Fifteen
"Grease 2" arrives - Llega "Grease 2"

Then Grease 2 opened in the cinemas of America. And the critics put pen to paper and the airwaves. They weren't too good with the movie. For instance, Richard Schiekel, in Time magazine of 21 June 1982, was not amused [see review]

But a bombshell is still a bombshell. Pfeiffer would survive the fall-out, which if not nuclear was quite intense. In general she fared much, much better than the film that was intended to turn her into an overnight superstar. On 11 June 1982, in the New York Times, the respected critic Janet Maslin offered the view that while Pfeiffer couldn't hold up to Olivia Newton-John's singing she was superior in every other way:

She has a sullen quality that is more fitting to a Grease character than Miss Newton-John's sunniness was. Also, though she is a relative screen newcomer, Miss Pfeiffer manages to look much more insouciant and comfortable than anyone else in the cast.

She wasn't so comfortable promoting the film. Before the ravaging reviews started to appear, Paramount Studios had her on a coast-to-coast US tour to talk about Grease 2. She remembers: 'I went crazy with that movie. I went to New York, and the paparazzi were waiting at the hotel. I knew the producers [of the film] put them up to it. I am basically very private, and I'm really nervous about doing publicity. Every time I set up an interview I say, "That's it, this is my last one. I'll do this because I'm committed to doing it, but I'll never do another one." It was insane.'

Pfeiffer believes there's a little madness in the lives of all actresses 'I have some horrible sado-masochistic streak in me. It's a running theme with all of us actresses. We all need some kind of major approval we didn't get when growing up. Not only do we pick a career where we'd get worldwide approval - and that's how big our approval needs to be, worldwide - we also set ourselves, up for worldwide rejection. But we didn't think about that going in, right? It's your worst nightmare come true.'

The advertising campaign for Grease 2 was also like a bad dream. Pfeiffer and Maxwell Caulfield were pictured in big, sexy advertisements with the sell line: TOO HOT! Her reaction? 'I wanted to die. It was so embarrassing.' So was the moment when her father phoned her at a hotel in Chicago during her promotional tour. He only saw his daughter's name in the Los Angeles Times, not the criticism. 'He read it to me on the phone. I must admit it really hurt.'

Ironically, what hurt her more than any review was her own acting talent - and it was this that was mainly responsible for a difficult year after the box-office flop of Grease 2 in America. Allan Carr still regards the film as a success. After the high from the financial grosses of Grease, he had to deal with jokes about the follow-up, and in typical fashion he hit back:

It just happens to be a picture that has taken in $20 million, and I find myself having to defend it as if it were a failure. People in this town (Hollywood) forget that there is a thing 'called 'The World' and you've got to look at things cumulatively. But unless they hear about-it on Rodeo Drive (in Beverly Hills) nobody listens.

They didn't listen. And because of Pfeiffer's clever performance - she was correctly Californian sluttish as the high-school tart - producers and casting agents presumed that she was what she played. She says there were plenty of offers, but they all involved her playing a Stephanie Zinone clone, a gum-popping bubblehead. Her former agent John LaRocca claims, 'She couldn't get any jobs. Nobody wanted to hire her.' She didn't work for a year.