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1 | Has twice missed the opportunity to work with one of her idols, Meryl Streep , first in Working Girl (1988) and then in A Prairie Home Companion (2006) , which she dropped out of to film I Could Never Be Your Woman (2007). |
2 | Before moving to Northern California in 2003-2004, she lived in the affluent Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Her neighbors included Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, O.J. Simpson and Roseanne Barr. |
3 | Turned down Still Alice (2014). Julianne Moore was cast instead and ended up winning an Oscar for the role. |
4 | Shortly after coming to Hollywood, Pfeiffer was introduced to "Breatharianism", a cult which follows the belief that a person can live without food and water, receiving sustenance only from air and sunlight. She didn't realize anything was wrong until she met her first husband, Peter Horton, who was working on a documentary about Reverend Moon Sung Moon's Unification Church. She realized that the psychological manipulation described by former Moon-members was similar to her experience with "Breatharianism". |
5 | Mentioned in the songs "Riptide" by Vance Joy and "Uptown Funk" by Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson. |
6 | Was auditioned and rejected for the role of "Tiffany Wells" in Charlie's Angels (1976). |
7 | Lost out to Daryl Hannah for the lead role in Ron Howard's Splash (1984). |
8 | Was considered for the part of Marilyn Lovell (née Gerlach, wife of astronaut Jim Lovell) in Apollo 13 (1995). |
9 | Was offered a role in Lorenzo's Oil (1992) but backed out due to scheduling conflicts from Batman Returns (1992). The role ultimately went to Susan Sarandon. |
10 | Turned down the part of "Suzanne" in To Die For (1995). |
11 | Michelle is a fan of Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway and Judi Dench. |
12 | Other actresses considered for Pfeiffer's breakthrough role in Brian De Palma's Scarface (1983) included Karen Allen, Sally Field, Kathleen Quinlan, Marilu Henner, Debra Winger, Liza Minnelli, Jessica Lange, Melanie Griffith, Kirstie Alley, Diane Keaton, Glenn Close and Amy Irving. |
13 | In March 2004 Pfeiifer was attached to star in a remake of Billy Wilder's Witness for the Prosecution (1957). She was attached to star as Marlene Deitrich's character Christine Helm Vole. Her husband David E. Kelley was penning and adapting the screenplay. Agatha Christie's grandson Mathew Prichard advised, "The role of Christine was written for someone like Michelle Pfeiffer. She'd be perfect in it. She's gorgeous, sultry and superbly talented. Would my grandmother approve? Definitely. It'll be one of the biggest films ever based on an Agatha Christie work." Unfortunately the project was put on hold. |
14 | Has been vegan since June 2012. |
15 | After almost 20 years to the day, she has reunited with two former directors for new projects. Garry Marshall, who directed Pfeiffer in Frankie and Johnny (1991), is directing her in New Year's Eve (2011), and Tim Burton, who directed her in Batman Returns (1992), is directing her in Dark Shadows (2012). |
16 | Reportedly turned down the chance to star opposite Pierce Brosnan in the romantic comedy, Some Kind of Beautiful (2014). |
17 | Was the original choice for the female lead in City Island (2009). |
18 | Briefly considered taking on the lead role in the boxing drama Against the Ropes (2004). When Pfeiffer passed, Meg Ryan was cast in the film, which went on to become a failure at the box office. |
19 | Michelle was under serious consideration for the role of "Maria" in the big-screen adaptation of The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990). Brian De Palma, who had directed the actress in Scarface (1983), was eager to work with her again. However, she instead opted for the role in another literary film adaptation, The Russia House (1990). Melanie Griffith was then cast as "Maria" and received a Razzie nomination as Worst Actress for the role, while Michelle went on to receive a Golden Globe nomination for her performance. |
20 | Kate Nelligan has been her co-star in three films: Frankie and Johnny (1991), Wolf (1994) and Up Close & Personal (1996). |
21 | Pfeiffer was already in the process of adopting a child by the time she met future husband David E. Kelley. They had only been together for two months when their daughter Claudia Rose was added to their family. |
22 | Was offered the Julia Roberts role in Pretty Woman (1990). |
23 | Was considered for the Marcia Gay Harden's role in Mystic River (2003). |
24 | Empire Magazine voted her the 3rd sexiest movie star ever in 1995. 1st was Johnny Depp and 2nd was Marilyn Monroe. |
25 | Was considered for the role of Golly in Nickelodeon's screen adaptation of Harriet the Spy (1996) that went to Rosie O'Donnell. |
