a 1979 publicity photo
P F A N D O M
Michelle Pfeiffer Retrospective. Episode 2
by Nathaniel R
All Pfans, if not fans, know and relish Michelle Pfeiffer's very first line onscreen. Say it with me now...
Who is he, Niobe?!
Fantasy Island S2E10 "The Island of Lost Women"
First aired November 25th, 1978
The line was spoken, emphatically, even giddily, while Pfeiffer gave the goofy Robert Morse (no really) a thorough twice over with her eyes while her hands investigated, too. She barely even looked at Niobe, so intoxicating was the sight of the only man in the vicinity. When Niobe tells her the man has magical powers, her eyes flash with unhinged if virginal comic eroticism. "REALLY?!?"...
Let's just say that it was not an auspicious acting debut but subtlety was verboten on television back then. Hit TV shows were skin deep so the young Pfeiffer's head-turning prettiness, which hadn't yet aged into full Devastating Movie Star Beauty, was a natural fit for the kind of roles she nabbed almost immediately once she got out of beauty pageants and won an agent.
Michelle Pfeiffer as "Athena" on Fantasy Island (1978). This image has only been slightly altered to magnify her preternatural luminosity evident even before the talent grew
Unlike Dollhouse and Westworld and any other contemporary shows or movies that trade in transactional fantasy fulfillment, Fantasy Island never got hung up on the specifics or even the humanity of its staff. Were they humans, feigning lust for their paycheck, or robots or something more supernatural / immortal? These questions were way to heady for Seventies television and unless adults were having intimate pre-internet obsessive conversations that children weren't privvy to about empty-headed hit TV shows, nobody was asking them off screen either.
Pfeiffer, a vision, even when she's blurry in the background"The Solitary Man"
Aired October 9th, 1979
From "Athena" to "Tricia," a far less exotic name for her next character in a project that was far more grounded. The Oscar winning blockbuster Kramer vs Kramer (1979) was about to hit movie theaters but the topic of divorce and lost adults starting over was everywhere in the late 1970s including on television. This made for TV film retroactively dubbed a "blue collar Kramer vs Kramer" starred Earl Holliman (a minor star of 1950s cinema) and former Oscar nominee Carrie Snodgress (Diary of a Mad Housewife). Michelle Pfeiffer is ninth-billed and, based on the tiny glimpse of her in the commercial, perhaps she plays a temptation or a one night stand or merely an unattainable beauty at a single's bar.
I've been unable to locate a copy, but the movie seem to make much of a splash receiving no Emmy nominations. Nevertheless the commercial for it is a time capsule flashback to TV promotions of the era, and with Michelle Pfeiffer side-to-side torso dancing out of focus in the background, it's hard to miss the visual foreshadowing of her first scene in Scarface (1983)... she didn't learn many new moves on the dance floor before the Brian de Palma game-changer!
CHiPs S3E11 "The Watch Commander"
Aired November 17th, 1979
Since a big screen comedy adaptation of the 70s buddy cop series CHiPs opens this March (Michael Peña will play "Ponch" and Dax Shephard is "Baker") it's a perfect time to also note that Pfeiffer made a brief appearance in that series. She played "Jobina" (what a name, right?) a young girl taking a sky-diving class. This is not part of the plot but a sidebar scene for Baker. Pfeiffer has just one scene and if this had aired before the Fantasy Island bit, it would be just as fun to lampoon as that very first role.
("You did it!") Pfeiffer enters, squealing, in red... with fans congratulating her.
Consider that she enters the scene descending from the heavens (to bless we mere mortals?)! When she lands -- our first shot of the actual Pfeiffer since there's no way they made a SAG member parachute into the scene -- she's immediately congratulated for existing "YOU DID IT" with lots of jumping and squealing for joy.
Cut to the skydivers gathered around a picnic table. Pfeiffer gazes off into the middle distance, bored, waiting for her only line. When she gets her cue, note that her leg bounces excitedly under the picnic table. Here she goes... a working actor!
Pfeiffer gazing off into the middle distance, waiting for her first line.
I swear you're like a different creature up there! You're just soaring like a feather.
The young actress wasn't yet soaring but give her a few years. The offers were piling up. Three more TV gigs and her first two feature films were all arriving within a single year.
Previously: Introducing... "Miss Orange County"
Next Saturday: Michelle as "The Bombshell"