Stat Smith Guides: Michelle Pfeiffer

Michelle Pfeiffer - Makin' Whoopee

Michelle Marie Pfeiffer (play born April 29, 1958) is an American actress. She made her film debut in 1980 in The Hollywood Knights, but first garnered mainstream attention with her performance in Brian De Palma's Scarface (1983). Pfeiffer has won numerous awards for her work. She received six consecutive Golden Globe Award nominations, winning the Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama award in 1990 for The Fabulous Baker Boys. She also won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Dangerous Liaisons, and the Silver Bear for Best Actress for Love Field, and has been nominated for three Academy Awards for the same films.

Pfeiffer rose to prominence in the late 1980s and early 1990s with 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), Batman Returns (1992), and The Age of Innocence (1993).

She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on August 6, 2007. The star is located at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard.
Pfeiffer was born in Santa Ana, California, the second of four children of 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, a television and film actress, and Lori Pfeiffer.Her father was of Dutch, German, and Irish descent, and her mother was of Swiss and Swedish ancestry.The family moved to Midway City, where Pfeiffer spent her childhood.She attended Fountain Valley High School, graduating in 1978. She worked as a check-out girl at Vons supermarket, and attended Golden West College. 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 Miss California the same year, finishing in sixth position.Following her participation in these pageants, she acquired an acting agent and began to audition for television and 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 critical or box office success. Pfeiffer later said of her early screen work: "I needed to learn how to act... in the meantime, I was playing bimbos and cashing in on my looks." She appeared in a television commercial for Lux soap,and took acting lessons at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, before appearing 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. She then landed 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 titled "Blonde Ambition", wrote, "he is on the verge of stardom. In the parlance of the industry, she is hot."