Michelle Pfeiffer’s Life and Career Through the Years: ‘Batman,’ ‘Dangerous Minds,’ More

Michelle Pfeiffer ’s impressive 48-year career set the standard for countless actresses who followed in her footsteps. You have successfully subscribed. By signing up, I agree to the Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive emails from Us Weekly Check our latest news in Google News Check our latest news in Apple News Whether it was her ageless beauty or effortless charm, Pfeiffer stood out among a new generation of movie stars emerging in the early 1980s.

Her most iconic roles showed incredible range — from donning a slinky catsuit in box office smash Batman Returns to earning three Oscar nominations for a trio of period dramas. Let’s not forget her turn as a scream queen in What Lies Beneath either! Keep scrolling to look back at Pfeiffer’s iconic career and family life: Credit: Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection;Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images Michelle Pfeiffer’s Life and Career Through the Years: ‘Batman,’ 'Dangerous Minds,’ More Michelle Pfeiffer ’s impressive 48-year career set the standard for countless actresses who followed in her footsteps.Whether it was her ageless beauty or effortless charm, Pfeiffer stood out among a new generation of movie stars emerging in the early 1980s.



Her most iconic roles showed incredible range — from donning a slinky catsuit in box office smash Batman Returns to earning three Oscar nominations for a trio of period dramas. Let’s not forget her turn as a scream queen in What Lies Beneath either!Keep scrolling to look back at Pfeiffer’s iconic career and family life: Credit: Paramount/courtesy Everett Collection ‘Grease 2’ Pfeiffer was on her honeymoon with first husband Peter Horton in 1981 when she learned she’d been cast in Grease 2 . The musical sequel was critically panned and bombed at the box office upon release in June 1982, but Pfeiffer’s performance as Pink Ladies leader Stephanie Zinone proved she had star potential.

While there were rumors for decades that Pfeiffer hated her experience on Grease 2 , she confirmed in April 2023 that she looked back fondly on the sequel. “This project is and has always been so special to me and my history,” she wrote via Instagram . The industry fallout from Grease 2 wasn’t all bad because the musical flop ended up playing a pivotal role in what Pfeiffer did next .

.. Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection ‘Scarface’ Visionary director Brian de Palma was initially dead set against Pfeiffer auditioning for his remake of 1932 gangster movie Scarface because of her involvement in Grease 2 .

Producer Martin Bregman convinced de Palma to give Pfeiffer a chance, and she impressed the filmmaker so much that he cast her as drug-addicted gangster’s moll Elvira Hancock over frontrunners Glenn Close and Sigourney Weaver . The sheer amount of brutal violence and drug abuse depicted in Scarface made the film extremely controversial at the time of its release in 1983. However, Scarface stood the test of time as a huge influence on hip-hop culture and is now often ranked as one of the greatest gangster movies ever made.

Pfeiffer admitted on “The Skinny Confidential” podcast in 2023 that filming Scarface was a grueling process, both physically and emotionally. “I cried myself to sleep almost every night on Scarface ,” she remembered. “It was obviously a huge deal for me.

Al [ Pacino ] wanted someone else, understandably so. I mean, I’m the girl from Grease 2 , you know what I mean? I was just sort of ..

. Then like a month later, they called me back for a screen test. And I was, it was mixed because I was kind of, by that point, so happy to be out of my misery, and I was being tortured.

” Pfeiffer mentioned that her biggest worry throughout Scarface’s production was whether or not she would “be bad” in the finished film. “I had such a lack of hope that I would ever get this part. I was so chill.

I mean, I just walked in, and I did a really good screen test, and that’s how I got the part,” she added. Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection ‘The Witches of Eastwick’ Pfeiffer cemented herself as a Hollywood megastar with 1987’s The Witches of Eastwick , in which she played one-third of a righteously vengeful coven, along with Cher and Susan Sarandon . In the dark comedy, three best friends manifest magical powers at the same time as they realize they’ve all been manipulated by the same playboy, Daryl Van Horne ( Jack Nicholson ).

The Witches of Eastwick was nominated for two Oscars and won a BAFTA Film Award, along with making more than $100 million at the box office. Pfeiffer downplayed rumors of onset tension among its leading ladies, insisting she made “a great team” with Cher and Sarandon despite less-than-stellar working conditions. “We became very close.

It was a difficult shoot, but not because we didn't get along,” she was quoted as saying. “We started with an unfinished script, and then you get a lot of cooks in the kitchen and everyone's doing rewrites and it just became really stressful. But if anything, it made us stick together.

It was like all the actors were in the trenches together.” The actress went on, “Working without a script doesn't work very well. We had a finished script but it wasn't one everyone was satisfied with.

