"You never know when you read a script how it's going to turn out because so much depends on the collaboration between people. If I'd been in some of the movies I turned down, maybe they wouldn't have been a success."
Molly Kathleen Ringwald (born February 18, 1968 in Roseville, California) is an actress famous for being part of the Brat Pack (a group of actors associated with several Eighties teenage comedy films) and for starring in films such as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink. In addition to her acting career, Ringwald is also an author, singer, and dancer.
Works she has starred in include:
- Diff'rent Strokes (1979-80) as Molly Parker
- The Facts of Life (1979-80)
- Tempest (1982) as Miranda Dimitrius
- Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983) as Niki
- Sixteen Candles (1984) as Samantha "Sam" Baker
- The Breakfast Club (1985) as Claire Standish
- Pretty in Pink (1986) as Andie Walsh
- King Lear (1987) as Cordelia
- For Keeps (1988) as Darcy Bobrucz
- The Stand (1994) as Frannie Goldsmith
- Remember WENN (1996) as Angela Colton
- Office Killer (1997) as Kim
- Saturday Night Live (1998) as Anne Frank (voice)
- Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999) as Miss Banks
- The Outer Limits (2000) as Allison Channing
- The $treet (2000) as Devyn Alden
- Not Another Teen Movie (2001) as Flight Attendant
- Medium (2006) as Kathleen Walsh
- The Secret Life of the American Teenager (2008-13) as Anne Juergens
- Psych (2011) as Nurse McElroy
- Rainbow Brite (2014) as Dark Princess (voice)
- Jem and the Holograms (2015) (2015) as Aunt Bailey
- Doc McStuffins (2016) as Darla (voice)
- Riverdale (2017-2023) as Mary Andrews
- The Kissing Booth series as June Flynn
- The Kissing Booth (2018)
- The Kissing Booth 2 (2020)
- The Kissing Booth 3 (2021)
- Tales of the City (2019) as Mrs. Duncan
- Creepshow (2021) as Mrs. Porter
- The Bear (2022) as Al-Anon Moderator
- Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (2022) as Shari Dahmer
- Single Drunk Female (2023) as Alice
- Feud: Capote vs. the Swans (2024) as Joanne Carson
Books she has written include:
- When It Happens To You (2012)
Provides examples of:
- Actor-Inspired Element: She decorated Samantha's bedroom in Sixteen Candles with some items from her own home.
- Adam Westing: Satirized herself as a Jaded Washout flight attendant in Not Another Teen Movie, where she called out how trite and insincere the Jerk Jock's apology was, and essentially lampshaded the entire ending scene.
- Career Resurrection: For the longest time, she was the only actor included on the
Condemned by History page because of how far from grace she'd fallen since her Teen Idol days. However, appearing in Riverdale (and eventually becoming a regular) and The Kissing Booth brought her back to the mainstream and allowed her to enjoy a new image in her forties. - Double Acts and Groups: As part of the Brat Pack.
- Dyeing for Your Art: She dyed her famous red hair black for The Stand (1994).
- Fanservice: The 1995 direct-to-video thriller Malicious has her topless for about thirty seconds. The Shower of Love scene from For Keeps could count as well.
- Large Ham: Good God, YES. For Keeps, Malicious, and The Stand (1994) are prime examples.
- The Muse: John Hughes wrote Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink specifically for her. The former was written based only on her headshot, and the latter after she asked him to write a movie based on her favourite song.
- Old Shame: The Teen Pregnancy film For Keeps, widely considered to be her Star-Derailing Role. She had hoped to make a film that showed the realities of teen pregnancy, but numerous Creative Differences resulted in something that she felt glamorized it."I feel like it glamorized teen pregnancy. And the original script that I'd agreed to do did not. But whenever you do a movie, whenever you do anything, it's a collaborative effort, and sometimes the script that you agree to do turns into something else. And I was pretty much a teenager at the time, and it was this runaway train that I didn’t know how to stop. And so I was very unhappy about that, and I felt like the movie was, I won’t say unfairly criticized, because I agreed. I really did feel like it glamorized teen pregnancy."
- Playing Against Type: Although one of her most famous roles, Claire of The Breakfast Club was different for her; she had previously played weird girls. Conflicting stories even say that she was meant to play Alison because of this, but she herself affirms that she wanted to be Claire because she was different from her usual roles.
- Romance on the Set: She and Anthony Michael Hall dated during the productin of Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Ringwald's works often possess a cynical slant, with The Breakfast Club and The Pick-Up Artist being the more prominent examples. However, there's something to be said about the underlying sincerity and humanity that permeates her films.
- Statuesque Stunner: Stands at 5'8".
- Trademark Favorite Food/Bizarre Taste in Food: Onion rings drenched in ketchup. Not so unusual at first thought, but what would make it odd was that she would ask that the onions be removed after the onion rings came out of the fryer. During the Brat Pack years, she would order this at the trendiest restaurants, some of which took to calling it the "Ringwald Special."
- Wag the Director:
- In The Breakfast Club, only Claire was supposed to dance, but Molly felt uncomfortable dancing in front of everyone. So John Hughes had the other characters dance too. Ironically she later felt this hurt the movie, finding the group dance to be overly choreographed.
- She insisted on wearing the hat at the beginning of Sixteen Candles, against the wishes of the costume designer. After the movie's success, it became a fashion trend among young women.
- What Could Have Been:
- She turned down roles in some movies that could have saved her mainstream career; these include Sandy in Blue Velvet, Vivian in Pretty Woman, Claire in Days of Thunder, Molly in Ghost, Kim in Edward Scissorhands, Kit in A League of Their Own, Dorothy in Jerry Maguire, and Sidney in Scream.
- She also expressed interest in doing sequels to Sixteen Candles, but turned many of them down. In 2005, she mentioned being impressed with one titled '32 Candles', and wished that one could have been made.
