20 Stunning Photos Of Michelle Pfeiffer
Michelle Pfeiffer has been a deeply charismatic and capable actress ever since her career began. Although she’s never taken an Oscar home, her dramatic chops are refined enough that she was nominated for three of them between 1989 and 1993.
Yet, while her talent has held firm over the last 45 years, so too has her great beauty. She’s often carried a playful, flirtatious energy in many of her roles and she’s got the style to match. Thus, we’ll see how Pfeiffer’s magnetism has evolved throughout her heyday.
A Strangely Animal House-Influenced Beginning
While Pfeiffer’s career would turn out auspicious, it was clear in the late ’70s and early ’80s that the young actress was largely taking what she could get.
This meant she appeared in both a TV spinoff of Animal House (Delta House) and a movie ripping it off (The Hollywood Knights) before landing a recurring role in the TV show B.A.D Cats by the time this photo was taken in 1979.
Her Attractiveness Influenced Her Early Roles
While this scene from the B.A.D. Cats episode “Die, Cheerleader, Die!” shows how much Pfeiffer’s youthful, lovely appearance was taken into account by the show’s writers, that was also true of her first opportunities in show business.
Her character Suzie Q in The Hollywood Knights is a good example of this phenomenon but it was no more transparent than in her first acting role in Delta House. That’s because her character was simply named “The Bombshell.”
On The Cusp Of Greatness
By the time Pfeiffer took this cozy, ebullient photo in the gimmicky ship vent of a restaurant overlooking the Pacific Ocean called Gladstone’s, her career wasn’t in what she likely considered a satisfying place.
That’s because by July 5 1982, the most recent project she had completed was the infamous sequel flop Grease 2. However, it wouldn’t be long before she ended up in classic that’s still watched obsessively today.
A Big Break In The Mid-’80s
By the time this promotional shot for the 1985 John Landis movie Into The Night was taken, Pfeiffer had enshrined herself into cinema history forever with a memorable performance as Elvira in Scarface.
Unfortunately, that period of her career also saw her engage in dangerously unhealthy eating practices to keep her body in the shape that Hollywood implicitly (and often explicitly) demanded.
Approaching The Height Of Her Acclaim
By 1988, Pfeiffer could credibly say she had made it to the big time. Not only were the parts she was getting after Scarface larger and more prestigious but she was about to enter a period that never seemed low on prestige.
That’s because that year saw the release of Dangerous Liasons, the film that would earn Pfeiffer her first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
A Role That Showed So Many Of Her Talents
Although Pfeiffer certainly had the smoldering appeal to convincingly play lounge singer Susie Diamond in The Fabulous Baker Boys, that wasn’t all she brought to the role.
Not only were her acting talents sharper than ever when the film was released in 1989, but she also did her own singing, as she had in other roles. This meant her song “Makin’ Whoopee” from the movie would get its own music video.
The Accolades Came In Fast
In addition to earning Pfeiffer her second Oscar nomination and her first for Best Actress In A Leading Role, The Fabulous Baker Boys also earned Pfeiffer her first and only Golden Globe to date.
Nonetheless, Pfeiffer has been nominated for eight Golden Globes in total, with the most recent nod regarding her starring role in the 2020 film French Exit.
Pfeiffer Was Sitting On Top Of The World
While Pfeiffer has clearly maintained a respectable, eclectic career in the decades since this triumph, it’s hard to understate how red-hot it was in the early to mid ’90s.
This period continued her streak of six back-to-back Golden Globe nominations earned by her performances in The Russia House, Frankie And Johnny, Love Field, and The Age Of Innocence. Furthermore, Love Field would earn Pfeiffer her third and — to date — final Oscar nomination.
One Of Her Most Iconic Roles
In addition to this impressive string of accolades, Pfeiffer also saw her share of commercial success in this boom period, with the most enduring of these successes being her turn as Catwoman in Batman Returns.
While everyone has their favorite Catwoman actress just as everyone has their favorite Batman actor, her sensuality and her dark, dangerous charisma contributed to her creditable performance in the legacy role.
