced of Tzipporah for animated film The Prince of Egypt (1998). She served as an executive producer and starred as the divorced single mother architect Melanie Parker in the romantic comedy One Fine Day (1996) with George Clooney, Subsequent performances included 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) about a married couple who found their son who was kidnapped nine years ago; 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 Rob Reiner’s comedy-drama The Story of Us (1999) with Bruce Willis.

Pfeiffer chose to begin the process of dissolving her film production company, Via Rosa Productions, in 1999, and move into semi-retirement in order to spend more quality time with her children and family, meaning that she would continue to star in films sporadically into the 2000s and beyond. Pfeiffer handed her producing partner Guinzburg one final film to produce under the Via Rosa Productions header. The film was called Original Sin (2001). It was originally intended to star Pfeiffer, who later changed her mind as she was looking to work less for a while. The film was produced by her company, but instead starred Angelina Jolie and Antonio Banderas.

Pfeiffer chose to begin the process of dissolving her film production company, Via Rosa Productions, in 1999, and move into semi-retirement in order to spend more quality time with her children and family, meaning that she would continue to star in films sporadically into the 2000s and beyond. Pfeiffer handed her producing partner Guinzburg one final film to produce under the Via Rosa Productions header. The film was called Original Sin (2001). It was originally intended to star Pfeiffer, who later changed her mind as she was looking to work less for a while. The film was produced by her company, but instead starred Angelina Jolie and Antonio Banderas.

Pfeiffer took on the role of a murderous artist, named Ingrid Magnussen, in the drama White Oleander (2002), with Alison Lohman (in her film début), Renée Zellweger and Robin Wright. The film was an arthouse success and 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 lent her voice for the character of goddess of chaos Eris in Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003), an animated film featuring Brad Pitt as the voice of Sinbad the Sailor. She had struggles with finding the character’s villainies. Initially the character was “too sexual”, then she lacked fun. After the third rewrite, Pfeiffer called producer Jeffrey Katzenberg and told him “You know, you really can fire me,” but he assured her that this was just part of the process. Following the release of the film, she took a four-year hiatus from acting, during which she remained largely out of the public eye to devote time to her husband and children. At the time, she turned down the role of the White Witch in the fantasy film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (2005), which went to Tilda Swinton.

In 2005, Pfeiffer served as the face of Giorgio Armani’s spring campaign; the designer has often dressed her for public appearances. In the March 2019 issue of InStyle magazine, she announced her intention to launch a collection of fine fragrances called Henry Rose. The line launched in April, 2019.

What's Michelle Pfeiffer Net Worth 2024

Michelle Pfeiffer Family