54-year-old Melanie Griffith stepped out yesterday for a day of shopping in Los Angeles. No word on whether or not she was shopping for a new outfit, one can hope.

Photos: Fame

Rachel McAdams looks beautiful in a red lace Marchesa gown! Rachel is in Cannes to promote her latest film, ‘Midnight in Paris’.

While Rachel looks beautiful, I think Uma looks absolutely GORGEOUS in a white dress by Versace. Salma Hayek steps out in Gucci, and Antonio Banderas steps out with wife, Malanie Griffith.

Could Heidi Klum be any cuter?

Saturday afternoon celebs turned out to celebrate the opening of the new hospital building at the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles. Celebs included Jamie Lee Curtis, Heidi Klum and Melanie Griffith.

Over 2,000 people attended the event, which included a 5K walk, a street party and a lighting ceremony.

Photos: Fame

Having said she’s beaten back the “monster” she calls her 30-year-old substance-abuse problems, an elegant Melanie Griffith looked the picture of health at her husband Antonio Banderas’ side for Wednesday’s opening of New York’s Tribeca Film Festival. It was certainly a cause for many celebrations.

“He did everything,” Griffith 52, told People about Banderas’ help during her struggle. (Last August, Griffith entered rehab for the third time, following stints in 1988 and 2000.) “He has been an amazing man.”

“It’s tough,” Banderas, 49, admitted to People, as he and Griffith appeared on the red carpet for the animated feature Shrek Forever After, in which the handsome Spaniard is not seen but heard – as the swashbuckling feline Puss in Boots.

Of his wife’s return to health, he said, “The entire family participated in the process of rehabilitation. We went to the place where she was doing it, we participated in all the therapies … everything, everybody in the family. It’s tough, but at the same time, very rewarding.”

Besides Banderas, Griffith’s family includes her mother, ’60s screen star Tippi Hedren, 80; son Alexander (whose father is Griffith’s second husband, actor Steven Bauer), 24; daughter Dakota (with her former husband Don Johnson), 20; and daughter (with Banderas) Stella, 14.

Having Griffith back in top shape must be wonderful, Banderas was asked. “Absolutely,” he told People, beaming as he spoke. “We are stronger right now than we were.”

Source, Fame Pictures

If Susan and Tim can’t make it – at least I still have Melanie and Antonio!

Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith are enjoying their holiday time in Aspen, Colorado with their daughter Stella Banderas. The happy couple enjoyed a stroll through the snowy resort area on December 23, 2009 and they didn’t shy away from PDA as they stopping several times to kiss and cuddle one another. The time she is spending with her family is likely a much-needed break for Melanie, who over the past year has had surgery for skin cancer.

Fame

Antonio Banderas says fear led wife of 15 years Melanie Griffith back to rehab.

On Wednesday’s The Ellen DeGeneres Show, he reveals that Griffith, 52 – who has been sober for six years – had a skiing accident in Aspen, Co., a year-and-a-half ago.

After three knee operations, she was “obligated to use narcotics,” he says, and she got nervous.

“In March, she came to me and said, ‘I’m feeling a little bit weak in my determination for this … so I just thought to go to rehabilitation by myself,’” says Banderas, 49. “So the whole entire family is supporting her and I am supporting her and at this particular time more than ever. I’m very proud of her.”

He adds that the entire family has been participating in Griffith’s rehab program.

“We have been following some type of therapy with other families,” he says. “There are a number of invisible heroes working in AA all around the world. I just say to families, don’t get embarrassed just confront this problem head-on. And don’t hide from that because there is a beautiful gift at the end of this tunnel and it is the person that you love back and that is what I am searching for. I am very proud of my wife.”

Source

Melanie Griffith knows all too well the challenges of getting – and staying – sober.

The actress, who underwent treatment twice for substance abuse in 1988 and 2000, checked into a rehab facility, her rep said Monday, to “reinforce her commitment to stay healthy.”

Her third stint in rehab marks what has been an on-again, off-again battle with addiction for the past three decades.

Admitting she has “an addictive personality,” Griffith, 52, once told Australian magazine New Idea four years after her first trip to rehab that she’s “lucky to be alive. I was never as bad as some people I knew, shooting heroin and stuff. But I did do a lot of drinking and cocaine. I just thought I was having a good time.”

Her problems first got out of control when the then 18-year-old Griffith was “living in a real wild ‘sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll’ lifestyle” with actor Don Johnson, whom she first married and divorced in 1976 (they later remarried). “I wasn’t very concerned about my future,” she told Parade in August 2000.

Five years later, Griffith married actor Steven Bauer. After the couple split in 1985, Griffith admitted, she turned to alcohol. Her wake-up call came on the set of Working Girl in 1988 when director Mike Nichols pulled her aside after she showed up to the set drunk. Three weeks after the shoot, Griffith entered the Hazelden Foundation in Minnesota.

The daughter of a Hollywood legend – her mother is actress Tippi Hedren – Griffith said she turned to drugs to quell her anxieties and to fill a void starting at a young age.

Replacing Love with Drugs
“I was never loved unconditionally,” she told Vanity Fair in 1994. “Coke, booze give you a feeling, a physical sensation … a buzz inside your body that takes the place of something you should have had when you were a child.” Griffith also admitted that when she was 10 she would drink wine “like a soft drink. I was medicating myself so I could escape my pain and insecurities.”

Ironically it was Johnson who helped her get sober. “The turning point,” says Griffith, was when the actor, who had been drug-free for five years, reconnected with his ex in 1989 during her stay at Hazelden and told her he would support her.

Almost a decade later in 2000, when the actress checked into another facility in California for a prescription painkiller addiction, another man stood by her side: husband Antonio Banderas.

The couple, in a joint interview for Primetime in 2002, told Diane Sawyer that they fought while she struggled with her abuse, which stemmed from a neck injury.

“Without seeing the will in her to repair, you know, yeah,” he admitted when asked if he would’ve left in order to get her to clean up. “It’s a tough thing and she confronted it … she spent time [at rehab] and things became much better.”

Overcoming Addiction
For now, Griffith’s latest trip back to rehab will be an uphill climb, according to addiction specialist Dr. David Sack, who runs Promises Treatment Center in Malibu, Calif.

“What’s true for anyone who’s been in recovery for a while, sometimes they take their situation for granted,” Sack, who is not treating Griffith, tells People. “When you have been doing well, it’s easy to minimize and you forget. You don’t want to believe you are still vulnerable … It requires strategy.”

“Overcoming addiction is tough but it can be made easier if you have someone that can offer support,” Griffith once wrote on her Web site. “My husband and family supported me so much through this journey and continue to do so.”

Source, Bauer-Griffin