Melanie Griffith

At 67 years old, Melanie Griffith has this physical status:

Melanie Richards Griffith (born August 9, 1957) is an American film, stage, and television actress as well as a film producer.

She began working in the 1970s and appeared in many independent thriller films before achieving mainstream success in the 1980s. Tippi Hedren and advertising executive Peter Griffith, a child of New York City, was born in Los Angeles and attended the Hollywood Professional School at age 16.

In Arthur Penn's film noir Night Moves, a then seventeen-year-old Griffith appeared opposite Gene Hackman.

She came to fame in Brian De Palma's thriller Body Double (1984), winning her a National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Griffith's resurgent appearance in Something Wild (1986) raised eyebrows before she was cast in 1988's Working Girl, earning her an Academy Award for Best Actress and a Golden Globe for her performance. Griffith appeared in a variety of roles in the 1990s, including Golden Globe nominations for her appearances in Buffalo Girls (1995) and Marion Davies in RKO 281 (1999), as well as receiving awards for Crazy in Alabama (1999) and John Waters' cult film Cecil B. Demented (2000).

Other credits include John Schlesinger's Pacific Heights (1990), Milk Money (1994), Mulholland Falls (1996), as Charlotte Haze in Adrian Lyne's Lolita (1997) and Another Day in Paradise (1998). Barbara Marx appeared in The Night We Called It A Day (2003) and spent the majority of the 2000s on television programs such as Nip/Tuck, Raising Hope, and Hawaii Five-0.

She made her Broadway debut in a revival of the musical Chicago in 2003, receiving accolades after appearing on stage in London.

Griffith returned to film in the 2010s, starring then-husband Antonio Banderas in the science fiction film Autómata (2014) and as an acting coach in James Franco's The Disaster Artist (2017).

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Life and career

Melanie Richards Griffith was born in Manhattan, New York City, on August 9, 1957, to actress Tippi Hedren and Peter Griffith, a former child stage actor and advertising executive. Griffith's paternal ancestry is Welsh, although her maternal roots are Swedish, Norwegian, and German. When she was two years old, her parents separated, after which she and her mother moved to Los Angeles; they divorced two years later, when Griffith was four years old. Hedren, shedren's wife, married model-actress Nanita Greene and had two more children: Tracy Griffith, who also became an actress, and Clay A. Griffith, a set designer. When Griffith was seven years old, she married agent and producer Noel Marshall.

She spent part of her childhood and adolescent years in New York with her father and part-time in Antelope Valley, California, where her mother created the animal preserve Shambala. Griffith appeared in advertisements and briefly worked as a child model before deciding against leaving the field, citing extreme loneliness as the cause. Griffith was ahead of her studies while attending the Hollywood Professional School, which allowed her to skip a grade level and graduate at the age of 16.

Griffith's first on-screen appearances were as an extra in Smith. (1969) and The Harrad Experiment (1973). Don Johnson, a 14-year-old Griffith, met actor Don Johnson on the set of the previous film before being left 22. The two met in January and July 1976, and their marriage culminated in a six-month marriage. Griffith met Ryan O'Neal after divorcing Johnson. Tatum O'Neal argued that Griffith pulled her into an orgy with Maria Schneider and a male hairdresser during the time of her father's marriage to Griffith in her autobiography, A Paper Life.

She was in her first big role in Arthur Penn's film noir Night Moves (1975), in which she played a runaway teen chased around the country by a private investigator played by Gene Hackman. In several scenes, she appeared onscreen nude in several scenes. Griffith's appearance in Night Moves drew interest, and she was later cast in two 1975 films: Smile, playing a pageant contestant, and Stuart Rosenberg's The Drowning Pool, a drama in which she played a Louisiana woman (played by Joanne Woodward) in a criminal investigation. She was also named Miss Golden Globe for 1975, assuaging out at the Golden Globe Awards. "She has the body of a sensuous woman, the pouting, chipmunk face of a teen, and the child's voice," a contemporaneous portrait of Griffith in Newsweek described her image at the time: "She has the body of a woman, the pouting, chipmunk face of a teenager, and the voice of a child.

"Griffith is miscast in a PG picture, where she is obliged to conceal her one talent (or two, depending on how you count it...them)" in 1977. Griffith appeared in the Israeli experimental film The Garden, in which she portrayed a naked mute woman in Jerusalem in which a man mistakenly appears for an angel. She appeared in Joyride opposite Robert Carradine, in which she played a young woman and her boyfriend, and aspire to start a fishing business in Alaska.

