Michelle's Biography

Part II: Into the Night

Michelle, still could not decide on a career. Her interests were divided among things as diverse as oil-painting, psychology and drama. Her interest in acting was based on her fond memories of her high-school drama class, which she had enjoyed thoroughly. Ultimately, she turned to the idea of a career in the legal profession, as a court-reporter, which looked interesting enough and did not have that bad a salary. She enrolled in a course, but soon afterwards lost interest in the drudgery the job required. She once said, 'After a while, whenever anybody spoke, in my mind my fingers would be punching it out- even two years after I quit, my mind still did that.'

She enrolled in Golden West College to take some psychology courses, but once again lost interest, and began skipping classes until she dropped out. A little while later she was back, but nothing sustained her interest. All the while she was still working at Vons, and it was there, one dismal day that she had her epiphany. While 'some lady was bitching about her cantaloupes' Michelle began to think 'If you could have anything, somebody could just hand it over to you, what would you want to do?' Her answer was Acting- she had loved it, and all the people involved in it, at highschool, and she could still remember her acting teacher's words of encouragement- 'She told me one day, after doing a skit, that I had some talent and that was it! When I was floundering around later looking for something to do, I remembered her words. When asked later about Michelle, her teacher, Carol Cooney said that she had never had the impression her pupil would become one of Hollywood's brightest stars.

Now that Michelle had decided what she wanted to do, she realised she had to swallow her pride, and based on the advice of her hairdresser Jon Evans, and friends, had some model photos taken. It was the very first step in achieving her goal. She ended up taking part in the Miss Orange County beauty pagent in 1978, in the hope of meeting one of the judges who was a Hollywood agent. Michelle hated the idea of parading around on a ramp in front of people because of how painfully shy she was, and how she still thought she looked like a 'duck.' It was no surprise however that she won the competition, although was pipped later in becoming Miss Los Angeles. She does not regret it, however. 'Thank God, I did (lose). I didn't want to go to all those supermarket openings.'

Finally with agent John LaRocca, Michelle's fisrt very small pieces of work were in commercials- for products such as Ford cars and Lux soap. She says of acting in television advertisements, 'It was no fun. In order to be a good commercial actor you have to learn how to do a specific kind of bad acting well. If you walk out of an audition feeling like you made a complete asshole out of yourself, chances are you got the job.' Michelle decided to move to Los Angeles, transferring to work in a Vons in Hollywood while she tried to further her career by going to audition after audition. But was it really such a surprise in the Pfeiffer household- after all Donna Pfeiffer had dubbed Michelle 'the little Drama-Queen' during her teenage years? Dick Pfeiffer was not to keen on his daughter's career choice. He was adamant that Michelle would give up and 'end up as a broken-down housewife with a kid on each hip' by the time she was thirty. But at the same time he said, 'To say something like that to Michelle is like a red rag to a bull. It was only after I'd told her that she really got into gear and began to show what she was made of.' Michelle recognised what he was doing and years later said of her father's lack of approval, 'He saw I was really committed, and that I was going to do it with or without his approval. And I think he saw a determination about it that he hadn't seen before in me.' Donna Pfeiffer was more encouraging. In 1998 Michelle remembered, 'My mother encoraged me to live on my own and have a career. She said "I never had one. I want you to." She saw the wisdom in that.'

In Los Angeles, despite the fact she had no connections in 'The 'Biz' and had to attend demeaning 'cattle-calls' when not working or studying, Michelle landed her first job- uttering her first line in a 1979 episode of Fantasy Island. 'Who is he, Naomi?' was enough to earn her SAG-card. Michelle once said of the experience, 'I practised and practised that line. I remember being so discombobulated because I had to find my mark you know, you don't learn that in acting class. And the lights were so bright and I couldn't keep my eyes open. I remember showing up for work and having my name on the dressing-room.'

She was taking acting classes but the best experience she got, and admits she still gets, is from watching what happens on set. But she was getting weary again, chiefly with the types of roles she was playing- beautiful but incredibly dumb blondes. The quintessential example of this would be the role of the nameless, and padded up 'Bombshell' she played in 1979's Delta House, a short-lived sitcom based on the college comedy Animal House. Michelle barely spoke a line in the entire time the series was running and would often end up bitching to her agent and crying on the telephone, 'They're putting me in hot pants again.'

Yes, that is Michelle in the moustache. From Deltahouse. Click on the picture to see the bigger version

But she retained her 'focus,' continuing to take acting and singing lessons with well-known teacher Milton Katselas. When asked about his student later he could not even remember her. Michelle was no pushover by studio bosses however, refusing to change her name to something more 'pronouncable,' and enduring much of the bad work with which she ended up. What she told herself over an over again when it became unbearable was, ' "There are so many unemployed actors around you should be glad you're working at all" .'

Around this time she was renting part of a house in Laurel Canyon, and as a young 20-something actress, wanted to be left to her own retreat. Slowly but surely more work was coming in, after a small role in the TV-film, The Solitary Man, there was Falling In Love Again, playing a young Susannah York in flashback scenes of the romantic comedy. In The Hollywood Knights opposite Who's The Boss?'s Tony Danza, she played, interestingly enough, a car-hop whos biggest ambition in life is to become a serious actress. Television-wise, there was B.A.D. Cats, with Michelle playing police officer Samantha Jenson, and then even more TV-movies with smaller roles in the remake Splendour in the Grass, The Children Nobody Wanted and Callie & Son. On the big screen she could be seen in the racialy controversial Charlie Chan & The Curse of the Dragon Queen, as a debutante at risk.

But while Michelle was demonstrating new confidence in her professional life, she was lacking it in her personal life. In the early 1980s, she was still struggling and alone. She had ironically 'cleaned-up pretty much' after moving to Los Angeles, a city known for vice, but her insecurities were pushing her towards something dangerous. During her reclusive stage when she 'quit smoking, drinking, and taking drugs' she fell into a cult with its basis in metaphysics and vegetarianism. For around 2 years Michelle went through 'conditioning' of her mind and body through a number of control games that restricted her diet and lowered her self-confidence. And she admitted, 'I was brainwashed. I gave them an enormous amount of money.' She said later of the experience 'The philosophy was so bizarre I couldn't even tell it to you now. I obviously needed to have somebody controlling me real bad, and it was probably better it was them than drugs or some lecherous man. But it did a lot of damage that I had to get over for years.' Towards the end of her association with the cult, she wanted to leave, but by this time her confidence had been so destroyed the leaders were easily able to convince her that she would be unable to survive without their influence.

Fortunately for Michelle, someone was going to come to her aid and rescue her very soon...

To Part III...