MICHELLE'S A MUM
AND READY TO WED
Despite being a fantasy figure to men throughout the world, Michelle Pfeiffer despaired of meeting a man strong enough to deal with her career as the world's number one female star.
But as her movie Love Field – for which she won an Oscar nomination in April – is released on video on November 3, she has talked of her own dramatic field of love which will end in marriage next spring to producer boyfriend David Kelley.
He finally won Michelle's heart by the way he reacted to news of her shock adoption of daughter Claudia Rose, now eight months old.
Michelle, 35, had secretly made the arrangements to adopt before she met David, but was yet to go through with it. "I told him when we were in bed," she smiles. "I thought that would soften the blow.
"He was obviously amazed, but he remained calm and said all the right things. His support and kindness really won me over. David said he would be there for me in any way he could. That's been true ever since and he'll make a wonderful father.
"Some men would have run a mile. And a man who couldn't have handled the situation was not a man to risk a marriage with," says Michelle, who didn't hesitate when David, 39, a lawyer and executive producer of the TV series LA Law, proposed. "I'm more in touch with my own feelings now than at any point in my life –and knew what I wanted.
"I was ready to make a commitment as a mother and now feel that I want to do it as a wife. I always wanted to adopt and have children. I have the one. If I can achieve the other, I'll feel blessed. But I'd like it within the security of a marriage."
Michelle's private life has up to now been a series of disappointments and heartaches. A three-year relationship with 29year-old actor Fisher Stevens broke up in 1992. She reportedly found him in the arms of another actress on the set of his film Super Mario Bros. "That was complete invention," says Michelle. "No one else was involved, our relationship had drifted.
"I waited a while before going ahead with the adoption of Claudia Rose because I feared that it might be a reaction to the end of a relationship.
"But I realised I was just ready to have a baby. If anything, I was overdue for motherhood. My life had been all about what I wanted for so long, with me always being the centre of attention. It just didn't feel right any more."
Michelle's acting success has given her considerable attention during a remarkable 15-year career. She has won accolades for films such as Married To The Mob, Frankie And Johnny and Witches Of Eastwick.
There were also two other Oscar nominations, apart from Love Field, for performances in Dangerous Liaisons and The Fabulous Baker Boys.
But her love life has also created headlines and controversy around the world, with several famous boyfriends. After her five-year marriage ended to thirtysomething star Peter Horton, Michelle was linked to Michael Keaton.
But that romance ended unhappily. Next, there was her Dangerous Liaisons co-star John Malkovich. In 1988, while filming in France, they would slip away to the exclusive Hotel Raphael on Avenue Klaber in Paris to conduct an affair which became an open secret on the film set.
But John, 39, who had promised to leave his actress wife Glenne Headly, changed his mind when Michelle returned home to Los Angeles. Then he changed tack and decided he wanted Michelle. She dropped him.
"I've had my affections and selfconfidence thrown back in my face more than once. It made me uncertain of my emotions for some years. There was plenty of unhappiness in my 20s, which is why I loved playing other characters. But at the end of the day, I had to go back to being myself – and that's harder."
She admits that the real turning point came for her four years ago when she played stunning singer Susie Diamond in The Fabulous Baker Boys. "It took me years to get to the point of playing a part like that," she says. "Even a year or so before, I wouldn't have been able to put on her clothes and act such a role.
"Coming to terms with my own sexuality meant I didn't have to wrap it up by pretending it didn't exist. Because of the way I look, I'd stayed away from buying anything sexy or overtly sexual to wear.
"But Susie was such a brilliant character – much more than just an arm piece for a man – I thought that I could learn from her. She is someone I wanted to be like."
Michelle still prefers jumpers, jeans and T-shirts to expensive designer dresses. The only difference is that she is now prepared to appear in stunning style at the few premieres and Hollywood receptions she agrees to attend.
"Having Claudia Rose has been such a great excuse not to go out. I would sooner be at home in casual clothes, playing with my daughter, than parading myself at a first night. I can't help it. That's the way I am.
"The thing about age and confidente for a woman in her 30s is that now I don't mind saying exactly how I feel. I'm influenced less by others."
Yet she confesses that her own personality has often been ruled by the film roles she's played. Even for her biggest box-office hit, playing Catwoman in Batman Returns, she took up kick-boxing and became an expert with a whip.
"I thought it was great defence if I needed it," she says. "I know what my capabilities are and I'm pretty strong when I have to be. That attitude includes my personal life, too. This is why, when I knew I wanted to adopt, there was no changing my mind. It's the same with marriage.
"I remember thinking that I was not affected by the parts I played. But that view changed completely when working on Witches Of Eastwick.
"My character, Sukie, had to go from being passive to assertive. The director, George Miller, said that my whole personality varied, depending on what point we had reached in the film. He said, 'I hate working with you when you're supposed to be aggressive, because you fight with me all the time."
Michelle's early Hollywood days were lean as she strived to achieve the big break, which she feared had passed her by. A debut appearance as a carhop in the film Hollywood Knights left her feeling she'd always have to wear hotpants to get a part.
Then after playing the singing, dancing Stephanie in the flop film Grease 2, she didn't work for a year.
It took several auditions and much effort to win the role of Al Pacino's ice-queen wife, Elvira, in Scarface. And she did it without resorting to full frontal nudity or naked love scenes. "I'm not saying 'never' to anything, but I've not seen the point so far," she says.
The closest was a carefully filmed shower scene in Into The Night, opposite Jeff Goldblum. "That was difficult," she recalls. "I'm really a very modest person. But in the end, it was a matter of turning off mentally and finishing it as quickly as possible. You couldn't see anything."
In her new film Love Field, Michelle plays a beautician who, in 1963, takes a bus from Dallas to Washington DC determined to attend the funeral of President John F Kennedy. The story is about race relations at a time when it was a burning issue in American history.
Michelle, whose dyed blonde hair makes her look a bit like Marilyn Monroe, plays an innocent who is obsessed with what Kennedy was trying to do for America. On her journey, she becomes entangled with a black man (Dennis Haysbert), who's snatched his young daughter from a home where she was being mistreated.
Her next film, Age Of Innocence, from the Edith Wharton novel set in New York's high society of the 1870s, co-stars Daniel Day Lewis and is tipped to earn her an Oscar in 1994.
Now the star's personal life is equally successful, Michelle says, "I feel more secure and happier than at any time in my life."
Interview by Garth Pearce
Main photograph by Terry O'Neill
Having a Field day with Sunday
Michelle Pfeiffer dazzles in this low-key but powerful drama set in the Sixties. She is dizzy hairdresser Lurene Hallett, who's obsessed with President John F Kennedy and his wife Jackie. Setting off across the country on a bus, her life is changed for ever when she becomes embroiled in the American race turmoil. Love Field isn't action-packed, but it is packed with great acting.
RATING 8/10.
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