MICHELLE PFEIFFER
Magnificently past the age of innocence,
she has come into her own as wife
mother and classic Hollywood head-turner
ACTRESS. The experts agree: There's
no one quite like Michelle Pfeiffer "Unbelievably
beautiful," says Rob Reiner,
who recently directed her romantic comedy The
Story of Us, due at Christmastime. "She
has become more luminous the more mature she has become,"
says Deep End of the Ocean author Jacquelyn
Mitchard. And Michael Hoffman,
director of this month's A Midsummer Night's
Dream, calls Pfeiffer "the Greek
ideal," adding that "the
closer you get the camera to her face, the more beautiful she is.
It has something to do with the structural perfection of her beauty,
the marble-y cool quality of it."
Pfeiffer used to give such unabashed compliments a big quack.
"I look like a duck" was her analysis in PEOPLE
in 1990, when she was the cover girl of our fist-ever 50 Most Beautiful
issue. "It's the way that my mouth sort
of curls up, or my nose tilts up. I should have played Howard the
Duck." Reminded of those words 10 years later, Pfeiffer,
now 41, laughs. "Well, seeing that things
tend to spiral downward as we get older, I probably am not quite
so ducklike anymore." Indeed, happily married for five
years to writer-producer David E. Kelley
(The Practice, Ally
McBeal) and the mother of Claudia
Rose, 6, and John Henry,
4, Pfeiffer admits that she not only takes care of her family, but
has lately begun to take better care of herself. "Ten
years ago I did nothing beauty-wise," she says.
"I smoked cigarettes, ate whatever I wanted and used bar soap
on my face. People were horrified by how I treated my skin."
What a difference a decade makes. Today, she says, "the
maintenance is just way out of control. I'll use sunscreen and have
regular manicures now, and I never used to do that. Now it takes
me so long to go to bed or get out of the house."
That wasn't the case growing up in Midway City, Calif., 31 miles
southeast of Hollywood. One of four children of air-conditioning
contractor Dick Pfeiffer and
his homemaker wife, Donna, Michelle
was "definitely considered the prettiest
in the family," says her younger sister DeDee
Pfeiffer, who stars on the WB series For
Your Love. Still, Michelle hardly imagined herself a future
glamor goddess. "I was a tomboy,"
says the actress who put the claws on Catwoman. "Really
rough-and-tumble. Ask me to play dolls with my daughter and I don't
have a clue. I'm just not a girlie girl." By fourth
grade, though, she was envious of her friend Suzette.
"I had this really short blonde pixie," Pfeiffer
recalls with a smile. "And Suzette had
these beautiful little brown ringlets, and she was very feminine
and very petite." The 5'6'' Pfeiffer was, she says,
"always considered really big. In progress
reports, the teachers always wrote that I talked too much and was
the biggest one in class-like it was something to be proud of."
By the time she reached Fountain Valley High School, says DeDee,
Michelle "didn't know how pretty she
was. She was a typical high school girl who just happened to have
been gorgeous. She'd have a boyfriend, and when that boyfriend didn't
work out, she'd have another one. But it wasn't like we'd have 20
guys at the door." For her part, Pfeiffer is circumspect
about the effects her features have on others. "A
person's looks are a double-edged sword," she says.
"Sometimes it works in your favor, sometimes
it works against you. Some people peak when they're 12 and some
when they're 30." Pfeiffer and Kelley instill images
of diversity into their own children, something especially important
to them since adopted daughter Claudia is biracial. "We
stress that everybody has the body that's right for them, the skin
that's right for them and the hair that's right for them,"
Pfeiffer says. "We encourage them to
embrace people's differences."
After a year studying psychology at Golden West College, Pfeiffer
dropped out and entered a beauty contest-because she wanted to meet
a Hollywood agent who was one of the judges. Voilà, Miss
Orange County of 1978. And, soon, a one-line part on Fantasy
island, followed by a string of starlet parts on the small
screen. But Pfeiffer, who was divorced from actor Peter
Horton in 1990 after nine years of marriage, didn't want
to remain just another pretty face, and opted for movie roles with
edge and ego, from comedies like 1988's Married
to the Mob to wrenching human dramas such as 1995's Dangerous
Minds.
Staying in shape for those close-ups is harder work than it used
to be. Pfeiffer, who dated actors Val
Kilmer and Fisher Stevens
before she settled down with Kelley, works out at her Los Angeles
home, doing both cardiovascular exercises and stretching.
"I'm the most unlimber person on the planet," she
says, "but I make up in strength what
I lack in flexibility." Cooking for her kids challenges
her low-fat, moderate diet. "I spent
years trying to clean up my act," says Pfeiffer, who
admits to a lust for popcorn and peanut M&Ms. "Then
I found myself making macaroni and cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches."
Though she wouldn't mind if "my legs
were a little longer, and I really would like curls, I'm not unhappy
with the way I look now," she says. "I
have a few more lines and things, but fortunately my husband likes
old women!" As for the future, though, Pfeiffer isn't
quite ready to become a living legend. "All
I really care about," she says, "is
that I'm able to age gracefully and that I don't ever look like
a wax figure of myself." Not a chance. |
