Frank Griffin, who nosed out another makeup artist to work with Steve Martin on Roxanne, just one of the 20 movies they did together, has died. He was 95.
Griffin died Wednesday of cancer at his home in Studio City, his daughter Roxane Griffin, a veteran Hollywood hairstylist (Avatar, Transparent, 80 for Brady), told The Hollywood Reporter.
Frank Griffin started out in Hollywood as an actor and studio laborer before turning to makeup in the mid-1960s, and he went on to work on Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), Scarecrow (1973), Westworld (1973), Cinderella Liberty (1973), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Urban Cowboy (1980), Midnight Run (1988), Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), Vacation (1983), Revenge of the Nerds (1984) and Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985).
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Survivors also include his sister Debra Paget, who starred in such films as Broken Arrow (1950), Love Me Tender (1956) — Elvis Presley’s first movie — and The Ten Commandments (1956).
His other two sisters were actresses as well: Lisa Gaye, who starred in the 1956 musical films Rock Around the Clock and Shake Rattle & Rock!, and Teala Loring, who did lots of B-movies. They died in 2016 and 2007, respectively.
Ric Sagliani, Martin’s regular makeup artist, had employed Griffin to work with him on Martin’s Pennies From Heaven (1981) and Three Amigos! (1986). But with the actor set to wear a large prosthetic nose for more than three months in Roxanne (1987), a modern retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac, Sagliani decided to pass on that gig, leaving it to Griffin.
“Ric was a lovely guy, but he didn’t want to tackle that nose,” Griffin told Steve Rubin on a 2022 episode of his Saturday Night at the Movies podcast. “I said [to Martin], ‘Fine, I’ll have you for this picture, and Ric can have you back for the next one.’”
That next one was Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987), which Sagliani turned down as well, not wanting to go on location, Griffin noted. “So I guess if you say no to Steve twice, that is it,” he said. “I just stuck with him from then on. He was such a delight.”
Griffin then worked with Martin on Parenthood (1989), My Blue Heaven (1990), Father of the Bride (1991), L.A. Story (1991), Grand Canyon (1991), HouseSitter (1992), Leap of Faith (1992), A Simple Twist of Fate (1994), Father of the Bride Part II (1995), Sgt. Bilko (1996), The Spanish Prisoner (1997), Bowfinger (1999), Novocaine (2001), Cheaper by the Dozen (2003), Bringing Down the House (2003) and Shopgirl (2005), his final credit.
The second of four kids, Frank Henry Griffin Jr. was born in Denver on June 25, 1929. His mother, Margaret, was a vaudeville performer who gave her children stage names that she thought were “the perfect length for a movie marquee.” His father, Frank Sr., was a house painter and later a laborer at Columbia Pictures.
The family ultimately settled in Los Angeles in 1942 after Paramount signed Teala, who was seven years his senior, to a contract, and for a time they lived across the street from the lot. Later, Debra landed a deal at 20th Century Fox.
Griffin and Debra attended the Hollywood Professional School and studied acting with Queenie Smith. While she became a star right away, he got a job as a laborer at Columbia, just like his dad, before he made his acting debut in Lightning Guns (1950).
Billed as Reull Shayne, he had bit parts in such films as Fort Savage Raiders (1951), Teen-Age Crime Wave (1955) and The Giant Claw (1957), and on TV shows including Death Valley Days, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon and U.S. Marshal.
“I was never happy [acting], I had always felt I was poorly trained,” he told Rubin. “Had I really wanted to do it, I would’ve had to have had the balls to go back to New York and study there.”
Griffin returned to studio labor before he got makeup jobs at CBS and then Fox, working on The Tammy Grimes Show and The Green Hornet. His first film as a makeup artist was Sam Whiskey (1969), starring Burt Reynolds and Angie Dickinson.
He also handled makeup for A Man Called Horse (1970), The Hired Hand (1971), Black Gunn (1972), Demon Seed (1977) and She’s So Lovely (1997), and on the first two seasons (1977-79) of CBS’ Lou Grant, starring Ed Asner.
He said Asner — whom he lovingly called “Uncle Waldo” — and Martin were his favorite actors to work with.
In addition to Roxane — so named because Cyrano was a favorite love story of his — survivors include his other children, Beau (a grip in Hollywood), Garrett, Frank and Gayle; his grandchildren, Brandon, Jesse, Cassandra, Griffin, Kelsey and Lindsay; and former Hollywood hairstylist Linda Trainoff, with whom he lived for the past 43 years.