There were constant changes and there was a lot of drama. It's very rarely a positive to start without a solid foundation. It works sometimes.

” Credit: ©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection John Malkovich ‘Affair’ According to reports , Pfeiffer allegedly had an affair with Malkovich on the set of their 1988 romantic period drama Dangerous Liaisons. She was still married to her first husband, Horton, at the time but they split in 1988. (Malkovich and then-wife Glenne Headly also divorced in 1988.

) While Pfeiffer has declined to speak publicly about this period in her life, Malkovich told The Age in 2003 that he cried for a year after the affair was outed. Credit: ©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection ‘Dangerous Liaisons’ Despite a tumultuous behind-the-scenes scandal, Dangerous Liaisons was a milestone in Pfeiffer’s career because she received her first Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for the film. ( Geena Davis won the Oscar for T he Accidental Tourist .

) Dangerous Liaisons included an early supporting role for a then-23-year-old Keanu Reeves , with Pfeiffer noticing early on that he was destined to be “a big star.” Credit: ©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection ‘The Fabulous Baker Boys’ Pfeiffer scored her second Oscar nomination — and first Golden Globe win — for playing lounge singer Susie Diamond in the 1989 romantic comedy The Fabulous Baker Boys , opposite real-life siblings Jeff and Beau Bridges . ( Jessica Tandy won the Best Actress Oscar that year for Driving Miss Daisy .

) The Steve Kloves -written musical was loosely based on the lives of real-life piano players Ferrante & Teicher , though he added a love triangle twist with Pfeiffer’s character. Pfeiffer told Deadline in 2021 that The Fabulous Baker Boys is “one of [her] performances that doesn’t make [her] cringe.” “I was terrified to do that singing and it was a lot of hard work, and I have such fond memories working with those Bridges boys and with Steve Klove,” she said.

“I had read that script five years prior, but nobody wanted to make it with me, and somehow it came back to me. And so it meant a lot to me for so many reasons. Actually Jeff and I have been torturing Steve about doing a sequel.

” As of 2025, a Fabulous Baker Boys sequel hasn’t come to fruition. Credit: ©Warner Bros./courtesy Everett Collection ‘Batman Returns’ Director Tim Burton ’s 1992 Batman sequel delivered what many DC Comics aficionados consider to be the definitive portrayal of Catwoman, courtesy of Pfeiffer.

Her stitched leather costume was a major fashion moment, and who can ever forget her sharp-tongued one-liners aimed at Danny DeVito ’s Penguin? During a 2022 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon , Pfeiffer revealed that she considered Catwoman the role of a lifetime because she’d been “obsessed” with the antihero since she was “a little girl.” “'Someone was cast before me. Annette Bening , who is wonderful, and then she got pregnant.

Awesome. And then I got the part,” the star confirmed to host Jimmy Fallon . Once Batman Returns made a staggering $266 million in ticket sales, Pfeiffer and Burton signed on to make a Catwoman spinoff.

Unfortunately, the pair eventually dropped out and Warner Bros went with Halle Berry ’s Catwoman instead. Everyone knows how that turned out ..

. Credit: Orion Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection ‘Love Field’ Pfeiffer produced 1995’s historical drama and her investment paid off with her third Oscar nomination — this time, for playing a Dallas housewife at the scene of John F. Kennedy ’s assassination in November 1963.

While Pfeiffer didn’t bring home the Best Actress Oscar (it went to Emma Thompson for Howards End ), she did clinch the prestigious Silver Bear prize at the Berlin International Film Festival. Credit: Brenda Chase/Getty Images David E. Kelley Marriage The TV mega–producer behind Big Little Lies and Ally McBeal tied the knot with Pfeiffer in 1993.

The two worked together a few times during the early years of their marriage, most notably when Pfeiffer played the title role in the Kelley-written 1996 romantic drama To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday . However, the couple have focused on separate projects in recent decades. Pfeiffer shared her opinion on The Tonight Show in 2022 that “nobody writes, honestly, better for women” than Kelley.

“And yet, I value our relationship more than a good part, and I just think it's too risky,” Pfeiffer said about her and Kelley’s professional boundaries. Credit: ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images Children’s Arrivals Pfeiffer was in the process of adopting newborn daughter Claudia Rose before she met Kelley. The couple held a Christening ceremony for Claudia on the same day as their 1993 wedding.

One year later, Pfeiffer gave birth to a son in 1994 and named him John Henry Kelley II in honor of David’s father, hockey coach John Henry "Jack" Kelley . Pfeiffer took a lengthy hiatus from acting to raise her two children in the 2000s. She told People in 2023 that an extended acting break wasn’t originally the plan.