26 | While Pfeiffer was involved with her own production company "Via Rose Productions", she had a few projects in development. They included a biopic of singer Marianne Faithfull, artist Georgia O'Keeffe, as well as a sci-fi/drama, a female basketball coach, a project where she would play a tabloid journalist called "Privacy", also included in the mix are one about the Rosewood Education Center in South Central Los Angeles, where gang members help and work with handicap kids. Another script in development was where she would play an undercover drug agent in a project called, "The Ice Queen", based on the true story of DEA agent Heidi Landgraf who posed as a drug queen and ended up sending 200 dealers to jail. |
27 | She was offered the role of Slim Keith in Infamous (2006). She turned down the role and it was then given to Hope Davis. |
28 | Turned down the Ashley Judd role in Double Jeopardy (1999). |
29 | A potentially very interesting role that got away from Michelle was "Mistress of the Seas", to be directed by Paul Verhoeven and produced by Jon Peters. It was to have centered around the true story of two female pirates, "Anne Bonny" and "Mary Read", who sailed the seas with "Calico Jack" in the Caribbean during the 18th Century. Michelle and Geena Davis were to be involved, but Geena had already signed up to do her own pirate flick, Cutthroat Island (1995), and Michelle, after meetings with Verhoeven, withdrew from the project, stating that all the conversations "were about how much skin I would show". |
30 | Passion of Mind (2000) was originally developed for Pfeiffer in the late 1980s, but by the time it was finally ready to go into production a decade later, she was unavailable due to scheduling conflicts, and the film became a vehicle for Demi Moore. |
31 | Was considered for the role in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) that was played by Jennifer Jason Leigh. |
32 | Was tested and rejected by Franco Zeffirelli for the role of Jade Butterfield in Endless Love (1981). In the end, Zeffirelli chose Brooke Shields, a very young actress for the role, a decision she later wanted to regret. |
33 | Turned down the role of the Angel of death in A Prairie Home Companion (2006). The role went to Virginia Madsen. |
34 | Before the role in Chéri (2009) went to Pfeiffer, Jessica Lange was attached to play the lead, and was attached to the project for a number of years. She has credit as a producer on the film. |
35 | Was considered for a part in Working Girl (1988) along with Meryl Streep. The roles eventually went to Melanie Griffith (replacing Pfeiffer) and Sigourney Weaver (replacing Streep). |
36 | Said she wanted to star in a Grease remake with Jessica Simpson. |
37 | Was attached to star in two romantic comedies in 2004. One was "Taming Ben Taylor" (2004) with Kevin Costner and the other was "She's Gone" (2004), a romantic comedy about a couple whose marriage is at a crossroads. It was to be produced by Armyan Bernstein and Mark Johnson for Disney. |
38 | Auditoned for the role in Urban Cowboy (1980) that eventually went to Debra Winger. |
39 | Was considered for the role in Bugsy (1991) that eventually went to Annette Bening. |
40 | In the mid-1990s, she was attached to star in a remake of The Innocents (1961) starring Deborah Kerr, based on the Henry James novel "The Turn of the Screw". |
41 | Turned down the role of Ginger McKenna in Casino (1995), because she had already played a similar role in Scarface (1983). The part eventually went to Sharon Stone. |
42 | According to her interview in Premiere Magazine in 1999, she would really like to work with: Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt. |
43 | Was considered for the lead role in Mamma Mia! (2008) that eventually went to Meryl Streep. |
44 | She is best friends with Steven Spielberg and his wife Kate Capshaw, and close friends with Denzel Washington, Nicole Kidman, Jack Nicholson, Jodie Foster, George Clooney, Glenn Close, Gina Gershon, Martin Scorsese, Cher, Melanie Griffith, Vonda Shepard, James Spader, Jeff Goldblum, Matthew Broderick, Giorgio Armani, Ellen Barkin, Ed Begley Jr., Stockard Channing, Jeff Bridges, and Susan Sarandon,. |
45 | Empire Magazine voted her the 33rd sexiest movie star in December 2007. |
46 | Good friends with Ellen Barkin. |
47 | Was voted by Empire Magazine as 13th Greatest actress of her time (out of 50 actresses) 2004. |
48 | When she was in her twenties, strangers would come up to her thinking she was Debbie Harry from the band Blondie. Not surprisingly, Harry stated in an interview that if she could choose any actress to play her in a film, she would choose Pfeiffer. |
49 | One of her favorite films is The Wizard of Oz (1939). |
50 | Has been very good friends with Cher since working together on The Witches of Eastwick (1987). |
51 | Was nominated for 6 consecutive Golden Globe Awards from 1989-1994. |
