Melanie Griffith was the love of Traffic star Steven Bauer's life, but
drugs, drink and sex destroyed them
Traffic star Steven Bauer is best know for
his starring role opposite Al Pacino in Scarface, but even more well-known
for having been married to Melanie Griffith. In an exclusive interview
with New Idea, Steven bares his soul about the Melanie only he knows, and
his concerns for the child they share together.
Steven was not at all surprised when Melanie,
43, went into rehab a few months ago for her addiction to the popular painkillers
Vicodin and Norco, which had originally been prescribed for a back injury.
He was one of the first people the Oscar-nominated star told her deepest
fears to.
'Melanie confided in me over a year ago that
she was worried she was relying on the drugs too much. Even though
we are divorced, we're the best of friends. I always want to protect
her if I can,' Steven confesses.
Steven, 44, met Melanie in the years before
she was famous - and actually achieved star status before she did. 'When
we went to Australia together in 1981 to promote the film Roar, we were
already on a merry-go-round of cocaine and drinking,' Steven recalls.
'But although Melanie and I were both party animals, she was extremely vulnerable.'
She grew up in the late 60s and the 70s, in
the shadow of her mother Tippi Hedren, a Ford model who couldn't act but
was transformed into a movie star by the late Alfred Hitchcock, in his movie
The Birds. Melanie rebelled against her mother's glamour and ran off
with actor Don Johnson when she was just 14.
'By the time I met Melanie, she had been through
hell', Steven remembers. 'I had seen her in Playboy magazine when
I was 19 - she was my ideal woman, my ultimate fantasy. Never in my
wildest dreams did I think we would ever meet, much less hook up, marry and
have a child together."
Melanie had been divorced from Don Johnson
for about five years and had a reputation as a party girl, when she and
Steven fell in love on the set of the movie She's in the Army Now. 'I
knew straight away I was going to marry her', Steven smiles. 'I sensed
her need to be protected and I guess I was her knight in shining armour.
We fell right into the Hollywood dream.'
The lovebirds initially set up home in a tiny
one-room flat in Malibu, before moving to New York. 'We had nothing
except each other and that was enough,' Steven says fondly. 'We lived
on soup, rice and love.'
All that changed however, when in 1982 Steven
was cast as Manny Ray, AlPacino's sidekick in Scarface. It was to
be his big break and the couple soon moved to Hollywood to revel in their
newfound celebrity status. 'We became the king and queen of Hollywood,'
Steven recalls. 'I was nominated for best-supporting actor for Scarface
and we were moving in A-list circles. Our friends were Al Pacino,
Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty - who is the godfather of our son.'
'But it was the cocaine era and we got caught
up in it,' he sighs, remembering the endless parties and drugs. Things
started to go wrong however, when Melanie eventually began craving a more
conventional lifestyle, away from the clubs and the drugs. They started
to grow apart.
'I knew our marriage wasn't going to last forever,
even after our son was born,' Steven says. Steven actually delivered
his son, Alexander, now 15. 'That was one of the greatest moments
of my life, cutting Alexander's umbilical cord,' he smiles. 'We bonded
right then and there, and we're so alike.' However, even Alexander's
arrival could not save Steven and Melanie's floundering marriage.
'I know Melanie was really mad at me for leaving
her but I just couldn't be her saviour anymore,' Steven says sadly.
'She was very insecure because Don had cheated on her - and I was doing
the same thing. Drugs were ruining my life, I wanted free and easy
sex and I hurt Melanie very badly.'
After a stint in rehab for multiple substance
abuse, Steven is now clean and sober, and grateful for his second chance
- personally and professionally. 'Traffic was a dream come true,'
the actor smiles. 'I'm back in the game.'
He adds that being around Catherine Zeta-Jones
was a particularly rewarding experience. 'She's so beautiful, and
one minute she's ultra-feminine, the next she's a tomboy, which makes men
feel really comfortable
around her.' Catherine, who was pregnant during filming, played
the pregnant wife to Steven's character, a drug lord. A tender scene
in the movie, where Steven kisses Catherine's tummy, was unscripted. 'Catherine
didn't mind and Michael was very cool about it,' Steven laughs.
Steven is now engaged to 25-year-old Bria Hicks,
and says the 19 year age difference is irrelevant. 'She's the sharpest
and most down-to-earth girl I know. I've never had a partner like
her,' he gushes.
As for Melanie, after she and Steven divorced
she remarried Don Johnson, had a daughter Dakota and then divorced Don again
seven years later, in 1996. 'I have absolutely nothing bad to say
about Don,' Steven says. 'He was very good to my son.'
He also commends Antonio, with whom Melanie
has a daughter, Stella. 'Antonio is always gracious,' Steven enthuses.
"But I wonder if he realizes how fragile Melanie is. I know he loves
Melanie very much, but I
worry he'll cave in as Melanie's need to be cared for interferes with
his personality and his career.'
'Melanie just wants to be a good wife and mother,'
Steven adds. 'There's this perception that she's a vamp, but behind
that beautiful face and body is just a little girl playing dress up."
