The success of ‘Working Girl’ brought a slew of new film roles Melanie’s way. She worked one gig after another all through the nineties. The overnight success made her a true A-lister, starring in mainstream movies like ‘Born Yesterday’, ‘Nobody’s Fool’, ‘Paradise’, ‘Now and Then’, ‘Milk Money’, ‘Shining Through’, ‘A Stranger Among Us’, and ‘The Bonfire of the Vanities’.
One of those Hollywood movies would change her life forever. That film was the 1996 romantic comedy, ‘Two Much’. But 1996 was still many years away. In the meantime, she starred with Don Johnson in several 1990s movies.
A New Love
After a wild ride with Don Johnson, she would have more pain to deal with, only this time it was also physical. Melanie was attacked by a lion during the filming of 'Roar', her mother’s big cat production in 1981, which was directed by her stepfather, Noel Marshall. The scene made the cut. For her part, she required facial reconstruction surgery. Just a year before, she was hit by a car and hospitalized after walking across Sunset Boulevard while intoxicated.
Finally, something went right that same year, when she was introduced to Steven Bauer. They met while filming the TV movie "She’s in the Army Now". Not long after, she moved to NY, and they were married. They had their first child, Alexander Griffith, in 1985. When the marriage dissolved, she spiraled back into a pattern of heavy drinking.
The Wake-up Call
It all seemed like self-medication to her. She used substances to calm her anxieties and escape her internal suffering. One day, on the set of 'Working Girl', a message hit home. Director Mike Nichols sat her down. She arrived at the set drunk one too many times, and he gave her a warning.
In an interview with Parade, she divulged, “I wasn’t very concerned about my future.” She also talked about how using substances had become all too normal for her.
Trouble in Paradise
Steven Bauer and Melanie hitched up in the early 1980s. When little Alexander was born in 1985, she was already struggling with substance abuse, and the marriage wasn’t going very well either. The couple tried to stay together for their child, but it wasn’t that simple. By the time 'Working Girl' came out, the two had called it quits. Melanie was not happy.
She later admitted feeling depressed and lonely. In an interview, she said, “What I did was drink myself to sleep at night. If I wasn’t with someone, I was an unhappy girl.” The split made it worse. Once she was alone, she revealed that she began having problems with more serious substances. She wouldn’t let this secret out until another rehab term in 1988.
Rekindling the Flame With Don Johnson
After rehab, a program that Mike Nichols directed her to, Melanie tumbled back into the arms of her first love. Sober for the first time, she felt safe and secure with Johnson, the man she loved as a teenager.
At that point, both had gone through rehabilitation, and with sobriety, and at the height of their careers, the couple tied the knot again. They remarried in June of 1989. On October 4, 1989, they welcomed Dakota Johnson to the world.