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Melanie Griffith

Born 1957-08-09 in Ney York City, NY
An Actor

Discuss Melanie Griffith here...

In Brief:

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Bio:

Melanie Griffith (born August 9, 1957 in New York City) is an American film actress. She is the only child of actress Tippi Hedren who is of Swedish, German and Norwegian descent and eldest child of Peter Griffith of English descent. Her parents divorced when she was four years old, and her father would remarry and have two children: actress Tracy Griffith and set designer Clay Griffith.

Griffith began work at just 9 months old in a commercial and later became an extra on Smith! (1969) and The Harrad Experiment (1973). Her first major role was in Arthur Penn's Night Moves (1975), which got her attention and typecast her as a sexy nymphet. Substance abuse problems derailed her career for nearly a decade. Her comeback started with Brian De Palma's Body Double (1984). It also led to her starring role in Jonathan Demme's Something Wild (1986). That led to her playing the title role in Mike Nichols' Working Girl (1988) which became a hit. She earned an Academy Award nomination as Best Actress and won the Golden Globe award as Best Actress in a comedy or musical. The films that followed were Brian De Palma's The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), Milk Money (1994), and John Waters Cecil B. DeMented (2000).

Griffith has been married four times. She was briefly married to Don Johnson in 1976. She was married to Steven Bauer from 1980 to 1987. She remarried Johnson in 1989. The couple divorced again in 1996 and Griffith married her current husband Antonio Banderas that same year. Griffith has three children by three husbands: Alexander Griffith Bauer (born in 1985); Dakota Mayi Johnson (born in 1989); and Stella del Carmen Banderas Griffith (born in 1996). Dakota followed in her mother's footsteps and served as Miss Golden Globe at the 2006 Golden Globes award ceremony. Griffith was Miss Golden Globe in 1975.

Griffith's television work includes playing actress Marion Davies in HBO television movie RKO 281 (1999) for which she received an Emmy nomination as Best Supporting Actress. She was also seen on The WB sitcom Twins, in which she played Lee, the mother of the show's main characters played by Sara Gilbert and Molly Stanton.

In her book A Paper Life, the Oscar-winning actress Tatum O'Neal alleges that Griffith dragged her, at age 12, into an opium-fueled orgy in Paris, along with another actress and the boyfriend of one of the actresses. Tatum also alleged that she walked in on Melanie while she was in bed with her father Ryan O'Neal.

Griffith was 20 years old when she came from a school health lecture and convinced her mother actress Tippi Hedren to quit smoking. However, she herself would become a chain-smoker and has been criticized for smoking cigarettes while pregnant with daughter Dakota in 1996, and for lighting her sixteen-year-old daughter Dakota's cigarette in 2006.

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Filmography:

• Tempo (2003)
• Shade (2003)
• The Night We Called It a Day (2003)
• Stuart Little 2 (2002)
• Searching for Debra Winger (2002) (Documentary)
• Tart (2001)
• Forever Lulu (2000)
• Cecil B. Demented (2000)
• Light Keeps Me Company (2000) (Documentary)
• The Book That Wrote Itself (1999)
• Crazy in Alabama (1999)
• Junet Whore (1998) (Documentary)
• Another Day In Paradise (1998)
• Celebrity (1998)
• Shadow of Doubt (1998)
• Lolita (1997)
• Mulhollands Falls (1996)
• Two Much (1995)
• Strange Luck (1995)
• Now and Then (1995)
• Nobody's Fool (1994)
• Milk Money (1994)
• Born Yesterday (1993)
• A Stranger Among Us (1992)
• Shining Through (1992)
• Paradise (1991)
• The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)
• Pacific Heights (1990)
• In the Spirit (1990)
• Working Girl (1988)
• Stormy Monday (1988)
• The Milagro Beanfield War (1988)
• Cherry 2000 (1987)
• Something Wild (1986)
• Body Double (1984)
• Fear City (1984)
• Roar (1981)
• Underground Aces (1981)
• One on One (1977)
• Gan, Ha (1977)
• Joyride (1977)
• Smile (1975)
• The Drowning Pool (1975)
• Night Moves (1975)
• Harrad Experiment (1973)
• Smith (1969)

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