A Few Lighthearted Special Appearances
While the ’90s gave Pfeiffer’s career a flurry of activity, it wasn’t all action movies and prestigious dramas. Throughout the ’90s, she pioneered appearing on lighthearted, comedic TV shows like The Simpsons and Muppets Tonight.
She played Marge Simpson’s memorable love rival Mindy Simmons for an episode in 1993, while also being the very first guest star in the two years that Muppets Tonight ran.
A Moment That Instantly Breeds Nostalgia
One of the memorable roles Pfeiffer took on in the ’90s saw her don a leather jacket and serve as a tough but ultimately caring teacher at a tough inner-city school in Dangerous Minds.
While that performance was iconic in its own right, its moment was further extended when Pfeiffer appeared in character in the music video for Coolio’s enduring hit song, “Gangsta’s Paradise.”
A Transition Into The Next Decade
After Dangerous Minds, Pfeiffer worked steadily throughout the late ’90s and got to use her singing voice yet again in the 1998 animated feature, The Prince Of Egypt.
Her most productive year during this period, however, was 1999 because she starred in three different movies that year, including a version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that saw her play Titania.
A High-Profile Beginning To The New Millennium
Although some stars find it difficult to kick their careers into a new decade, that was a feat Pfeiffer accomplished more than once. Although it’s hard to top how she entered the ’90s, her first movie of the 2000s was great at keeping the public’s eyes on her.
This was What Lies Beneath, a Robert Zemeckis thriller which saw her co-star with Harrison Ford and that features a compelling twist near the end.
Another Hit, If One That Aged Questionably
Following What Lies Beneath, Pfeiffer kept up her momentum with a co-starring turn in 2001’s I Am Sam. In it, she played a powerful but troubled lawyer who represents a man with mental disabilities at a custody trial.
Although it’s fair to say that this film was more of a vehicle for Sean Penn than her — the Oscar he was clearly chasing would come two years later with Mystic River — it nonetheless provided her with a meaty and dramatically rich role.
A Fun, Villainous Period
Whether it was a conscious career move or a matter of pure coincidence, the mid-2000s saw Pfeiffer take on a fair number of villainous roles. This was particularly true in 2007, when she was both a somewhat true-to-life villain in Hairspray and an utterly fantastical one in Stardust.
While Lamia in Stardust had her embody a character similar to the Evil Queen in Snow White, Hairspray‘s Velma Voin Tussle was a singing segregationist in early ’60s Baltimore. Again, this presented another opportunity for Pfeiffer to flex her singing voice.
A Rough Patch
Although Pfeiffer entered the 2000s gracefully, the early 2010s proved more of a stumbling block for her. She was still working regularly, but in projects that people showed much less interest in.
This included the maligned ensemble film New Year’s Eve in 2011, as well as the Tim Burton flop Dark Shadows during the following year.
Things Picked Back Up Before The Decade Was Out
While much of Pfeiffer’s work throughout the 2010s can be considered fairly obscure, her luck seemed to change when 2017 rolled around.
This was because she co-starred in the Bernie Madoff-inspired TV movie Wizard Of Lies, which saw Robert De Niro play the infamous con man. Her performance would net Pfeiffer yet another Golden Globe nomination.
The High-Profile Roles Kept Coming
Although it was polarizing and controversial, Darren Aronofsky’s film Mother! was high-profile enough upon release that getting a role in it was a nice feather in Pfeiffer’s cap.
Also in 2017, Pfeiffer would also play Caroline Hubbard in Kenneth Branagh’s remake of Murder On The Orient Express. Back then, his Agatha Christie adaptations still seemed novel and attention-grabbing.
The Marvel Money Starts Coming In
Although she joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe later than many actors by the time she played Janet Van Dyne in Ant-Man And The Wasp, that still gave her a pretty steady gig until the backlash that followed Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania in 2023.
Nonetheless, it meant that she entered the franchise just in time to appear in the monumentally colossal crossover film Avengers: Endgame. Since Disney was now calling, a part in Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil soon followed.
A Prestige Renaissance
Although Pfeiffer’s career regain its footing by the late 2010s, most of her work in the 2020s so far has seen her return to more prestigious projects.
In addition to her golden Globe-nominated performance in French Exit, Pfeiffer also played Betty Ford in the 2022 biographical drama series The First Lady.
