Trivia

Father of actress Melanie Griffith by Tippi Hedren, and father of actress Tracy Griffith and production designer Clay A. Griffith by Nanita Greene.

Was only 18 when he married Tippi Hedren, who was almost four years older than him.

In 1951, when he was seventeen, he occasionally acted on the TV series The Aldrich Family (1949), where he met his first wife, twenty-one-year-old Tippi Hedren, who was doing a walk-on role. She tripped on her foot and fell into his arms. He tended to her, and they immediately fell in love and married within a year. In 1957, they had their daughter Melanie Griffith. In her 2016 memoir, Tippi alleged that she divorced him in 1961 because he was an unfaithful alcoholic who resented the fact that she was the breadwinner. Nevertheless, when he died in 2001, she attended his funeral with his four other wives.

Grandfather of Alexander Bauer, Dakota Johnson, and Stella Banderas.

Father-in-law of Antonio Banderas and Heather Griffith.

Former father-in-law of Don Johnson and Steven Bauer.

He was the son of Hilda (Atwill) and Benjamin Elmer Griffith. He also had a younger sister named Sally.