Ricki Lake Movies
Trained at various professional schools for youngsters, actress Ricki Lake completed her education at Ithaca College. While her excessive weight precluded ingenue roles on stage and screen, Lake enjoyed some success as a cabaret singer and off-Broadway performer; she was also a gifted musician, adept at several instruments. Her film career began in 1988 as a member of director John Waters' eccentric stock company. She garnered fine reviews for her work in Waters' Hairspray and the made-for-TV Babycakes (1989) and in the regular role of Red-Cross volunteer Holly Pergerino on the weekly TV series China Beach. Sensing that her poundage was holding her back professionally, Lake lost 115 pounds over a 36-month period. It was a svelte, sexy Ricki Lake who in 1993 launched the popular daily TV talkfest The Ricki Lake Show. In 1996, she returned to the big screen playing a leading role in Mrs. Winterbourne opposite Shirley MacLaine. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Unhappy with her job and her loser boyfriend, Melanie Griffith takes a secretarial post at a major Wall Street firm. Her boss is Sigourney Weaver, an outwardly affable yuppie whose grinning visage hides a wicked and larcenous propensity for exploiting the ideas of her employees. While Weaver is incapacitated, Griffith is compelled by circumstances to pose as her boss. Her inborn business acumen and common sense enable Griffith to rise to the top of New York's financial circles, and along the way she wins the love of executive (Harrison Ford). Things threaten to take a sorry turn when Weaver returns, but it is she who suffers from the consequences of her own past duplicity. Working Girl was Melanie Griffith's breakthrough film, proving than she was more than just the off-and-on "significant other" of Don Johnson. The film was later adapted into a brief TV series, starring a pre-Speed Sandra Bullock. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford, (more)
