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Melanie Griffith Profile |
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Birth Date: August 9, 1957
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Birth Place: New York, New York, USA
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Birth Name: Melanie Griffith
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Height: 5'9"
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Biography |
Melanie Griffith was born August 9, 1957, in New York City,
into a family of celebrity. Her father Peter Griffith was a
well-known and respected businessman, while her mother,
Tippi Hedren, gained her fame by starring in a number of
Alfred Hitchcock films, most notably The Birds (playing a
character that Melanie was named after), as well as being
the supposed object of the director's persistent wooing.
Melanie's half-sister, Tracy Griffith, also emerged into the
public eye through her television and film work, while
Melanie went on to make her own contributions to the
collective Griffith family name.
Melanie's parents divorced four years after her birth, and
she moved to California to be raised by her mother. Any
strange preconception of being raised by a Hollywood actress
could only have been heightened in the early '70s when
Tippi, her interest spurred by a 1969 trip to Africa to film
Satan's Harvest, began converting the family residence into
the Shambala Preserve, an exotic animal ranch that she
maintains to this day.
Further qualifying Melanie's childhood as truly unique was a
highly-publicized relationship with a young actor named Don
Johnson, which Melanie embarked on while still in her early
teens. While one would doubt Tippi's endorsement of this
romance, it was actually through her mother that Melanie
made Don Johnson's acquaintance. Acting on Melanie's
burgeoning interest in acting, Tippi helped her land her
first feature role in The Harrad Experiment, a project in
which Tippi had already won a part. One of the other
co-stars was the 22-year-old Johnson, and, after a brief
tryst, Melanie moved in with him at age 14, well before the
film's 1973 release.
Melanie lived with Johnson until she was 18, when the couple
was married. They divorced a year later. While this
relationship in itself garnered Melanie a great deal of
attention, over its span she had begun to raise other
eyebrows with her film performances. Alongside her 1975
roles in The Drowning Pool and Smile, a part in Night Moves
provided Melanie with a showcase for both her physical
beauty and her blossoming acting capabilities.
Despite being rejected for the lead role in 1976's Carrie,
Melanie's career was acknowledged as a promising one.
Unfortunately, its development was hindered by some personal
problems. The collapse of her marriage with Johnson had left
Melanie floundering emotionally, escalating the drug and
alcohol habits that she had picked up over the course of
their relationship. Her abuse issues hit their peak in 1980
when Melanie, leaving a restaurant drunk, stumbled into
traffic and was struck by an oncoming car. Medics at the
scene suggested that it was only by virtue of her
intoxication that Melanie survived the impact, one that was
sufficiently powerful to inspire her to abandon her
dangerous lifestyle and focus on her profession.
Melanie's first step toward resuming her acting career was
engaging the teaching services of Stella Adler, the acting
coach who had also trained Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro.
She was awarded for her investment with a part in Brian De
Palma's 1984 film Body Double, a role that earned her a
strong critical reception and reestablished her in the
entertainment industry. While less memorable roles in Fear
City and the sci-fi bomb Cherry 2000 immediately followed,
Melanie proved that her performance in Body Double was no
fluke with her appearance in 1986's Something Wild. Having
established herself as a serious talent, Melanie won the
role that proved to be one of her most favorable, in 1988's
Working Girl.
Melanie's depiction of a highly motivated secretary in
Working Girl garnered her a Golden Globe Award as well as an
Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Yet even while she
appeared at the height of her career, Melanie continued to
be plagued by personal issues. A second marriage, to actor
Steven Bauer, had produced a child, Alexander, in 1986, but
dissolved a year later. Her second divorce brought about the
same emotional turmoil as had the first, and Melanie fell
back into drug dependence. Even as Working Girl was playing
in theaters, Melanie apparently checked into the Hazelden
Center in Minnesota for treatment for alcohol and cocaine
abuse.
Whether attributable to ongoing substance use (perhaps urged
on by a 1989 remarriage to Don Johnson) or simply a string
of bad decisions, Melanie's career took a turn for the worse
in the early '90s. Parts in Pacific Heights and In the
Spirit were quickly forgotten, while her participation in
1990's The Bonfire of the Vanities was memorable only by
virtue of the film being critically lambasted. Many
forecasted that her role in the 1993 remake Born Yesterday
would revive her career, just as the original had made Judy
Holliday a star, yet the project proved a failure, amassing
only $18 million in domestic gross, roughly half a million
of which had reportedly been devoted to Melanie's on-set
entourage costs.
Melanie had a child with Johnson, a daughter, Dakota, before
the couple filed for their second divorce in 1996. It was no
coincidence that the dissolution of their marriage occurred
while Melanie was in the midst of filming Two Much, wherein
she and her co-star, Antonio Banderas, had found themselves
consumed with one another. After filing for divorces from
their respective spouses, the two were married in a quiet
ceremony that same year. A few months later, Melanie gave
birth to the couple's first child, Stella.
Melanie's new marriage seemed to rejuvenate her career,
evidenced by appearances in 1996's Mulholland Falls, 1997's
Lolita, and 1998's Celebrity and Another Day in Paradise.