In the 1981 exploitation film Roar (1981), directed by her then-stepfather Noel Marshall, Griffith appeared opposite her mother, Hedren. Madeleine (Hedren) and Hank (Marshall), the daughter of animal-keepers Madeleine (Hedren) and Hank (Marshall), whose diverse wild animals turn on them. Roar was conceived by Hedren and Marshall and has been regarded as one of the most challenging film projects of all time. Roar began filming in 1970 and then became intermittent over the next decade. Griffith was mauled by a lion on one occasion during the shooting and had to do facial reconstructive surgery. In the finished film, her assault and injury are apparent. Griffith appeared in 1981 as a Women's Army Corps recruit in the made-for-television film She's in the Army Now (1981) with Jamie Lee Curtis and Steven Bauer. Griffith and Bauer married shortly after finishing the film.

Griffith's well-known heroin and alcohol use stalled her career in the early 1980s, but she made a comeback in the Brian De Palma thriller Body Double (1984) at age 26. Despite being a commercial failure, the film received the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress. She played a prostitute in Times Square who was being stalked by a serial killer in Abel Ferrara's thriller Fear City (1985). Alexander Griffith Bauer, Griffith's first child, was born in 1985 with Bauer. She appeared in Jonathan Demme's comedy Something Wild (1986), playing a mysterious woman who becomes involved with a straightlaced banker on a chance meeting. "Griffith's performance is not based on eroticism as much as on recklessness: she is able to show us (and Daniels) that she is capable of doing almost everything, especially if she thinks it will frighten him." Griffith's appearance earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Comedy or Musical. Griffith appeared in the speculative science fiction film Cherry 2000, which followed a business executive in 2017 and his relationship with a sex robot. In 1987, the film was first broadcast on video. In Mike Figgis's neo-noir Stormy Monday (1988), she appeared opposite Sean Bean, Tommy Lee Jones, and Sting, portraying an American woman who becomes embroiled in her ex-boss's efforts to purchase a jazz club in Newcastle upon Tyne. "The brilliant Miss Griffith, with her sexy, singular combination of kittenishness, and tenacity, is entirely at home here, giving an irrevocably positive appearance," Janet Maslin wrote about Griffith's performance.

Griffith's success began when Michelle Nichols co-starred Harrison Ford, Tess McGill in the box-office hit Working Girl (1988), co-starring Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver, Alec Baldwin, and Joan Cusack. "Griffith stands out among her peers' eagerness to get out of her clerical rut and her tenacity dealing with whomever appears to be thwarting her." Griffith was nominated for an Academy Award for her appearance, and she was named for the Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy by the Golden Globe Award. "Before Working Girl, Melanie Griffith was best known for her beautiful body and the way that nearly half of her directors suggested she see it." Griffith earned her distinction as an A-list actress in 1989 Rolling Stone piece.

Prior to her appearance in Working Girl, Griffith and Bauer were divorced. After her separation from Bauer, Griffith confessed to having issues with cocaine and alcohol. "What I did was drink myself to sleep at night," she said. "I wasn't with someone else, I was an unhappy girl." Griffith reconnected with Johnson in 1988, after completing rehabilitation, and the two remarried on June 26, 1989.

Dakota Johnson, Griffith's daughter, was born on October 4, 1989, with Don Johnson. Griffith began filming the drama Pacific Heights (1990), directed by John Schlesinger, in which she portrayed a woman who became embroiled in a controversy with a criminal boarder in their San Francisco home, after her pregnancy. Roger Ebert, a critic, gave the film a middling review and characterized it as "a horror film for yuppies." In The Bonfire of the Vanities, a black comedy in which she portrayed a Southern belle gold-digger, she reunited with De Palma the same year. Even in an age of overinflated cinematic air bags, Peter Travers of Rolling Stone applauded the film, noting that it "achieves a consistency of ineptitude in a period of overinflated cinematic air bags." Griffith has the curves and the Southern-belle voice of McCoy's mistress, Maria Ruskin, but the script robs this magnolia of her steel."

She appeared in Paradise (1991), a sequel to the 1987 French film The Grand Highway starring then-husband Don Johnson, Elijah Wood, and Thora Birch. Griffith portrayed a woman reeling from her son's death and taking in her friend's son in the film. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly slammed Griffith's "cuddly, melting softness" in the film as being at odds with her character: "Lily never appears less nurturing than supremely nurturing." And so the film, rather than The Doctor, pulls away from revealing the dark side of an ordinary person's anguish. Linda Voss, a German Jewish secretary, appeared in Berlin's Shining Through, a World War II-set drama based on the 1988 novel of the same name. "In all fairness, Griffith should not be chastised for her incompetent accent," Desson Howe of The Washington Post wrote. She should also be chastised for her behavior. What is the deal with her baby's voice? In the majority of her films, it's a disgrace. It's absolutely ridiculous." Griffith, according to Peter Travers of Rolling Stone, is "cannily cast" and "just about perfect."