52 | Has worked with four live-action Batmans. First, she appeared in Batman Returns (1992), with Michael Keaton. She worked with Val Kilmer ABC Afterschool Specials (1972) {One Too Many (#13.7)} and The Prince of Egypt (1998). In One Fine Day (1996), she works with George Clooney, and in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999), she works with Christian Bale. |
53 | Has been an an avid oil painter for most of her life. |
54 | Received a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on August 6, 2007. |
55 | Was offered the role of Clarice Starling, in the movie The Silence of the Lambs (1991), that eventually went to Jodie Foster. |
56 | In an Entertainment Weekly on-line poll, she placed second in the category of Best Modern Actress; beaten only by Meryl Streep [September 1999]. |
57 | In 1999, joined the "12 million dollar club". |
58 | Was considered for the role of Eva Perón in Evita (1996), and when the film was to be directed by Oliver Stone, she even had taken a good few months voice training for the role. |
59 | Sister-in-law of Jude Cole and Kevin Ryan. Ex-sister-in-law of Gregory Fein. |
60 | Turned down the role of the White Witch in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005); she was the only major Hollywood star offered the role. |
61 | Chosen by People Magazine as one of the most intriguing people of 1988 and 1989. |
62 | Voted by Biography Magazine readers as the most beautiful woman of the 1990s. |
63 | Barbara Walters called her and Julia Roberts the most beautiful people she has ever interviewed. |
64 | Was chosen to be on the cover of the first ever "People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People in the World" issue in 1990; appeared on the list a record 6 times (1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1999) and the first person to appear on the cover of the special issue twice (1990 and 1999). |
65 | During an A&E Biography (1987), she said that her Catwoman costume from Batman Returns (1992) was vacuum-sealed once she was fitted into it for scenes, so she actually had only a short amount of time to perform before she would have to have it opened or she could become light-headed and pass out. |
66 | Michelle's paternal grandfather was of German descent, and Michelle's paternal grandmother had English, Welsh, French, German, Dutch, and Irish ancestry. On her mother's side, Michelle is of Swiss-German and Swedish descent. |
67 | Actor Val Kilmer wrote poetry for her. |
68 | Older sister of Lori Pfeiffer, and Dedee Pfeiffer. |
69 | Attended Fountain Valley High School in Fountain Valley, California and graduated in 1976. |
70 | There was a study done of the faces of beautiful women, quantifying the ratio of the width of the mouth to the width of the nose, attempting to find the perfect proportions for the perfect face of feminine beauty (the ratio turns out to be something like 1.7). The movie star with the most perfect proportions for feminine facial beauty, based on this measure, turns out to be Michelle Pfeiffer. |
71 | Her first job as a performer was playing "Alice" from Alice in Wonderland (1951) at Disneyland in the Main Street Electrical Parade in the mid-1970s. |
72 | Studied acting under Geraldine Page at workshop at Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles. |
73 | Accidentally cut Al Pacino with broken glass while auditioning for Scarface (1983). |
74 | Has an adopted daughter named Claudia Rose (born in 1993) and a son named John Henry (born in 1994) with husband David E. Kelley, named after David's father. |
75 | While a teenage clerk at Vons Grocery Store in California, c. 1974, she learned to tie maraschino cherry stems in knots with her tongue. |
76 | Turned down the Sharon Stone role in Basic Instinct (1992). |
77 | The character Catwoman/Selina Kyle, who she played in Batman Returns (1992), was voted #3 in Empire's "69 Sexiest Movie Characters of All Time". [2000] |
78 | Does her own singing in Grease 2 (1982), The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), The Prince of Egypt (1998) and Hairspray (2007). |
79 | Replaced Annette Bening as Catwoman in Batman Returns (1992), due to the former actress' pregnancy. |
80 | Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#3). [1995] |
81 | Michelle's name was misspelled as 'Michele' in the credits of her film, Callie & Son (1981). |
82 | Studied acting at The Beverly Hills Playhouse. |
83 | Was voted Best Dressed Female Movie Star. [1997] |
84 | Won the Miss Orange County beauty pageant. |
85 | She thought about looking for a man to father a child with "no strings attached," but decided to adopt instead. She adopted a daughter, 'Claudia Rose'. |
86 | Born at 8:11am-PDT. |
87 | Ranked #39 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997] |
88 | Used to work in a clothing store. |
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