Molly Ringwald defined a specific period in pop culture history. She didnt win a lot of awards or work with a lot of legendary directors and co-stars. But Ringwalds cultural impact was far greater than her filmography would suggest. If you were in high school in the early-to-mid eighties, Molly Ringwald was IT. There was Ringwald and there was everyone else.
But just a few short years after appearing on the cover of Time Magazine, the moment passed. Ringwald went from IT-girl to has-been practically overnight.
What happened is that between 1987 and 1990 she did six movies in a row which flopped-- King Lear, Pick Up Artist, For Keeps, Fresh Horses, Strike it Rich, and Betsy's Wedding. None of them were hits and none of them did anything to further her career, even though SOME of them weren't bad films (just average).
By 1992, she was doing TV films (Something to Live for: The Allison Gertz Story), and then the TV mini-series, The Stand, in 1994. Her career really tumbled by 1995, when she started doing straight to video junk like Malicious and Baja.
Molly Ringwald simply never aged into the adult actor that she needed to become. While she was fine in teenaged fare like Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink, when it came to roles that should have exploited her young adult sexuality (Fresh Horses, Strike It Rich, Betsy’s Wedding, etc.) things didn’t pan out for her. She looked like the girl from Sixteen Candles pretending to be an adult.
Things never got better from there. Her role in the Stephen King miniseries, The Stand didn’t seem to pan out for her. The remainder of the 1990s was filled with minor roles as she transitioned from leading parts into becoming a character actor. Additionally, she rather unwisely declined the leading roles in Pretty Woman and Ghost, films which made her peers, Julia Roberts and Demi Moore, into major box office stars.
Ringwald moved to Paris for several years and was out of the spotlight. When she returned to the States, Hollywood had largely passed her by. While she has been able to find character roles, she has also transitioned into mother/grandmother roles far too quickly. This means that she has to compete with a wider range of performers, for a narrow range of roles.
Winona Ryder and Ringwald were never competitors. Ryder went almost directly from teenaged roles into adult fare. She acted in a wider variety of roles than Ringwald did and, until her arrest for shoplifting, her career was on the ascendance. Had Ryder not lost a step, she would have been a major star in Hollywood for at least the decade between 1995 and 2005 (She was in a hit film, Mr. Deeds in 2002; however it was an Adam Sandler vehicle and he was the only memorable part).
I'm surprised that people don't appear to realise that some people who act in movies have other passions in life that they would prefer to follow. In Molly's case, Molly has followed in her father's footsteps (noted jazz pianist Bob Ringwald) and has been involved as a jazz singer for quite a few years... no conspiracy theory to see here folks, move on...
Locked my wire coat-hanger in the car - good thing that I always carry spare keys in my pocket :)
Molly Ringwald was once a staple of American cinema, thanks to classic '80s movies like Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink. Nowadays, though, you hardly hear from her anymore. How did she go from bonafide movie star to distant memory? Here's what we know.
Her fans were graduated from high school. She got old.
I revel in the fall of the Brat Pack, one of the worst episodes in pop culture history—but does something as trivial as pop culture deserve to have a chronicled history? Why not, then, a history of boogers?