by John Roberts

Created on: March 02, 2011   Last Updated: June 04, 2012

Michelle Pfeiffer has long been renown for her great beauty and underrated for her acting abilities despite receiving three Academy Award nominations. At age 52, Pfeiffer remains one of the screen's great beauties and has been receiving more recognition for her performances in recent years. Her early career was spent as a pretty young actress toiling in television series and made-for-TV movies before moving to movie eye candy status in the disastrous sequel "Grease 2" (1982).

She survived the bad notoriety of "Grease 2" and got her breakthrough role in Brian DePalma's 1983 remake of "Scarface" starring Al Pacino as gangster Tony Manero. Even though her main qualification to playing Tony's wife was her blonde beauty, Pfeiffer effectively projected Elvira's cool detachment and growing unhappiness and her performance was a lot better than given credit for. She followed up "Scarface" with undemanding roles in the fantastical "Ladyhawke" (1985) with Rutger Hauer, "Into the Night" (1985) containing her only brief screen nude scene and "Tequila Sunrise" (1988) with Mel Gibson.

"Married to the Mob" (1988) contains Pfeiffer's first truly memorable performance. Not only was she charming with her New York accent but Pfeiffer demonstrated a comedic flair as Angela DiMarco. She is a Mafia widow seeking to escape that life and falls in love with an F.B.I. agent while being amorously pursued by an older mob boss played by Oscar nominated Dean Stockwell. The Jonathon Demme directed film was a hit, Pfeiffer shone with good reviews and her career ascended to another level.

Pfeiffer received a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination for Stephen Frears' "Dangerous Liaisions" (1988) based on Christopher Hampton's hit play set in 17th century France. She played Madame de Tourvel,who is a somewhat naive married woman, unknowingly the subject of a bet that she can be seduced. The reason why Pfeiffer's performance stood out is that she played the role in a gentle understated manner, compared to the flamboyance of Glenn Close and John Malkovich.

She was dynamite as Diamond in "The Fabulous Baker Boys" (1988). Her sexy rendition of "Makin' Whoopee" while slithering all over a piano should have been reason enough to win an Oscar, but she had to settle for a Best Actress nomination. She was perfection as the take no guff sexy chanteuse spicing up the tired lounge act of the Baker Boys played by Jeff and Beau Bridges while wreaking havoc in the brothers' relationship. This is the

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