John LaRocca, Michelle’s agent, thought: ‘She was working at Vons in Orange County when she came into my office, and I said, “Michelle you’re in the wrong business.” It wasn’t just that she was beautiful, she had a sense of character, a sense of family, a sense of love.’

She had an agent, but while she was going after acting jobs, she was still working for Vons: ‘I kept my super market job, but I got a transfer to one in Hollywood.’ She moved from Orange County (‘It could have been from the Midwest’) to Los Angeles. Her father’s financial advice helped. She had the savings to meet the first and last I months’ deposit on the rental of an apartment. Dick Pfeiffer, however, hadn’t encouraged her in an acting career, but regardless his daughter started taking acting lessons in Hollywood Milton Katselas, her acting lessons teacherwith the well-known teacher Milton Katselas, who when later asked about his famous pupil couldn’t remember her at all. Nevertheless she took singing and acting classes with him, which would pay off richly later. She didn’t know many people in Los Angeles so it was work, studying and cattle calls. There was little, playtime, not ditching work as she had school classes.

LaRocca was smitten. ‘She was a deep person. I got heir her Screen Actors’ Guild [the American equivalent of British Equity] card. And I got her the job on Fantasy Island. The Pfeiffer fantasy moment has become part of Hollywood legend acquiring a magical aura like those, of the soda fountain and drug-store discoveries of the 1940S ’sweater girls’ like Lana Turner. She remembers rehearsing for the show: ‘I practised and practised that line. I remember being so discombobulated because I had to find my mark – you know, you don’t learn that in acting class. And the lights were so bright I couldn’t keep my eyes open-. I remember showing up for work and having my name on the dressing-room.’

And then she won a role in a television series. In the late seventies and eighties television series like Kojak and Columbo were so popular that they were eclipsing movies in terms of career exposure and money. A hit TV show could turn you into a multi-millionaire faster than a feature film.

At first, for the fledgling Pfeiffer, it was like finding the Holy Grail after searching for half a mile. Desperately keen, ambitious and excited she had no frame of reference to tell her that playing the Bombshell on a series called Delta House, based on the late John Belushi’s tremendously successful film Animal House, might not be the vehicle for overnight fame. But it was an instant indication that Hollywood is not subtle. They saw – as Tim Burton would say – a Total Babe. They padded her bra and squeezed her into tight dresses. She was appearing in a situation comedy. At the time she didn’t catch on that she was fulfilling a childhood fantasy. She was becoming Tina Louise, Ginger of Gilligan’s Island. She didn’t like the reality.

‘I used to call up my agent, crying on the phone, and saying: “They’re putting me in hot pants again.”‘ With hindsight you realize that she wasn’t as concerned about strutting her stuff as being perceived as a cheat, or, in this sense, a fraudulent sexual tease. Pfeiffer remembers: ‘I had two sets of falsies on. Here they were presenting me like I’m this sexy thing, and I was thinking: “What if people don’t think I’m sexy? I’m going to look like an asshole.” ‘

Everyone on the series thought she looked terrific. She had a drop-jaw effect on most of the cast and crew when she would appear on the ABC television studio film set in Los Angeles with everything she had to offer stretched or pushed to the limit.

‘She was drop-dead gorgeous and the producers put her in this red dress, this tight red dress with a padded bra,’ said her Delta House co-star Bruce McGill, adding: ‘She particularly hated the padded bra thing. Her character was called Bombshell. She almost never got to speak a line. She was a very good sport about the whole thing but I know it was hard on her. She was very green but very willing.’

Chapter Seven | Biography Index | Chapter Nine

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