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Michelle Phillips DiscographyActor Credits
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Michelle Phillips Biography |
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Michelle Phillips is a singer, songwriter, and actress. Born Holly Michelle Gilliam, she was a model before she was drawn into music. She became Michelle Phillips when she married her bandmate from a folk group called the New Journeymen, John Phillips. With the eventual addition of Denny Doherty and the smooth vocals of Mama Cass, they became The Mamas and the Papas.
While living in New York, her husband once awoke her for assistance writing what became "California Dreamin`". The royalties from that song kept Phillips comfortable long after the band, and the marriage, broke up. After affairs with Doherty and The Byrds` Gene Clark, Phillips was booted from the band in 1966, and replaced by Jill Gibson, a former backup singer for Jan & Dean. The group`s sound, however, was not the same, and within a few months all was forgiven, and Phillips was brought back into the band. After the Mamas and the Papas disbanded, Phillips sang backup vocals for Leonard Cohen. She was among the all-star vocals behind Cheech & Chong`s single "Basketball Jones", along with George Harrison, Carole King, Billy Preston, and Tom Scott. In the late 1980s she also sang back-up behind Belinda Carlisle. She has had a second career as an actress, most successfully as Anne Matheson Sumner on the longrunning prime time soap opera Knotts Landing. She made numerous appearances on such `80s stalwarts as Fantasy Island and The Love Boat, and she played John Dillinger`s moll Evelyn "Billie" Frechette in the film Dillinger. Phillips was married to actor Dennis Hopper for eight days in 1970, and called it "the best week of my life". Her children include musician Chynna Phillips and drug-addled actress Mackenzie Phillips. She also became part of the extended Baldwin family of actors when her daughter Chynna married William Baldwin, the hangdog-faced Baldwin. She is a longtime member of the Marijuana Policy Project, a group seeking to end the draconian legal penalties associated with the drug. |
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Trivia |
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Trivia and QuotesQuotes I don`t mind feeling naked. I`m fine with nothing. I will say this about Dennis Hopper: We were married for eight days and truly . . . they were the happiest days of my life. [about her friend `Mama` Cass Elliot] There will never be anyone like her in my lifetime. I will never have a friend like her, or an influence like her. And I will never hear another voice like hers. [asked what word comes to mind when she looks into a mirror] Lucky.Trivia Born to Joyce Leon, née Poole, an accountant, and Gardner Burnett Gilliam, a merchant marine. Grew up partly in Mexico City where her father attended college on the GI Bill. Sang at Denny Doherty`s funeral, whose death made her the only surviving member of The Mamas and the Papas (2007). Was good friends with the Charles Manson victims Sharon Tate, Abigail Folger, Jay Sebring and Voytek Frykowski. When The Mamas and the Papas were in the Bahamas and couldn`t afford the flight back to the US, she won 17 straight shoots at a crap table, coming out with enough money to buy first-class airplane tickets for everybody. Former stepmother of actress Mackenzie Phillips. Grandmother of Jamison Baldwin. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998 (as a member of The Mamas and the Papas). Married 5 times. Mother of Austin Hines and Aron Wilson. Mother of singer Chynna Phillips. Mother-in-law of actor William Baldwin. Ranked #23 on VH1`s 100 Greatest Women of Rock N Roll The wildly popular The Mamas and the Papas `60s pop/folk group ("Monday, Monday" and "California Dreamin`" were their biggest hits) was comprised of Michelle and her husband at the time, John Phillips, along with `Mama` Cass Elliot and Denny Doherty. Michelle was temporarily kicked out of the group (replaced by Jill Gibson) after it was discovered she was having an affair with the other "Papa" (Doherty), who Cass had a crush on. The fans, however, missed her and she was soon brought back, but the damage had been done and the group wasted no time in splitting up. Was married to Dennis Hopper for 8 days. | ||
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