Melanie Griffith (born August 9, 1957) is a Golden Globe award-winning and Oscar-nominated American film actress.
Early life
Griffith was born in New York City, the daughter of actress Tippi Hedren and producer and former actor/advertising executive Peter Griffith.[1][2][3] Her parents divorced when she was four years old, after which her father remarried to model/actress Nanita Greene and had two more children, actress Tracy Griffith and set designer Clay A. Griffith.
Griffith began work at just nine months old in a commercial and later became an extra on Smith! (1969) and The Harrad Experiment (1973). Her first major role was in Arthur Penn's Night Moves (1975), which drew attention to her and typecast her as a sexy nymphet in films such as Smile, The Drowning Pool (both also 1975), and One on One (1977). Griffith appeared nude in the October 1976 issue of Playboy with her then-husband Don Johnson. In 1984 she starred in the Brian De Palma thriller Body Double (1984). The film won her the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress, and also led to her starring role in Jonathan Demme's Something Wild (1986), which became a cult favorite. She achieved mainstream success when she played the character of Tess McGill in Mike Nichols' 1988 film Working Girl, which won Griffith the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, and an Academy Award nomination for "Best Actress". Other films include Brian De Palma's The Bonfire of the Vanities and John Schlesinger's Pacific Heights (both 1990); Milk Money (1994); Fernando Trueba's Two Much (1995) - in which she met her husband Antonio Banderas - and John Waters' Cecil B. DeMented (2000).
Television
Griffith's television work includes playing "Julie" in the 1977-8 series 3 of Starsky and Hutch the episode " The Action " and playing actress Marion Davies in the HBO television movie RKO 281 (1999), for which she received an Emmy nomination as "Best Supporting Actress". She was also seen on The WB sitcom Twins (2005-2006), in which she played Lee, the mother of the show's main characters, played by Sara Gilbert and Molly Stanton.
Later career
Later in her career, Griffith made her stage debut at the Old Vic in London, England, where she acted with Cate Blanchett in the Vagina Monologues in February 1999.[4] Four years later, she made her Broadway debut playing Roxie in the musical "Chicago". An untrained performer in song and dance, Griffith still managed to get a rave review from "The New York Times" theatre critic Ben Brantley, who wrote: "Ms. Griffith is a sensational Roxie, possibly the most convincing I have seen" and "[the] vultures who were expecting to see Ms. Griffith stumble...will have to look elsewhere".[5] Griffith's celebratory reviews made it a box office success.[6][7] At the same time Griffith was performing in "Chicago", her husband Antonio Banderas was appearing across the street in another musical, "Nine".
Personal life
Griffith has been married four times. She was wed to the actor Don Johnson briefly in 1976. She later wed actor Steven Bauer in September 1981, but divorced in 1987. In 1989 Griffith married Johnson again, but the pair split several years later and the divorce was finalized just before Griffith married her current husband, Antonio Banderas, whose name she has tattooed on her arm, in May 1996.
Griffith has three children, one with each of her three husbands: Alexander Griffith Bauer (born in 1985), Dakota Mayi Johnson (born in 1989), and Stella del Carmen Griffith Banderas (born in 1996). Dakota followed in her mother's footsteps and served as Miss Golden Globe at the 2006 Golden Globes awards ceremony. Griffith herself was Miss Golden Globe in 1975.
Awards & nominations
Filmography
References
External links
