With her whispery baby-doll voice and voluptuous figure, blonde, blue-eyed Melanie Griffith could easily have been typecast as bimbos or wide-eyed innocents. Instead, this savvy performer, the daughter of actors Peter Griffith and Tippi Hedren, chose to defy convention and undertake roles that demonstrated her versatility and capabilities. While her mother specialized in playing cool Hitchcock blondes (e.g., “Marnie” 1964), Griffith attempted (not always successfully) to transcend her party girl image (fueled in part by very public troubles with substance abuse). With a strong director and the right material, she could hold her own against powerhouse actors like Paul Newman and James Woods.
Griffith made her first film appearance as an extra in “The Harrad Experiment” (1973) which featured her mother and soon-to-be first husband Don Johnson. Her first role of note, though, was as a runaway heiress in “Night Moves” (1975). That same year, she displayed a light comic touch as one of the pageant contestants in the satirical “Smile”. Over the next decade, she worked less frequently, taking acting classes with Stella Adler and concentrating on her marriages to Johnson and actor Steven Bauer and motherhood. Ironically, it was a role much like those Tippi Hedren played that rejuvenated her career. Brian De Palma tapped Griffith for the pivotal role of porn actress Holly Body in his Hitchcock hommage “Body Double” (1984). Critics were pleasantly surprised by the actress’ work and coupled with her role as the mysteriously rebellious adventuress in “Something Wild” (1986), Griffith’s star was ascending. With her turn as Tess Magill, a Staten Island secretary with dreams of bettering herself (“I have a head for business and a bod for sin”) in “Working Girl” (1988), her position as a top notch comic actress was solidified, crowned by a Best Actress Oscar nomination. But bad career advice and a string of box office disappointments nearly curtailed her career.
