Michelle Phillips Biography

Michelle Phillips (born June 4, 1944) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She gained fame as a member of the 1960s group The Mamas & the Papas, and is the last surviving original member of the group.

Biography

Early life

Phillips was born Holly Michelle Gilliam in Long Beach, California, the daughter of Joyce Leon (née Poole), an accountant, and Gardner Burnett Gilliam, a merchant marine. She grew up partly in Mexico City, where her father was attending college on the GI Bill. She met John Phillips while he was touring California with his band the Journeymen. He divorced his then-wife and married Michelle on December 31, 1962, when she was 18. In 1968, she gave birth to their daughter, Chynna Phillips, vocalist of the 1990s pop trio Wilson Phillips. The couple divorced in 1970.

Musical career

While a member of The Mamas & the Papas, Phillips co-wrote some of the band's hits, including "Creeque Alley" and "California Dreamin'". The band broke up in 1968. During 1970, Phillips sang backup vocals on a Leonard Cohen tour. That year, Phillips married actor Dennis Hopper. The marriage lasted eight days.

In 1973, Phillips recorded vocals as a cheerleader along with Darlene Love, for the Cheech & Chong single "Basketball Jones" which peaked at No.15 on the Billboard singles chart. In 1975 Phillips signed a solo recording contract with A&M Records and released a promo single, "Aloha Louie", that she wrote with ex-husband John Phillips. Phillips released her first solo single in 1976, "No Love Today", on the Mother, Jugs & Speed movie soundtrack. On August 24, 1976, Phillips sang "No Love Today" on The Mike Douglas Show. In 1977, Phillips released her debut solo album, Victim of Romance, produced by Jack Nitzsche for A&M Records. Her first two solo singles from the album failed to make the U.S. music charts. That year she sang backup vocals with former stepdaughter actress Mackenzie Phillips on "Zulu Warrior", for her ex-husband's second solo album, Pay Pack & Follow, which was released in 2001. "Zulu Warrior" is in the September 2008 release, Pussycat, which has the 1977 mix of the song.

In 1979, she recorded the song "Forever" for the movie soundtrack of California Dreaming, a surf film that had nothing to do with her old band. In late 1987, Phillips sang backup vocals on Belinda Carlisle's number one hit, "Heaven Is a Place on Earth", as well as on the Carlisle LP, Heaven on Earth.

On January 12, 1998, Phillips was inducted in New York City to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with her bandmates. For the first time in over two decades Michelle performed California Dreamin live with Denny Doherty and John Phillips. She was later inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2000 (for The Mamas & the Papas) where she performed live with Denny Doherty, without John, who died in March 2001.

On March 29, 2001, Phillips was among the performers at The Roxy Theatre in Hollywood, California, for a John Phillips memorial tribute. Michelle performed live with Scott McKenzie and Denny Doherty on two numbers. Non-performers who also attended included Lou Adler, The Mamas & the Papas' original record producer, among the three hundred other invited guests.

Acting career

Phillips began acting in the 1970s and continues to act in movies and in television. She was introduced in 1973's Dillinger as John Dillinger's girlfriend, Billie Frechette. In 1974 she was featured in The California Kid with Martin Sheen. In 1977, she played Rudolph Valentino's second wife Natacha Rambova in Ken Russell's film Valentino. Phillips also played the mermaid princess Nyah in three episodes of Fantasy Island.

She has made guest appearances on programs such as Spin City and Star Trek: The Next Generation (where she appeared in the episode "We'll Always Have Paris" as a former love-interest of Captain Picard). She had a guest role on the television series The Magnificent Seven, where she played Maude Standish, the mother of one of the Seven. Phillips' most recent serious acting job has been a recurring role on the WB drama 7th Heaven as Lily Jackson, sister of family matriarch Annie Jackson Camden (Catherine Hicks). She played Laura Collins in the 1996 television movie No One Would Tell.

Phillips starred for several seasons on Knots Landing as the constantly scheming Anne Matheson Sumner, the mother of star Nicollette Sheridan's character Paige Matheson (a role which Phillips returned to for the 1997 TV movie Knots Landing: Back to the Cul-de-Sac). In the mid-1990s she played Abby Malone, mother of Valerie (Tiffani-Amber Thiessen) on Fox's Beverly Hills, 90210.

She appeared at the TV Land awards in April 2009 for the 30th year celebration of Knots Landing.

Personal life

She has been married to:

• John Phillips (31 December 1962 " 1970) (divorced) 1 child
• Dennis Hopper (31 October 1970 " 8 November 1970) (divorced after 8 days)
• Robert Burch (21 May 1978 " 1980) (divorced)
• Grainger Hines (divorced) 2 children
• Steven Zax (2000"present)

In 1986, she wrote an autobiography, California Dreamin': The True Story of the Mamas and the Papas, released just weeks after her former husband John Phillips' autobiography Papa John. In it Phillips describes such events as the first meeting between her and fellow Mama, Cass Elliot, winning 17 straight shoots at a crap table in the Bahamas when the band was broke and could not afford the air fare back to the United States, and how her writing credit on "California Dreamin'", which still nets her royalties, was "the best wake-up call" she ever had (she was asleep in a New York hotel room when her then husband John Phillips woke her up to help him finish a new song he was writing).

She is mother of singer Chynna Phillips, Austin Hines, and Aron Wilson.