| BIOGRAPHY
The daughter of actress Tippi Hedren, Melanie Griffith experienced
the stranger by-products of fame early in life. Named after her
mother's character in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, Griffith was
presented with a wax replica of her mother in a miniature coffin
by the black-humored director when she was six years old.
Eight years later, Griffith left the comfortable confines of
Hedren's exotic animal ranch to live with her mother's co-star
at the time, the twenty-two-year-old Don Johnson. Four years later
Griffith and Johnson were married, only to divorce a year later.
Problems with drugs and drinking almost inevitably followed, culminating
when Griffith, then 23, was hit by a car on Sunset Boulevard:
according to the hospital medics, she would have died if she hadn't
been so drunk.
Griffith, who had gotten off to a promising start with films
like Night Moves (1975), began to attempt a comeback in the 1980s.
She studied acting with Stella Adler and made a distinct impression
in Brian DePalma's Body Double in 1984. Two years later, she received
further notice for her role in Something Wild, a comedy which
cast her as a free spirit opposite an uptight Jeff Daniels. In
1988, Griffith had her greatest success to date, first appearing
in Robert Redford's The Milagro Beanfield War and then starring
in Mike Nichols' Working Girl.
For her work in the latter film, in which she portrayed a young
career woman trying to conquer the New York business world, Griffith
earned an Oscar nomination and no small amount of critical respect.
Unfortunately, many of her subsequent films proved to be less
than successful, starting with Brian DePalma's widely panned adaptation
of The Bonfire of the Vanities in 1990.
While her acting career continued on its highs and lows, Griffith
once again wed Johnson in 1989; their second union lasted until
1996. That same year, the actress married Spanish heartthrob Antonio
Banderas following a much-publicized romance. She went on to do
some of her best work in years in 1997 as the puffy, tragically
misguided Mrs. Haze in Adrian Lyne's adaptation of Lolita. She
then took to the road playing drug dealer James Woods' old lady
in Another Day in Paradise; although the film didn't make much
of a ripple at the theatre, it did feature a particularly memorable
scene wherein Griffith injected heroin into her crotch.
Also in 1998, the actress could be seen portraying a flippant
movie star in Woody Allen's Celebrity. She next stepped in front
of the camera for her husband, starring as an eccentric wanna-be
actress who totes her dead husband's head around in a hat box
in Crazy in Alabama in 1999.
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FILMOGRAPHY
• Shade (2004)
• Tempo (2003)
• Stuart Little 2 (2002)
• Tart (2001)
• Along for the Ride (2000)
• Cecil B. Demented (2000)
• Crazy in Alabama (1999)
• Another Day in Paradise (1998)
• Celebrity (1998)
• Lolita (1997)
• Mulholland Falls (1996)
• Two Much (1996)
• Now and Then (1995)
• Milk Money (1994)
• Nobody's Fool (1994)
• Born Yesterday (1993)
• Shining Through (1992)
• A Stranger Among Us (1992)
• Paradise (1991)
• The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)
• In the Spirit (1990)
• Pacific Heights (1990)
• Cherry 2000 (1988)
• Stormy Monday (1988)
• Working Girl (1988)
• Something Wild (1986)
• Body Double (1984)
• Fear City (1984)
• She's in the Army Now (1981)
• Underground Aces (1980)
• Joyride (1977)
• One on One (1976)
• The Drowning Pool (1975)
• Night Moves (1975)
• Smile (1975) |
