Melanie Griffith’s hard-partying lifestyle in the ’80s followed her to set — and cost her big time!
The actress is one of the many who was interviewed for the new book, “Life Isn’t Everything: Mike Nichols, as remembered by 150 of his closest friends,” where she revealed how she was punished for her unprofessionalism while filming “Working Girl.” Nichols directed the film.
After getting drunk on her own while out with a sober Alec Baldwin, Griffith returned to work and kept the alcohol coming. “When we got back to the set, I had vodka in my motor home, so I had a slug of vodka, and it mixed and made me so drunk, which I thought was really funny,” said Griffith (via People). “But it wasn’t, and it was cold, and I had to walk down the stairs with Alec, and I couldn’t do it.”
“Mike got so mad at me, he wouldn’t talk to me. Mike Haley, the first AD, just came up and said, ‘We’re shutting down. Go home,’ and I knew I was in so much trouble,” Griffith recalled. “The next morning he took me to breakfast and said, ‘Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to pay for last night out of your pocket. We’re not going to report you to the studio, but you have to pay for what it cost,’ and it was $80,000. They wanted to get my attention and they really did. It was a very humbling, embarrassing experience, but I learned a lot from it.”
According to the book, the money was withheld from her salary. A nurse was also on set for filming and Griffith entered rehab shortly after for the first time. She later underwent further treatment in 2000 and 2009. According to Wick, “There was enough mutual goodwill somehow it all stayed friendly and constructive.”
“There were a lot of things that happened on Working Girl that I did that were not right,” Griffith is quoted as saying in the book. “It was the late ’80s. There was a lot going on party-wise in New York. There was a lot of cocaine. There was a lot of temptation.”
“Life Isn’t Everything: Mike Nichols, as remembered by 150 of his closest friends” is available now.