Whatever Happened To...
Molly Ringwald
By Brighid Mooney

In the 1960s it was the Rat Pack that helped define a decade and that glamorous, slightly mysterious lifestyle. In the 1980s, the Brat Pack emerged to help define a vastly different decade, with Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Emilio Estevez, and others characterizing the sometimes isolating, always trying teenage years in a number of teenage comedy films mostly from prolific director John Hughes. One of the stand-out actresses of the Brat Pack was Molly Ringwald, whose breakthrough performance came with the role of Samantha Baker in 1984's Sixteen Candles, which reinvigorated the timeworn story of adolescent love and humiliation with both humor and charm. The film was an immediate hit and Ringwald was catapulted into the spotlight, a seeming aberration of sweetness and innocence in the decadent 80s. The next year, Ringwald starred as the preppy, popular rich girl, Claire, in The Breakfast Club, along with fellow Brat Packers Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy. Again the film was a great success and Ringwald's fame reached new heights, as one of many in the illustrious, young group. The following year, 1986, was a high point for Ringwald as she appeared in another Hughes masterpiece, Pretty In Pink. The role of Andie, the girl from the wrong side of the tracks with a crush on the rich and popular Blane, played by Andrew McCarthy, seemed specially created for Ringwald and she played it to perfection as she unknowingly reached the zenith of her career. Though she appeared on the cover of Time Magazine that year, something of a pinnacle of acknowledgment in the pop culture impact of her career, Ringwald has yet to match that kind of success in the decades that have followed.

After 1986, things changed for the golden actress of the 80s and her rapidly rising star just as quickly began to fade. Bad acting choices combined with a bit of bad luck in the business have combined to leave Ringwald fondly remembered for her popular roles in the 80s, but largely unseen on screens in the years since. In 1988, Ringwald appeared in the mediocre film For Keeps, and since then her career has been mostly confined to small roles on television and on stage. She even appeared in the TV mini-series of Stephen King's The Stand in 1994 and in 2001 made a self-deprecating appearance as a flight attendant in the teen comedy spoof Not Another Teen Movie. But Ringwald has actually been doing more since her teen idol glory days than just small roles in made-for-TV movies. In April of 2003 she starred as Rose in the Broadway production of Enchanted Rose and from August to September of last year played the role of Sally in the stage version of When Harry Met Sally at the Haymarket Theatre in London, England. Since December of last year she has been starring with Jason Biggs in the play Modern Orthodox at New York City's Dodges Theatre.

So what happened to take Molly Ringwald from the highs of her 1980s Brat Pack days to a perfectly respectable but decidedly lower-key stage career today? Several career choices notable in retrospect for being quite unfortunate helped to contribute to the decline of Ringwald's fame. One of the first most notable "hindsight mistakes" was her decision to turn down the role played by Lea Thompson in 1987's Some Kind of Wonderful. This decision infuriated director John Hughes, who was responsible for penning the three roles that brought Ringwald most of her fame and success, and basically ended their previously successful business relationship. The previous year, David Lynch had sent Ringwald a script for Blue Velvet, hoping to cast her in the role played by Laura Dern, but Ringwald's mother was disturbed by the script and never passed it on to her daughter. Ringwald herself also turned down several roles in movies which proved to be incredibly successful at the box office, including the role played by Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, and the role taken by another fellow Brat Packer, Demi Moore, in Ghost, both in 1990.

Perhaps things would have gone differently for Molly Ringwald past the lucrative 80s had she made different acting choices, had she not fallen out with John Hughes, had she decided to perform opposite Patrick Swayze in Ghost. But at this point it is impossible to say. As Ringwald once famously said, "you can't be sixteen forever." That is, however, the way so many people will always remember her.

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