Nevertheless, Melanie's addictive personality continued to
haunt her, and in November of 2000 she checked into the
Daniel Freeman Hospital in California, under the name
Tallulah Bankhead. Her press release indicated that her
treatment this time around was for addiction to the
painkiller Norco, and throughout her rehabilitation, Melanie
posted messages on her website informing fans of her
progress.
Since being released from rehabilitation, Melanie has
continued to expand her acting resume, and is currently
involved in the heist movie, Tempo. She also provides the
voice of Margalo the bird in Stuart Little 2, a summer of
2002 film, and has of late been involved in a number of
projects with her husband under their production company,
Green Moon (their next due release is Tart, starring Melanie
alongside Dominique Swain).
Melanie's marriage to Antonio Banderas, initially received
with scorn on the part of the press, has proved enduring
thus far, and the couple is frequently involved in
charitable causes, publicly aligning themselves with
organizations such as her mother's Shambala Preserve. Along
with Halle Berry and Julianne Moore, Melanie is a Revlon
spokesperson, as well as the co-founder of OneWorldLive.com,
a woman's site for health, beauty and fitness tips and
services. In 2001, she received a lifetime achievement award
at Cannes. |
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Other
Information |
Her mother, Tippi Hedren, recently stated that the minature
doll of Hedren given to her by Alfred Hitchcock was not
intended to be a prank by the director. He merely wanted to
give Melanie a beautiful doll with her mother's image, but
it happened that the doll was in a wooden box. When Melanie
received the gift, she freaked out and became upset thinking
that it was indeed meant to be her mother in a coffin.
Born at 11:49pm-EDT
Daughter of Tippi Hedren
She has children from 3 different husbands - Alexander (b.
1985) with Steven Bauer, Dakota Johnson (b. 1989) with Don
Johnson and Stella Banderas (b. 1996) with Antonio Banderas.
Half-sister of actress Tracy Griffith.
Daughter of Peter Griffith and Tippi Hedren.
14 November 2000 - checked into a Marina Del Rey, California
hospital to help her scale back on the use of painkillers
she had been prescribed for a neck injury.
Auditioned for the title role in Carrie (1976) that
eventually went to Sissy Spacek.
In 1978, she went to a movie and dinner with Ricci Martin
(son of Dean Martin). Upon leaving La Dome, a restaurant on
Sunset Boulevard, a car ran through the crosswalk and hit
Melanie. The front of the car struck her hip in mid-stride,
whiplashing her head back into the windshield. As the car
screeched to a stop, Melanie catapulted more than a dozen
feet forward to the curbside, hitting with great force.
Melanie was rushed to a hospital. To this day, Melanie still
experiences pain from that accident.
Real-life daughters Dakota Johnson and Stella Banderas
appear as her character's daughters in the 1999 film Crazy
in Alabama (1999) directed by her husband Antonio Banderas.
Claims that it was love at first sight when she met her
husband Antonio Banderas on the set of Two Much (1995) in
1995.
She was unable to star in The Sheltering Sky (1990) and As
Good as It Gets (1997) because of pregnancies.
She has three homes: Los Angeles, Aspen and Marbella, Spain.
Bears the same first name as her mother Tippi Hedren's most
well-known role, Melanie Daniels, from the 1963 Hitchcock
film, The Birds (1963).
Measurements: 34B-25-34 1/2 (filming Pacific Heights
(1990)), 36C-25-35 (during The Bonfire of the Vanities
(1990) after implants, (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine).
Was only fourteen when she married Don Johnson for the first
time. He was eight years older than she, and they met on the
set of her mother's film The Harrad Experiment (1973).
In 2003, Melanie told Larry King that her best films are:
Night Moves (1975), Something Wild (1986), Working Girl
(1988) and Nobody's Fool (1994).
She turned down femme-fatale roles in hit films that went to
Anjelica Huston in The Grifters (1990), Geena Davis in
Thelma & Louise (1991) and Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct
(1992), because they were dark and edgy, and instead
accepted the femme fatale role in the comedy misfire The
Bonfire of the Vanities (1990).
Her son, Alexander Bauer, is the godson of Warren Beatty.
Her father is English and her mother is half Swedish, 1/4
German and 1/4 Norwegian.
Goes through two boyfriends in Working Girl (1988). As the
film begins, she is in a relationship with Alec Baldwin, but
at the end, she is in a relationship with Harrison Ford.
Both Baldwin and Ford have played Jack Ryan in adaptations
of the Tom Clancy novels.
First "Miss Golden Globe" to win a Golden Globe herself
Joanne Woodward told a 17-year-old Melanie on the set of The
Drowning Pool (1975) that her goals were to marry a movie
star (Paul Newman); have beautiful babies (she had three);
and win an Oscar (which she did in 1958). Melanie said that
she adopted the goals for herself by marrying a movie star
(Antonio Banderas); have beautiful babies (she also had 3);
but has expressed frustration that she hasn't won an Oscar
even though she was nominated in 1989.
She and her daughter Dakota Johnson are the only
mother-daughter-couple to be "Miss Golden Globe" |
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