Anne Archer, the Oscar-nominated actress who helped define one of the biggest box-office sensations of the 1980s, looked every bit the Hollywood veteran as she stepped out this week at 78.
The daughter of television actors John Archer and Marjorie Lord, Archer first made her name on the small screen in the 1970s before moving into film roles, including work alongside Sylvester Stallone.
Her career reached a new level in the following decade with Fatal Attraction, the blockbuster that helped ignite Hollywood’s fascination with the erotic thriller.
After appearing opposite Michael Douglas in the 1987 hit, Archer went on to share the screen and set with major names including Harrison Ford and acclaimed director Robert Altman.
On Monday, she was seen in Los Angeles with her husband of nearly five decades, the couple looking relaxed and content as they enjoyed a walk with their dog.
The elegant star is Anne Archer.
Anne Archer, the Oscar-nominated actress from one of the 1980s’ biggest hits, appeared effortlessly elegant as she was seen this week at 78
She stepped out Monday in Los Angeles with her husband of nearly half a century as the couple walked their dog together
Born to a pair of TV actors, she herself began her career on the small screen in the 1970s and then worked on film with such figures as Sylvester Stallone
She is none other than Anne Archer, who played the betrayed wife of Michael Douglas’ leading man in the 1987 blockbuster Fatal Attraction.
The Daily Mail has contacted Archer’s representative for comment.
When she was seen this week, she was accompanied by her husband, TV director Terry Jastrow, whom she exchanged vows with in 1979.
They are both Scientologists, and Archer’s son Tommy Davis, 53, was at one stage a high-ranking member of the church and an associate of Tom Cruise.
Archer, meanwhile, remains most recognizable to fans to this day for her turn in Fatal Attraction alongside Douglas and Glenn Close.
The Douglas character Dan indulges in a weekend-long extramarital romp with a woman named Alex, played by Close, that curdles into a psychological horror show when his subsequent attempts to discard her expose her as a deranged stalker.
Archer won the hearts of audiences for her gentle portrayal of Dan’s wife Beth, whose inner steel rises to the surface when she becomes one of Alex’s targets.
Fatal Attraction bowed to thunderous success at the box office and earned a string of Oscar nominations, including for Close and Archer.
Erotic thrillers were firmly established as a smash genre in Hollywood, which churned out a prolific supply in the ensuing years, a number of them by Fatal Attraction’s director Adrian Lyne, such as Indecent Proposal and Unfaithful.
She is none other than Anne Archer (right), who remains most recognizable to fans to this day for her turn in Fatal Attraction alongside Michael Douglas (center) and Glenn Close (left)
The Douglas character Dan indulges in a weekend-long extramarital romp with a woman named Alex, played by Close, who then begins to stalk him and his family
In the 1990s she she starred in two hit Tom Clancy adaptations, Patriot Games (pictured) and its sequel Clear and Present Danger, both with Harrison Ford as Jack Ryan
Anne Archer was born in 1947 to a showbiz family, the daughter of The Danny Thomas Show’s leading lady Marjorie Lord and her first husband John Archer, who acted on such TV classics as The Twilight Zone, Bonanza, Lassie and Perry Mason.
Her parents divorced when she was a little girl and her mother ‘was always in a show and on the road a lot,’ so Archer was often left in the care of her grandmother, though she ‘remained deeply attached’ to Lord, she told Cigar Aficionado.
Archer’s own acting ambitions were ignited when she was six, but she ‘learned some hard lessons about Hollywood when I was still very young,’ particularly when her mother’s screen career fizzled after The Danny Thomas Show.
‘It very quickly happens that people start to typecast you as a wife,’ Lord explained. ‘And because I was so identified with Danny, after I left the show many actors refused to have me as their wife on screen or on TV.’
Archer’s entree to showbiz came in 1971 when she was selected to be Miss Golden Globe, the presenter of that year’s awards, at a time when that position was annually given either to a ‘nepo baby’ daughter or to a son called Mr Golden Globe.
She jobbed around on programs like Hawaii Five-O and Little House on the Prairie and slowly made her bones in the movies, acting with Chuck Norris in his action star breakthrough Good Guys Wear Black and Sylvester Stallone in his feature directorial debut, the pro wrestling drama Paradise Alley.
Archer remained, however, ‘extremely conservative’ about the 1970s vogue for undressing onscreen and cynical about the roles available to actresses of the era.
‘If you’re pretty, you’ve gotta be a sexpot and take your clothes off. So they want to cast you as a hooker,’ she recalled. ‘Or you can play the elegant, untouchable one and still take your clothes off. By way of choices, that was about it. Or, of course, you could be like Farrah Fawcett. You know: furniture.’
Archer slowly made her bones in the movies in the 1970s, acting with Chuck Norris in his action star breakthrough Good Guys Wear Black
In 1978 she could be seen alongside Sylvester Stallone in in his feature directorial debut, the pro wrestling drama Paradise Alley
She had married one William Davis in 1969 and welcomed their son Tommy, but the relationship fell apart in 1977 as her career slowly ascended.
It was during the 1980s that her ship came in professionally, thanks to her yearlong run on the popular soap opera Falcon Crest, and then to Fatal Attraction.
When Fatal Attraction propelled her to bona fide stardom, she described the film as ‘something I wanted to do and needed,’ in an interview with Bobbie Wygant.
‘I wanted to be in a very good picture. I’d been fighting a long time. I’ve had a long career and it’s been hard,’ she said.
‘I’m philosophical about these things now. You get beat around in this business long enough and you sort of get a pretty tough hide after awhile.’
She demonstrated her formidable comic chops as a clown in the 1993 Robert Altman picture Short Cuts, which earned her a Golden Globe Award.
Based on several works by Raymond Carver, the movie featured Archer in a dazzling ensemble including Robert Downey Jr, Frances McDormand, Andie MacDowell, Jack Lemmon, Julianne Moore, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Lily Tomlin and Tom Waits.
In the same period, she starred in two hit Tom Clancy adaptations, the 1992 release Patriot Games and its 1994 sequel Clear and Present Danger.
She demonstrated her formidable comic chops as a clown in the 1993 Robert Altman picture Short Cuts, which earned her a Golden Globe Award
Once again, Archer was slotted into the role of the understanding wife, this time opposite Harrison Ford as CIA alum Jack Ryan, decades before John Krasinski embodied the role for a new generation of audiences.
Her 21st century career has included lauded stage performances in the UK, the first of them as Mrs Robinson in a 2001 West End adaptation of The Graduate.
She played the title role in the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe play The Trial of Jane Fonda, which was written and directed by Archer’s husband Terry Jastrow.
The show dramatized an encounter Fonda had with the veterans who picketed one of her film shoots because of her ‘Hanoi Jane’ scandal during the Vietnam War.
‘This is not just an American story — it is going to resonate,’ Archer told the London Evening Standard. ‘It is a tough play and it is about things that are still going on today, about wars we fight and the reasons why we fight them.’
Archer is still busily acting today, having landed a guest shot this year on Zachary Quinto’s TV vehicle Brilliant Minds and acted on the new crypto-themed crime drama Paper Empire, starring Robert Davi and Denise Richards.