"I was also sort of in this in-between place. I sort of didn't feel like I was really a leading lady. I wasn't a grandma yet, but I wasn't also like an ingénue," Pfeiffer said.

"I was having babies and relocating the family was — I really underestimated what that meant." She went on, “It's challenging no matter where you raise kids. I didn't set out to stop working or it wasn't my plan, but I became so difficult in terms of my prerequisites, in terms of, 'Well, where does it shoot? How long does it shoot? What time of year does it shoot? Can I bring the kids? Is it during the school year?' And then it was just too difficult to hire me, honestly.

And I was okay with that." Credit: ©Buena Vista Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection ‘Dangerous Minds’ The 1995 blockbuster was loosely based on the real-life story of LouAnne Johnson , a former Marine who took up a teaching job in a tough inner-city school. Pfeiffer depicted a fictionalized version of Johnson’s empowering attempt to change her students’ lives for the better.

Reviews were mixed, but Dangerous Minds ’ $179 million box office haul made the movie an undeniable hit with audiences. At the time of its release, Pfeiffer argued that Dangerous Minds delivered an important social message. “This was really the story of the kids,” Pfeiffer said in a 1995 interview .

“The book is really the story of the kids and LouAnne’s main concern was always that their [the kids’] story get told.” Dangerous Minds was adapted into a short-lived TV series by ABC in 1996. Pfeiffer declined to return and was replaced by future Young Sheldon star Annie Potts .

Credit: ©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection ‘What Lies Beneath’ One of Pfeiffer’s last major leading roles before her self-imposed Hollywood exile was 2000’s Hitchcockian thriller What Lies Beneath . Pfeiffer starred with Harrison Ford as a couple, Dr. Norman and Claire Spencer, investigating a potential haunting in their home.

To her horror, Claire’s search uncovers some of her hubby’s deep, dark secrets...

Pfeiffer revealed during a 2022 interview on The Drew Barrymore Show that she channeled host Drew Barrymore ’s infamous shriek in Scream for her own scenes of “terror” in What Lies Beneath . “Here was a woman who was stalked in her home, terrified, and I was prepping for it around the same time I saw [Drew] in [Scream],” she recalled. “[Her] terror was so real.

It was so real! And I thought, ‘ That’s it!’” Credit: ©New Line Cinema/Courtesy Everett Collection ‘Hairspray’ Pfeiffer returned from a three-year absence on the big screen by playing villainous 1950s TV station manager Velma Von Tussle in the 2007 Hairspray musical remake. In Hairspray , Pfeiffer shared the screen with John Travolta (who had a gender-bending role as Edna Turnblad) — which was notable since both had starred in Grease movies (although not together). “I don't really feel like I was revisiting [the musical genre].

I felt like I was visiting for the first time. ,” she admitted to The Oklahoman in 2007. " Grease 2 was so long ago, I can't even remember it, hardly, and Baker Boys , that was just a character who sang, so this was the first time I felt like I was in a real, legitimate musical.

” The star continued, “I think in Grease 2 I always had the feeling that there were the actors, and there were the dancers. And this was the first time where I was actually partaking in all of it and actually singing songs that propelled the story, where you actually had plot in the lyrics and I had to be responsible for that, and you had to understand me. I was limited by a certain tempo, a certain melody.

It was really challenging to find room for interpretation, and I wasn't used to that. I didn't have any discipline.” Credit: Marvel / © Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection Marvel Cinematic Universe Pfeiffer returned to major Hollywood franchise filmmaking by playing the original Wasp (a.

k.a. Janet Van Dyne) in the Ant-Man movies and Avengers: Endgame .

She admitted on The Tonight Show in 2022 that Marvel Studios largely kept her in the dark about where her character was headed in future movies. “They're very mysterious,” she told Fallon. “And you know they're very secretive, of course, of their storylines and all of that.

So secretive...

It's a little hard because, you know, I met with [director Peyton Reed ] and I knew a little bit about the character and there was no script. And you have to commit without actually having read anything.” Pfeiffer last reprised her role as Janet Van Dyne in 2023’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania .

Credit: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic/Getty Images ‘Margo's Got Money Troubles’ Pfeiffer is finally reuniting professionally with husband Kelley on his upcoming Apple TV+ series Margo's Got Money Troubles , costarring Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning . Kelley adapted the series from author Rufi Thorpe ’s novel of the same name, about a down-on-her-luck college student, Margot (Fanning), who finds unexpected success with an OnlyFans account. Kelley has cast Pfeiffer as Margot’s mother Shyanne Millet, a former Hooters waitress.

Margo's Got Money Troubles premieres in 2026. In order to view the gallery, please allow Manage Cookies.