Michelle Pfeiffer Trivia: 35 intriguing facts about the actress!

Michelle Pfeiffer is an American actress, singer and producer.

Let’s see some fun facts about her!

1. Michelle Marie Pfeiffer was born April 29, 1958 in Santa Ana, California.

2. She is the second of four children of Richard Pfeiffer, an air-conditioning contractor, and Donna, a housewife.

3. She has one elder brother, Rick, and two younger sisters, Dedee Pfeiffer, a television and film actress, and Lori Pfeiffer.

4. Her parents were both originally from North Dakota.

5. Her paternal grandfather was of German ancestry and her paternal grandmother was of English, Welsh, French, Irish, and Dutch descent, while her maternal grandfather was of Swiss-German descent and her maternal grandmother was of Swedish ancestry.

6. The family moved to Midway City, where Pfeiffer spent her childhood.

7. She attended Fountain Valley High School, graduating in 1976.

8. She worked as a check-out girl at Vons supermarket, and attended Golden West College where she was a member of Alpha Delta Pi sorority.

9. After a short stint training to be a court stenographer, she decided upon an acting career.

10. She won the Miss Orange County beauty pageant in 1978, and participated in Miss California the same year, finishing in sixth position.

11. Following her participation in these pageants, she acquired an acting agent and began to audition for television and films.

12. She began her acting career in 1978 and had her first starring film role in Grease 2 (1982), before receiving mainstream attention for her breakout performance in Scarface (1983).

13. Her greatest commercial successes include Batman Returns (1992), Dangerous Minds (1995), What Lies Beneath (2000) and Hairspray (2007).

14. Pfeiffer was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Dangerous Liaisons (1988), and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama for The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989).

15. She received a third Oscar nomination for Love Field (1992). Her other notable film roles include The Witches of Eastwick (1987), Married to the Mob (1988), Frankie and Johnny (1991), The Age of Innocence (1993), Wolf (1994) and White Oleander (2002).

16. While taking acting classes in Los Angeles, Pfeiffer was taken in by a seemingly friendly couple who ran a metaphysics and vegetarian cult. While they helped Pfeiffer to stop drinking, smoking, or doing drugs, the couple took control of her entire life. Much of her money went to the group. “I was brainwashed… I gave them an enormous amount of money.” Pfeiffer, insecure, felt that she could no longer live without them.

17. At an acting class taught by Milton Katselas in Los Angeles, Pfeiffer met fellow budding actor, Peter Horton. Pfeiffer and Horton began dating.

18. Pfeiffer and Horton eventually married in Santa Monica in 1981, and it was on their honeymoon that she discovered she had won the lead role in Grease 2.

19. Horton directed Pfeiffer in a 1985 ABC TV special, One Too Many, in which she played the high school girlfriend of an alcoholic student (Val Kilmer); and in 1987, the real-life couple played an on-screen couple in the ‘Hospital’ segment of John Landis’s comedy skit compilation, Amazon Women on the Moon.

20. They decided to separate in 1988, and were divorced two years later; Horton later blamed the split on their devotion to their work rather than on their marriage.

21. After her marriage to Horton, Pfeiffer had a three-year relationship with actor/producer Fisher Stevens. They met when Pfeiffer was starring in the New York Shakespeare Festival production of Twelfth Night, in which Stevens played the role of Sir Andrew Aguecheek.

22. Pfeiffer was also involved in an affair with John Malkovich, her co-star in Dangerous Liaisons, who at the time was married to Glenne Headly.

23. In January 1993, Pfeiffer was set up on a blind date by her best friend and former producing partner Kate Guinzburg, with television writer and producer David E. Kelley, who took her to the movies to see Bram Stoker’s Dracula the following week, and they began dating seriously.

24. They married on November 13, 1993. She made a brief uncredited cameo appearance in one episode of Kelley’s television series Picket Fences and played the title character in To Gillian On Her 37th Birthday, for which Kelley wrote the screenplay.

25. Pfeiffer had entered into private adoption proceedings before she met Kelley.

26. In March 1993, she adopted a newborn daughter, Claudia Rose, who was christened on Pfeiffer and Kelley’s wedding day.

27. In August 1994, Pfeiffer gave birth to a son, John Henry.

28. Having been a smoker for ten years and having a niece who suffered from leukemia for ten years, she decided to support the American Cancer Society.

29. Her charity work also includes her support for the Humane Society.

30. Pfeiffer is a vegan.

31. In 2016, she attended the Healthy Child Healthy World’s L.A. Gala 2016 for people who lead the organizations for children’s environmental health and protect those most vulnerable.

32. In December that same year, Pfeiffer joined the board of directors at Environmental Working Group, a consumer research and advocacy group. The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization focuses on farm subsidies and the health effects of toxic chemicals used in food, cosmetics and fossil fuel drilling and mining.

33. For the role of Catwoman in the film “Batman Returns” she trained in kickboxing and martial arts.

34. This was the first time she learnt how to use a whip and even happened to cut her trainer’s face by mistake.

35. Pfeiffer’s costume as Catwoman is of black leather stitched together costing $1000. Sixty designs were prepared for that particular character for the entire 6 months shoot.