Melanie Griffith
Melanie Richards Griffith[1][2] (born August 9, 1957) is an American actress. Born in Manhattan to future actress Tippi Hedren, she was raised mainly in Los Angeles, where she graduated from the Hollywood Professional School at age 16. In 1975, 17-year-old Griffith appeared opposite Gene Hackman in Arthur Penn's neo-noir film Night Moves. She later rose to prominence as an actor in films such as Brian De Palma's Body Double (1984), which earned her a National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress. Griffith's subsequent performance in the comedy Something Wild (1986) attracted critical acclaim before she was cast in 1988's Working Girl, which earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won her a Golden Globe.
Melanie Griffith
August 9, 1957
Actress
1969–present
3, including Dakota Johnson
- Tippi Hedren (mother)
Tracy Griffith (half-sister)
In the 1990s Griffith performed in a series of roles which received varying critical reception; she received Golden Globe nominations for her performances in Buffalo Girls (1995), and as Marion Davies in RKO 281 (1999), while also earning a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress for her performances in Shining Through (1992), as well as receiving nominations for Crazy in Alabama (1999) and John Waters' cult film Cecil B. Demented (2000). Other credits include John Schlesinger's Pacific Heights (1990), Milk Money (1994), the neo-noir film Mulholland Falls (1996), as Charlotte Haze in Adrian Lyne's Lolita (1997), and Another Day in Paradise (1998).
She played the voice of Margalo in Stuart Little 2 (2002), and later starred as Barbara Marx in The Night We Called It a Day (2003), and spent the majority of the 2000s appearing on such television series as Nip/Tuck, Raising Hope, and Hawaii Five-0. After acting on stage in London, in 2003, she made her Broadway debut in a revival of the musical Chicago, receiving celebratory reviews. In the 2010s, Griffith returned to film, starring opposite her husband Antonio Banderas in the science-fiction film Autómata (2014) and as an acting coach in James Franco's The Disaster Artist (2017).
Life and career[edit]
1957–1969: Early life[edit]
Melanie Richards Griffith[1] was born on August 9, 1957,[3] in Manhattan, New York City, to future actress Tippi Hedren and Peter Griffith, a former child stage actor and advertising executive. Griffith's paternal ancestry is English, as well as Welsh, Scots-Irish, Irish, and Scottish, while her maternal ancestry is Swedish, Norwegian, and German.[4] Her parents separated when she was two years old, after which she relocated to Los Angeles with her mother.[5] On February 4, 1961,[6] her father married model-actress Nanita Greene and had two more children: Tracy Griffith, who also became an actress, and Clay A. Griffith, a set designer. Her mother married agent and producer Noel Marshall on September 27, 1964.[5]
During her childhood and adolescent years, she lived part of the time in New York with her father and part-time in Antelope Valley, California, where her mother formed the animal preserve Shambala.[7] Griffith appeared in advertisements and briefly worked as a child model before abandoning the career, citing extreme shyness as the reason. While attending the Hollywood Professional School, Griffith was advanced in her studies, which allowed her to skip a grade level and graduate at age 16.[8]
Philanthropy[edit]
Griffith supports the efforts of Children's Hospital Los Angeles helping to lead Walk for Kids, a community 5K, to raise funds as part of the hospital's community awareness efforts in support of the opening of a new state-of-the-art pediatric inpatient facility. She also participated in the hospital's 2012 Noche de Niños gala as a presenter of a Courage to Care Award.[89]