Melanie Griffith Bio
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Melanie Griffith (born August 9, 1957) is an American actress. She is the daughter of actress Tippi Hedren and the wife of actor Antonio Banderas. Melanie Griffith: Early lifeGriffith was born in New York City, to Tippi Hedren and producer and former actor/advertising executive Peter Griffith. 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. Her mother married agent and producer Noel Marshall, and Griffith grew up with three stepbrothers. During her childhood and adolescent years, she divided her time between living in New York with her father and in Antelope Valley, California, where her mother formed the animal preservation Shambala. She also skipped a grade and graduated from Hollywood Professional School when she was just 16 years old. Melanie Griffith: Film careerGriffith 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 Night Moves (1975) in which she did several racy nude scenes at the age of 17. This 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 reportedly turned down many parts in some popular movies, including the role of Iris in Taxi Driver, the lead role in Carrie, Princess Leia in Star Wars, Emmeline in The Blue Lagoon and Sarah Connor in The Terminator. Griffith's career gained momentum in 1984 when she played a porn star in the Brian De Palma thriller Body Double. The film won her the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress, and led to her starring role in Jonathan Demme's Something Wild (1986), which became a cult favorite. She achieved mainstream success when Mike Nichols cast her as a spunky secretary named Tess McGill in the hit 1988 film Working Girl, with Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver, Alec Baldwin and Joan Cusack. Griffith's performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress and won her the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy. Griffith's next role was starring in the well-received thriller Pacific Heights (1990) with Michael Keaton and Matthew Modine. Despite her success, many of Griffith's following films were poorly received, especially The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), which also starred Bruce Willis and Tom Hanks and reunited her with Body Double director Brian de Palma. Other less-notable films were Paradise (1991) and Born Yesterday (1993) (both of which co-starred Griffith's then husband Don Johnson), Shining Through (1992) and A Stranger Among Us (1992). Griffith made a minor comeback when she received good reviews for her role as a desperate housewife in the Oscar-nominated film Nobody's Fool (1994), which reunited her with Bruce Willis and Paul Newman. It was on the set of the 1996 comedy Two Much where Griffith met future husband Antonio Banderas. Griffith appeared in the Woody Allen film Celebrity in 1998 with Winona Ryder, Leonardo DiCaprio and Charlize Theron. Later that same year, she delivered what is arguably her finest screen performance to date as a ditzy heroin user in Another Day in Paradise (1998). She formed Greenmoon Productions with Antonio Banderas in 1997, which produced her starring vehicle Crazy in Alabama (1999), directed by Banderas and featuring Griffith's real-life daughters Dakota Johnson and Stella Banderas playing her daughters. Griffith's most recent mainstream film was Stuart Little 2 (2002) in which she voiced the character of Margalo. Since then, she has acted in several independent films. Griffith currently has two feature films in production. Melanie Griffith: TelevisionGriffith's most notable television work includes her Golden Globe nominated performances in the TV miniseries Buffalo Girls and the HBO film RKO 281 (1999), where she played actress Marion Davies. Her portrayal of Davies also earned her an Emmy nomination. She was also seen on the short-lived The WB sitcom Twins (2005-2006), on which she played Lee, the mother of the show's main characters, played by Sara Gilbert and Molly Stanton. Her television career took a blow when her 2007 series Viva Laughlin was canceled after two episodes. Griffith's will resurrect her television career with a role on Nip/Tuck during its seventh and final season. She will play porn-star Kimber Henry's mother who, along with her boyfriend of 6 years, comes to visit her daughter from Wisconsin. Melanie Griffith: Broadway careerIn 1999, Griffith made her stage debut at the Old Vic in London, England, where she acted with Cate Blanchett in the Vagina Monologues. Four years later, in 2003, she made her Broadway debut playing Roxie in the musical Chicago. Untrained in song and dance, Griffith still impressed 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". Griffith's celebratory reviews made it a box office success. At the same time Griffith was performing in Chicago, husband Banderas was appearing across the street in another musical, Nine. Melanie Griffith: Personal lifeAt age 14, Griffith began dating 22-year old actor Don Johnson who co-starred with her mother in the 1973 film, The Harrad Experiment, in which Griffith was an extra. Griffith was 18 years old when she married him in Las Vegas in January 1976. They divorced just six months later. Tatum O'Neal has alleged in her autogiography, A Paper Life, that Griffith had once dragged her into an opium-filled orgy and that she had caught her father Ryan O'Neal having sex with a teenage Griffith in the 1970s. Griffith has not publicly responded to these allegations. Ryan O'Neal, on the other hand, made this statement: "It is a sad day when malicious lies are told in order to become a 'best-seller.'" In September 1981, Griffith married Steven Bauer, her co-star in the TV film She's in the Army Now. They have a son, Alexander, born in August 1985. The couple divorced in 1987. Griffith later admitted to having problems with cocaine and liquor after her divorce from Bauer. "What I did was drink myself to sleep at night," she said. "If I wasn't with someone, I was an unhappy girl." While on the set of Working Girl, she reconciled with first husband Don Johnson. At Johnson's insistence, Griffith checked into rehab and became sober. She became pregnant, and they remarried in June 1989. Their daughter, Dakota Johnson, was born on October 4, 1989. Six years later, she left him because of his own substance-abuse problems. She later reconciled with him, only to leave him again, this time for her leading man Antonio Banderas from the film Two Much. She finalized her divorce from Johnson in February 1996, and married Banderas on May 14, 1996. Their daughter, Stella Banderas, was born on September 24, 1996. In 2000, Griffith had Banderas' first name tattooed on her right shoulder. Griffith's daughter Dakota followed in her mother's footsteps and served as Miss Golden Globe at the 2006 Golden Globe Awards ceremony. Griffith herself was Miss Golden Globe in 1975, a title given as a launching pad to celebrity offspring breaking into show business. In 2002, Griffith and Banderas received the Stella Adler Angel Award for their extensive charity work Melanie Griffith: Awards and nominations
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