She continued with A Stranger Among Us, in which she portrayed a police officer as an Orthodox Jew while investigating a murder. "When Griffith attempts to speak in the crude manner of a streetwise cop," Griffith's clumsy, her baby-doll voice turns the word into tense peaches, according to analyst Jay Boyar of the Orlando Sentinel. And though she's capable of expressing the detective's intelligence in a role, she's unconvincing when it comes to revealing a detective's intelligence... Melanie Griffith's performance in A Stranger Among Us is the most surprising part of it. Despite the fact that the film has other difficulties, there are still sections that work well."

Griffith produced Born Yesterday (1993), a revision of the 1950 film in which Judy Holliday received an Academy Award for Best Actress. Billie Dawn, a young, wealthy, influential and crude long-term fiancé (John Goodman), recruits a journalist (Don Johnson) to make her shine as her wife in Washington, D.C., according to Roger Ebert. In a film that, in the end, was "morose and mean," he criticized the "dumbed down" screenplay, the casting, and a lack of chemistry. Griffith made a popular comedy Milk Money in 1994, portraying a prostitute. Janet Maslin of The New York Times called the film a "brainless comedy." Among the few amusing scenes here are ones depicting her flouncing through the tiny town where Frank and Dad live, scandalizing the locals, and even locating one ex-client strolling his wife on Main Street." She appeared in Nobody's Fool, a drama starring Paul Newman, Jessica Tandy, and Bruce Willis in the same year. Griffith plays the wife of a contractor (Willis) who has a rivalry with a free-spirited older man (Newman) in an upstate New York town. Both Willis and Griffith were described as "somewhat less reliable" than Newman and Tandy, according to Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times.

Griffith and his husband Johnson wept in March 1994 and returned later that year but divorced in 1996. In the aftermath of her separation, she appeared in a group cast in Now and Then, playing an actress playing an actress who returns to her Indiana hometown to reunite with her childhood friends. "The adult actresses are completely unnecessary to the film, which is a contrived Stand by Me story," Roger Ebert said of the film. In the Western miniseries Buffalo Girls, she appeared opposite Anjelica Huston and Reba McEntire, based on the 1990 book of the same name. "Huston, Griffith, and McEntire make it not just bigger than life, but also better." The Washington Post's Tom Shales wrote about the series. She was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries, or Television film for her role.

Griffith co-starred with Antonio Banderas in the comedy Two Much (1996). During the film's making, Banderas and she began a love, and the pair became married that year. Griffith and Banderas married in 1996 at Marylebone Town Hall in London, after their respective divorces were announced. Stella del Carmen Banderas, their daughter, was born on September 24, 1996. Griffith appeared in neo-noir Mulholland Falls (1996), portraying a Los Angeles police detective (played by Nick Nolte), a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actress following Two Much. Roger Ebert, a critic, praised the film as "the kind of film in which every note is put in lovingly." It's a 1950s crime film but with a modern, ironic edge," the film claims, but it was a box office flop.

Charlotte Haze appeared in Adrian Lyne's 1997 version of Lolita, opposite Jeremy Irons. The film had a brief theatrical run and was later shown on television, but it was only worth $1.1 million against a $62 million budget. Griffith was "ideally cast as the annoying, widowed Charlotte," Caryn James of The New York Times said. Charlotte's lusksy red nails, her shrieling voice, and her affecting diction make her remarkably similar to Professor Humbert's professorial Humbert. Griffith appeared in Woody Allen's Celebrity (1998), a performance characterized by critic Peter Travers as "playfully lusty." In Larry Clark's independent film Another Day in Paradise, opposite James Woods, she continued her role as a free-spirited heroin addict. "Woods and Griffith play styles they've tried before, but with a zest and style that makes the film alive," Roger Ebert wrote about the performances, "particularly in the first scenes, before all becomes clouded by doom."

