Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Hump Day Hottie: 30 Years of Michelle Pfeiffer

Next Tuesday, November 25th marks the 30th anniversary of the very first filmed appearance of the legendary Michelle Pfeiffer. She had one line on a Fantasy Island episode... "Who is he Niobe?" To celebrate this landmark, Fran @ The Face (a great great pfan site) has compiled this video celebration.


Watch Michelle Pfeiffer, 30 Years of Career in Celebrity Videos | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

The first two minutes are montage but after that, it becomes a true event: a chronological completist stroll through her entire career (including TV appearances and voicework). It's 11 minutes and 47 seconds of Heaven... or my idea of heaven at any rate. One of my favorite things about the video is the thrill of watching the goddess get more and more beautiful as the years rush by. I also appreciate that the music changes just exactly when it should --round about 1987/1988 when her career went supernova (it was the combo of Witches of Eastwick / Married to the Mob / Dangerous Liaisons / Tequila Sunrise). This is my new favorite video. My cold dead heart nearly started beating again, my dry eyes nearly welled up -- so many memories rushing back along with reminder that I'll just never love another actress more ...and y'all know how big a statement that is given my, um, actressexual tendencies. Pfeiffer was with me as I took my first irreversible steps into cinephilia. She still sends me.

Here are my 10 arguably favorite pictures of Michelle Pfeiffer (yes I argue with myself about such things --you know it's so hard to choose)

Clockwise from top left: Photoshoot to promote Dangerous Minds (1995) -I heart the dangling "superstar", Herb Ritts imagined Pfeiffer as drag king in 1991, and finally: Actor/Photographer Jeff Bridges catches an candid moment on the set of Fabulous Baker Boys (probably 1988, she quit smoking not long thereafter) --I once nearly dropped... well way too much $ at a gallery for a breathtaking Bridges original of Pfeiffer atop the piano. If I were a rich man...


Left to right: by Rankin for Esquire in 2007 to celebrate her comeback, photographed by Davis Factor for Movieline in 2002... so atypically casual in denim.


Left to right: In 1990 by Jean Pagliuso when Russia House was coming out. That headshot is classic Pfeiffer. I'm not sure where I got the middle picture or who took it but it's one I've been obsessed with for a good while. Michael Thompson shot the actress for W in 1999... no one does ethereal miserabilism as well as she.


Left to right: Pfeiffer in Life magazine in 1986 by Co Rentmeester, Pfeiffer by Herb Ritts again in 1989 as she entered the pantheon of all time great silver screen beauties with the release of The Fabulous Baker Boys. It's never going to stop being frustrating that she lost the golden boy while everything in her career was screaming golden... even the photo shoots.
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