Miss Molly was born just outside of Sacramento, California, to a blind jazz musician and a chef. She started her career in showbiz at age 5 in a local production of Alice and Wonderland. After several years of local productions and commercial work, Ringwald landed a role on Different Strokes, which quickly became a role on The Facts of Life.
Soon, she was recording albums for Disney and not all that long after that, she took a permanent place in the rituals of teenage life when she became John Hughes’ muse, and starred in The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles and pretty much every other movie your tween niece/neighbor/daughter/babysitting charge needs to see before she graduates to teenagehood.
Molly has done a little bit of everything, from Broadway to Lifetime movies to sitcoms to French art films and back again. Goodness knows where she’d be if she’d accepted roles that she is rumored to have been offered in Pretty Woman and Ghost. Though honestly, she was probably smart to turn those down … methinks that Molly’s natural baby face would have made prematurely white Richard Gere look downright elderly.
Molly may not have Julia Roberts’ career, but she has made an indelible mark on American iconography, and she’s done it without ever fitting in, or being what you might have expected from a teen starlet making a career out of eighties high school flicks. There’s just something about Molly that makes you want to watch her, even though she never seems to be trying to grab for attention. And that, my dear comedivas, is the lesson we learn from the fabulous Molly Ringwald. It doesn’t matter what kind of character you’re playing, as long as you give it plenty of heart, you’re doing it right.
Soon, she was recording albums for Disney and not all that long after that, she took a permanent place in the rituals of teenage life when she became John Hughes’ muse, and starred in The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles and pretty much every other movie your tween niece/neighbor/daughter/babysitting charge needs to see before she graduates to teenagehood.
Molly has done a little bit of everything, from Broadway to Lifetime movies to sitcoms to French art films and back again. Goodness knows where she’d be if she’d accepted roles that she is rumored to have been offered in Pretty Woman and Ghost. Though honestly, she was probably smart to turn those down … methinks that Molly’s natural baby face would have made prematurely white Richard Gere look downright elderly. Molly may not have Julia Roberts’ career, but she has made an indelible mark on American iconography, and she’s done it without ever fitting in, or being what you might have expected from a teen starlet making a career out of eighties high school flicks. There’s just something about Molly that makes you want to watch her, even though she never seems to be trying to grab for attention. And that, my dear comedivas, is the lesson we learn from the fabulous Molly Ringwald. It doesn’t matter what kind of character you’re playing, as long as you give it plenty of heart, you’re doing it right.
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Great post ! I loved Molly Ringwald back in the day. Thanks for featuring her.