Michelle Pfeiffer

Almost nobody survives the start Michelle Pfeiffer had. Her first leading role was in Grease 2 in 1982, a sequel so poorly received that it should have ended the conversation. Instead it put her face in front of an audience, and one year later Brian De Palma cast her as Elvira Hancock in Scarface. That was the pivot. The film gave her a character who barely raises her voice and dominates every frame she is in, and Hollywood understood immediately what it had.

What followed is one of the more remarkable runs of the era. The Witches of Eastwick in 1987, then Tequila Sunrise and Married to the Mob in 1988 - the latter beginning a streak of six consecutive Golden Globe nominations. Then the Academy caught up. A Best Supporting Actress nomination for Dangerous Liaisons in 1988. Best Actress for The Fabulous Baker Boys in 1989. Best Actress again for Love Field in 1992. Three nominations in five years, in three completely different registers.

And in the middle of that, Catwoman. Batman Returns arrived in 1992 and turned a critically respected actress into a permanent piece of pop iconography. It is the role most people picture first, which is slightly unfair to the three Oscar nominations, but that is how mass culture works - the vinyl suit outlasts the awards ballot.

The then-and-now comparison is unusually kind to Pfeiffer, and the reason has less to do with how she looks than with what she did next. She worked steadily, took long stretches off when she wanted them, and never appeared to be chasing anything. The photographs from the peak years show someone being looked at. The recent ones show someone who stopped noticing.