Griffith made her stage debut at the Old Vic in London, England, where she appeared with Cate Blanchett in The Vain Monologues on February 5, 1999. She appeared in Crazy in Alabama, a film directed by Banderas and produced by Greenmoon Productions, the company that Banderas and she founded together in the same year. Griffith played an eccentric woman in 1960s Alabama who murders her husband and then heads to Hollywood to become a film actor; this is set against a subpoena involving a race-related murder. "Griffith manages to make Barbra Streisand look downright camera shy," Rita Kempley of The Washington Post said, although she chastised the "juxtapositions are not only preposterous, but also downright tasteless." Worse yet, they purposely triviaize the civil rights movement by identifying it with a ding-dong belle's tenuous association with the women's movement." This sentiment was echoed by CNN's Paul Clinton: "The deadly serious plot line of Crazy in Alabama is much more interesting than Griffith's wacky, comedic cross-country ride." These dueling tales result in a film that is strangely uneven and unlikely to bring in big box-office numbers." This was followed by an appearance in HBO's RKO 281, in which Griffith portrayed 1920s and 1930s movie actress Marion Davies. She was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie by the Emmy Award for her performance.

In John Waters' black comedy Cecil B. Demented, Griffith was cast as Honey Whitlock, an arrogant actress kidnapped by a group of underground filmmakers. Waters said Griffiths had "a mixture of a positive sense of humor and a little bit of resistance" when she was cast. She has a history with it, as well as mine. She can't be blackmailed. So she's content. While the film's gags are "hit-and-miss," Griffith "has a ball retouching her diva image," Peter Travers of Rolling Stone said. Griffith portrayed a schizophrenic woman trying to reach her son in Forever Lulu, 2000. Variety's Derek Elley panned the film as "a straight-to-vidbin stiff...this wannabe romantic comedic comedy is chock full of phony sentiment."

Griffith went back to heroin therapy for the treatment of a painkiller addiction in November 2000. Griffith began blogging in an online journal about her attempts to beat her heroin use when she was in therapy. "I am starting this recovery journal because I want to share with you my personal experiences." I'm still a little shaky, but I think it's important that I share this with you because an addiction to prescription pain pills can happen to anyone, and it's imperative to be cautious." Griffith appeared in the 2001-released youth-oriented independent film Tart, which she co-produced with Banderas under their Green Moon Productions banner. Dominique Swain, Griffith's former Lolita co-star, as well as Brad Renfro, Bijou Phillips, and Mischa Barton appeared in the film. Margalo the bird was the protagonist of the animated film Stuart Little 2 in 2002.

Griffith made her Broadway debut in August 2003 when she appeared in a revival of the musical Chicago. The run was a huge success in terms of box-office operations. Despite being untrained in song and dance, Griffith, who wrote, "Ms. Griffith is the most convincing I've seen" and "the" vultures who were expecting to see Ms. Griffith stumble... will have to look elsewhere." Charles Isherwood of Variety noted some flaws in Griffith's show, including her singing and dancing abilities, but conceded:

She appeared in a play written by Scott Caan entitled "No Way Around But Through," in which she played his mother. She appeared on Caan's mother again in a recurring role on his television show Hawaii Five-0. J.L., a television film directed by Caan's father James Caan and Jon Voight in 2016. Rancho de los Sanz.

Griffith's television appearances included the short-lived WB sitcom Twins (2005–06), as well as the 2007 series Viva Laughlin, which was cancelled after two episodes.

Griffith returned to recovery in August 2009 for what her publicist called "part of a routine program." She was in jail for three months. Griffith underwent skin cancer surgery in December of this year.

This American Housewife, a 2012 television pilot conceived by Banderas, was not selected by Lifetime. Griffith appeared on Nip/Tuck and Hot in Cleveland in the interim.

Griffith and Banderas released a statement in June 2014 announcing their decision to divorce "in a loving and friendly way." According to the petition, the couple had "irreconcilable differences" that resulted in the divorce. Their divorce was finalized in December 2015. Banderas has said he will always love Griffith, and Griffith appeared alongside Banderas in the 2014 science-fiction film Autómata, which they shot during their divorce proceedings. She appeared in Day Out of Days (2015), directed by Zoe Cassavetes. In 2016, she volunteered to be a guest star on Hulu's The Path.

Griffith appeared in The Pirates of Somalia (originally titled Where the White Man Runs Away), a biopic about journalist Jay Bahadur, and James Franco's The Disaster Artist, a comedy based on Greg Sestero's book of the same name, in 2017. Griffith appeared in Mrs. Robinson's stage version of The Graduate at the Laguna Playhouse in California in mid-2017. She revealed in August 2018 that she had undergone additional and "final" surgical procedures to remove skin cancer from her face.

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