Melanie Griffith - Career

Career

Griffith began work at just nine months old in a commercial and made her film debut as an extra in Smith! (1969). Her first credited roles were in Smile, The Drowning Pool, and Night Moves (all 1975), in which she did racy nude scenes at age 17.

Griffith's career gained momentum in 1984 when she played a porn actress in the Brian De Palma thriller Body Double. The film won her the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress, and led to her starring role in Jonathan Demme's Something Wild (1986), which became a cult favorite. She achieved mainstream success when Mike Nichols cast her as spunky secretary Tess McGill in the hit 1988 film Working Girl. Griffith's performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress and won her the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy.

Griffith's next starring role was in the urban thriller Pacific Heights (1990) with Matthew Modine. She worked continuously throughout the 1990s, starring in many films including The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), A Stranger Among Us (1992), Born Yesterday (1993), Milk Money (1994), Now and Then (1995), and Two Much (1996), where she co-starred with future husband Antonio Banderas.

Griffith received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in the successful TV movie Buffalo Girls (1995), alongside Anjelica Huston. In 1998 she appeared in Woody Allen's Celebrity with Kenneth Branagh and Leonardo DiCaprio. Later that year, she starred as a free-spirited heroin user in Another Day in Paradise (1998), a performance that some critics wrote was the best of her career.

In 1999, Griffith starred in Crazy in Alabama, a film that was directed by Banderas and produced by Greenmoon Productions, the company that she and Banderas formed together. In the film, Griffith played an eccentric woman who kills her husband and heads to Hollywood to become a movie star. Also in 1999, Griffith made her stage debut at the Old Vic in London, England, where she acted with Cate Blanchett in The Vagina Monologues. In the HBO film RKO 281, she played actress Marion Davies, and received an Emmy nomination for her portrayal.

Griffith's career cooled down in the early 2000s following her last major roles to date in the independent films Cecil B. Demented and Forever Lulu (aka Along for the Ride). In 2002, she voiced the character of Margalo the bird in Stuart Little 2. Since then, her appearances in films have been very infrequent and low-profile.

In 2003, Griffith made her Broadway debut playing Roxie Hart in the musical Chicago. Untrained in song and dance, she still impressed New York Times theatre critic Ben Brantley, who wrote: "Ms. Griffith is a sensational Roxie, possibly the most convincing I have seen" and " vultures who were expecting to see Ms. Griffith stumble...will have to look elsewhere". Griffith's celebratory reviews made it a box office success. She returned to the stage in 2012 in a play that Scott Caan wrote titled "No Way Around but Through."

Griffith starred on the short-lived WB sitcom Twins (2005–06). Her career continued to suffer when her 2007 series Viva Laughlin was canceled after two episodes, and her 2012 television pilot This American Housewife (produced by Banderas) was not picked up by Lifetime. In the interim, Griffith guest-starred on Nip/Tuck and Hot in Cleveland.

In January 2012, Griffith was cast in the comedy film The Hot Flashes with her real-life friends Daryl Hannah (who also appeared with her in Two Much) and Brooke Shields. Filming began on February 23, but just five days later, Griffith pulled out of the production due to "creative differences."