Curio: Michelle Pfeiffer in Vogue, 1991
Tuesday, April 5, 2011 at 10:20AM Alexa here. Nathaniel's post on stars posing as other stars brought to mind a spread in Vogue that seared my brain when I was a teenager, so much so that I tore it out and saved it. After a bit of digging in our basement, I found it: a now-famous set of photos of Michelle Pfeiffer by Herb Ritts. This shoot has her posing as six different characters, which she chose herself. "I had lists and lists compiled, and I did a lot of reading, and it all kind of boiled down to these characters," she said in the accompanying interview.
as Louise Brooks as Lulu
as Laurence from Noël Coward's Private Lives
Another series I remember were the portraits Kevyn Aucoin shot for his books Making Faces and Face Forward (see here for Calista Flockhart as Audrey, Gwyneth as James Dean). I'm no pop culture historian, but I would think that Cindy Sherman's film stills from the 70s and 80s had a heavy influence on this trend well into the 90s and beyond. But none of these spreads thrilled me as much as these of Michelle. I can only imagine how much fun they were to shoot.
See more of Michelle's characters after the jump, including Maggie the Cat!
as Kate from Taming of the Shrew 
as Maggie from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
starring in George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan
as Eliza Doolittle "before" in Pygmalion
as Eliza Doolittle "after"
Reader Comments (5)
Wow I love these shots! I'm afraid I don't know many of the people she represents but vogue spreads (the old ones or the ones from Vogue Italia & Vogue Paris) are always great.
WHAT A FIND. Hnoestly I hadn't seen this all of these. I was living outside the US in 1991. I've seen a few of these out of context but had no idea they were from one portfolio. The one of her in the tux has long been one of my favorite photos of her and she's also named it as her favorite (at least she did many years ago).
thank you thank you thank you.
AWESOME. Film Experience crack cocaine, right there.
Wow! I had never seen these pictures. Though somehow I can't see her playing Maggie the cat.
The cleavage in the Taming of the Shrew picture has made me realize that it's her lack of the average Hollywood boob size what made her not win an Oscar back in her prime when she fitted (and how!) the hot babe category. Had Suzie Diamond had Erin Brockovich talked about enhanced cleavage, she would have had an Oscar by now. I know it sounds crazy, I prefer to think I've just had an epiphany ;).
I love these images! The "Eliza before" tugged at my memory and I realized I had seen almost the same picture recently: http://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/gallery/19/9831/5/birth-of-a-muse
I thought it a cool original, now I see it's a bleak successor to 20 year old greatness :)