Alexander Bauer is the eldest son of actors Melanie Griffith and Steven Bauer, and the older half brother of Dakota Johnson. He has built his career on film crews rather than on screen, and he stays so far from public life that most of what is known about him comes down to a few film credits and the occasional photo his mother shares online.
That makes him the outlier in a well known acting family. His mother earned an Academy Award nomination for Working Girl, and his grandmother, Tippi Hedren, was a leading lady in two Alfred Hitchcock films. He took the opposite route, working off screen on small independent films that rarely draw a crowd.
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At a glance
| Profile | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Alexander Griffith Bauer |
| Born | August 22, 1985, Los Angeles, California |
| Age | 40 |
| Parents | Melanie Griffith and Steven Bauer |
| Grandmother | Tippi Hedren |
| Siblings | Dakota Johnson, Stella Banderas, Dylan Bauer, Jesse Johnson |
| Occupation | Film crew (camera and grip) |
| Known for | Kazoo’s on First?, Orange Vests and Cigarettes |
Who are his parents?
Alexander is the only child from Melanie Griffith and Steven Bauer’s marriage, which began in September 1981 after the two met on the set of the television movie She’s in the Army Now.
His father, Steven Bauer, was born in Havana and grew up in Miami. He made his name as Manny Ribera in Scarface opposite Al Pacino, and years later played the cartel boss Don Eladio in Breaking Bad. His mother, Melanie Griffith, won a Golden Globe for Working Girl and was nominated for an Academy Award in the same role. She is the daughter of Tippi Hedren, the actress Hitchcock cast in The Birds and Marnie. The acting line runs three generations, though Alexander never followed them into the profession.
Growing up in a blended family
Griffith and Bauer divorced in 1989, when Alexander was three. Both of his parents married again that same year. Griffith wed actor Don Johnson, and Bauer married actress Ingrid Anderson. Alexander was raised mainly by his mother in Los Angeles.
Those marriages brought a string of siblings. Through his mother came Dakota Johnson and, later, Stella Banderas. Through his father came Dylan Bauer. He also grew up alongside Jesse Johnson, Don Johnson’s son from an earlier relationship. The children grew up close, and Griffith has stayed on good terms with her former husbands. “All three of them are my friends. I love them with all my heart,” she told People in 2020.
Is he related to Dakota Johnson?
Alexander Bauer and Dakota Johnson are half siblings. They share the same mother, Melanie Griffith, but have different fathers. Dakota, born in 1989 to Griffith and Don Johnson, went on to lead the Fifty Shades of Grey films. Alexander went the other way and stayed on the production side.
His other siblings have taken their own paths. Stella Banderas, his half sister through Griffith and Antonio Banderas, was born in 1996 and runs a beauty company. Dylan Bauer, his half brother through Steven Bauer and Ingrid Anderson, was born in 1990. Jesse Johnson, his stepbrother, has worked as an actor and musician.
What does he do for a living?
Alexander works in film production, on the technical crews rather than on camera. His work sits in the camera and grip departments of independent films, with one writing credit to his name.
His film credits include:
- Kazoo’s on First? (2013), as a writer
- This Loneliness (2015), as a second assistant cameraman
- Holding (2015)
- Orange Vests and Cigarettes (2024)
Orange Vests and Cigarettes, his most recent listed film, is a 12 minute short made on a budget of about six thousand dollars that ran the festival circuit in 2023 and 2024. In a May 2025 profile, the South China Morning Post reported that Bauer had been working as a grip, the crew member who rigs and supports the cameras and lighting on set. It is steady, hands on work, far from the red carpets the rest of his family walks.
Where he is now
Most of what reaches the public about Alexander still comes through his mother. Griffith posts photos of him on family occasions and marked his 34th birthday in 2019 by calling him her “wonderful son” on Instagram. He has given no interviews of his own, and no credible report ties him to a marriage or children. Net worth figures circulate online, but none trace to a verifiable source, which fits a freelance crew worker more than a paid star.
At 40, he is still working the crews of small films and still absent from the celebrity coverage that follows his mother and half sister. He has never chased that attention, and nothing about his life so far suggests he ever will.
