Michelle Phillips is best known for her part in the widely popular 1960s folk band, The Mamas & the Papas, and her television acting career that followed. But she has always been a woman (and mother) blessed with great natural beauty and inspiring style through the decades. We loved her youthful, stick-straight, center-parted hair that she rocked in her twenties, worn with bell bottoms, floral bohemian tops, and psychedelic printed frocks, and her 1980s glam phase with big hair paired with gorgeous gowns. Phillips has always been a free spirit and exuded self-expression. Although she’s admitted that life has been a bumpy road filled with tales of love, loss, and heartache, she has always had a grace about her and, damn, she still looks good today at 70! Check out our slideshow below for a major dose of style inspiration.
Style Icon: Michelle Phillips
9:30 am
11/05/14
Photo via We Are Rock
Click any image to enter the slideshow
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- Michelle Phillips is a famous American singer, songwriter, and actress, born as Holly Michelle Gilliam on June 4, 1944 in Long Beach, CA. She is the daughter of Joyce Leon (née Poole) and Gardner Burnett Gillaim.
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- She is widely known as being one of the founding members of the 1960’s pop/folk band, The Mamas & the Papas. She co-wrote some of the band’s Billboard chart hits, “Calfornia Dreamin” and “Creeque Alley.”
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- She has three children, Chynna Phillips (of the band Wilson Phillips), Austin Hines, Aron Wilson, and one grandchild, Jamison Baldwin. She is the former Stepmother of Mackenzie Phillips, and Mother-in-Law of actor William Baldwin.
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- She was forced to move to Mexico City with her father at age 5 after her mother suddenly passed away. Eventually, she returned to Los Angeles where she attended high school. “I went to Mexican schools and learned how to speak Spanish. My father went to college during that period, he was studying sociology, so it was a very interesting childhood,” she once said.
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- When she was just 18 years old, Michelle met John Phillips, a member of the band Journeymen. They became very close and married shortly after on December 31, 1962.
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- Journeymen evolved into The Mamas & the Papas. The band became hugely popular in 1966, when the group had its first number one hit on the Billboard charts, “Monday, Monday.”
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- “I think intelligent men like independent women. I was raised by my father to be very independent and to believe that I could do anything with my life. That gave me a lot of confidence and personality.”
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- The couple's house in the Hills was famously known as one huge, continuous party fueled by psychedelic drugs and alcohol. They would host famous rock stars, actors, and actresses. Everyone who was anyone in pop culture, at that time, would attend.
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- While married to John, Michelle had a brief romance with her bandmate, Denny Doherty (whom her other bandmate, Cass Elliot, fancied). Due to extreme tension in the band, Michelle was shortly removed from the group, and replaced by Jill Gibson.
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- Michelle was eventually invited back into the band. This benefited the group, and they went on to release various chart topping hits.
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- The group went on to create more music, but after a failed album in 1968, the band fell apart. "What a waste of a cedar closet,” laughed Michelle, speaking about the album, which was recorded in the converted studio at their house.
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- In the same year the band had split, Michelle gave birth to her daughter, Chynna Phillips. Chynna grew up to be a vocalist of the well know group, Wilson Phillips. John and Michelle couldn't make things work and eventually ended up divorcing in 1970.
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- Soon she had a desire to become an actress and began looking for roles. While auditioning for a part in the film Mike Nichols’s Carnal Knowledge, she started dating Jack Nicholson. Unfortunately she didn't score the role, and the couple's romance didn't last.
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- In 1971, Phillips finally made her film debut in The Last Movie starring Dennis Hopper, whom she briefly was married to. She said, “I will say this about Dennis. We were married for eight straight days and truly… those were the happiest days of my life."
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- Actors Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson converse alongside Phillips at an Academy Awards after party, in Los Angeles, California, April 1970.
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- Phillips went on to appear in the movie Valentino in 1977 as Natacha Rambova, the daytime soap opera, Knots Landing as Anne Matheson, and Beverly Hills, 90210 as the mother of Valerie.
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- Warren Beatty, Chynna Phillips, and Michelle attend the Broadway opening of "Man on the Moon."
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- She was very close friends with the victims of the Manson murders, Sharon Tate, Abigail Folger, Jay Sebring, and Voytek Frykowski. She recalls the incident, “We all suspected each other. It was the most bizarre period of my life. I didn’t trust anyone. It could have been anyone, as far as I was concerned. The last conversation I ever had with Sharon was about wallpaper for her nursery. Do you remember Peter Hurkos, the psychic? He put his hand on my stomach and said, ‘You have to carry a gun at all times, loaded and cocked.’ I carried one for three months. The police were questioning everyone. Everyone was flushing drugs down the toilet. For some reason, they suspected my husband, John Phillips. ‘Would your husband have any reason to have any animosity toward anyone in that house?’ they asked me. I told them I had had a night in London with Roman (Sharon's husband). I felt bad about that, because of Sharon.”
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- “Chynna is the purest of the pure. All she wants is a life, a life that’s full and happy. She turned out to be quite a beauty. She looks very much like her mother," Phillips gushed about her daughter.
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- “Lucky,” says Michelle when she is asked what word comes to mind when she looks into a mirror.
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- Before The Mamas & the Papas had success, they were stuck in the Bahamas and could not afford the flight back to the United States. Michelle hit the craps tables and ended up winning 17 straight shoots–enough money to buy first-class airfare for every member in the band.
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- When asked if she'd ever been arrested, Phillips admitted, “I was arrested for marijuana in Texas, but I beat the wrap!”
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- “The best birthday present I ever received was from my daughter, Chynna, who gave me a book that she had put together of all my friends pictures and comments. A big, thick book, and it just really blew me away,” Michelle said.
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- “It’s been a very tulmultuous couple of years,” says Phillips. “I raised Chynna and the kids in the same way that I was raised myself.”
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- “The drugs were different from what we talk about today. When we took drugs, we were taking psychedelics and we were looking for a better place, trying to expand our minds, and find religion,” she explained.
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- She’s made guest appearances on popular television shows, such as “Spin City,” “7th Heaven," and “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”
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- Phillips and her daughter Chynna attending the 3rd Annual Young Musicians Foundation's Celebrity Mother-Daughter Fashion Show on March 8, 1984 in Beverly Hills.
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- "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,” Michelle says about her friend and former bandmate, Cass Elliot.
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- When asked what her favorite item in her closet is, Michelle said, “I have a mink coat, but I can’t wear it because it’s so politicly incorrect to wear it, and my daughter would kill me!"
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- Phillips attends the premiere of American Anthem with her daughter Chynna and son Austin Hines on June 23, 1986.
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- In 1986, she wrote her autobiography, California Dreamin’: The True Story of the Mamas and The Papas, which was released just a couple of weeks after her ex-husband's book. She said that John purposely planned to release a book first when he found out that she was writing one.
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- She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998 as a member of The Mamas & the Papas. She is also ranked #23 on VH1’s 100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll.
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