TCM Classic Film Festival to Honor Michelle Pfeiffer With Hand and Footprint Ceremony
Fans of will get an opportunity to celebrate wildly — let’s call that “makin’ whoopee” — when she leaves her handprints and footprints in cement at the TCL Chinese Theatre next month.
The ceremony will take place during the April 24-27 , it was announced Thursday.
One of Pfeiffer’s most unforgettable performances — that of smoldering lounge singer Susie Diamond in The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), for which she received the second of her three career Oscar nominations — will be showcased at the 16th annual event as well. (Watch her in that film on the piano, and we do mean ON the piano, here.)
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“There’s an undeniable quality to any part played by Michelle Pfeiffer,” TCM host Ben Mankiewicz said in a statement. “She blends — seemingly effortlessly (though it surely isn’t effortless) — elegance with depth, capturing the complexity in every character she plays.
“For example, take the two times she’s portrayed the wife or girlfriend of a criminal kingpin, opposite Al Pacino in Brian De Palma’s violent drama Scarface, then leading the cast of Jonathan Demme’s romantic comedy Married to the Mob.
“In Scarface, she could’ve been nothing but an objectified prize to the two men in her life. Instead, she brought this steely toughness to the role, humanizing Elvira in unexpected ways. In Married to the Mob, she took a similar character type, turned it entirely upside down and served as the film’s emotional anchor. After those two performances, there was little doubt a major talent was on the scene in Hollywood.
“And she’s made good on that promise over the last three-plus decades in film after film, including The Fabulous Baker Boys, Dangerous Liaisons, Russia House, Hairspray, her critically acclaimed turn as Betty Ford in The First Lady and as Bernie Madoff’s compellingly detached wife, Ruth, in the HBO movie Wizard of Lies. No matter the character, Michelle Pfeiffer’s performances are consistently nuanced and convincingly authentic.”
The hand and footprint ceremony will be the 12th in TCM Classic Film Festival history, following honorees Peter O’Toole in 2011, Kim Novak in 2012, Jane Fonda in 2013, Jerry Lewis in 2014, Christopher Plummer in 2015, Francis Ford Coppola in 2016, Carl and Rob Reiner in 2017, Cicely Tyson in 2018, Billy Crystal in 2019, Lily Tomlin in 2022 and Jodie Foster in 2024.
Also at this year’s fest, George Stevens Jr. will receive the Robert Osborne Award, which recognizes an individual who has helped keep the cultural heritage of classic film alive for future generations, and director Michael Schultz will be saluted for his lasting impact on film.
More information about the festival is available here.
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