How did Molly Ringwald get so popular after leaving Facts of Life?

No idea.

John Hughes had a creepy, quasi-romantic/sexual obsession with her when he was at the height of his powers, and starred her in one hit after another. Everything she did that was successful was a Hughes film (16 Candles, The Breakfast Club, For Keeps?, Pretty in Pink). All of her non-Hughes films were flops (Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, The Pick-Up Artist, Fresh Horses, Betsy's Wedding).

The ONLY reason for her brief stardom was a middle-aged filmmaker wanting to bang her.

Yeah, I always wonder if he tried.

R2 artists have muses.

R2 That's a ridiculous oversimplification.

Molly had a appeal to teenagers that helped make those films hits. Ordinary non model like girls saw themselves in her. She was very relatable.

And let's not forget that Molly turned down Pretty Woman. Had she taken that role, her career trajectory would most likely have been much different. And she would have a second wind as an adult A list star.

She was not a good actress. She always has that confused look on her face when she acts.

Confused young girls could identify with her. Not pretty enough to be a threat but not a dog either. She played 'sincere' well.

R2 Exactly. John Hughes had an obsession with her and made her his muse.

There are also extra unseen hours of footage of the actors in the Breakfast Club that has not been made available to the public.

R5 everybody and their mother turned down pretty woman. Let’s face it, ringwald had limited appeal. The John Hughes movies were fluff. I can’t see her giving any really great performances in anything else, certainly can’t see her playing historical figures or anyone important.

Anal

She would do a certain... thing... for Charlotte Rae in the green room that most of us other girls on the show didn't like to do. Once the Hollywood power establishment found out about that, Molly's rise was unstoppable.

[quote] John Hughes had a creepy, quasi-romantic/sexual obsession with her when he was at the height of his powers, and starred her in one hit after another

So I guess Anthony Michael Hall's nerdy character in Sixteen Candles who was creepily obsessed with Ringwald's character was basically an avatar for John Hughes.

I posted this on The Breakfast Club thread but here goes again. No teenage boys were lusting after Molly, it was a joke that she was supposed to be pretty (and popular in Breakfast Club). Her best casting was Sixteen Candles when she played awkward.

John Hughes was creepy when you see old pictures of him with a mullet, leather jackets, and those big glasses posing with all the younger actors.

[quote]So I guess Anthony Michael Hall's nerdy character in Sixteen Candles who was creepily obsessed with Ringwald's character was basically an avatar for John Hughes

No, he did anal too.

She took a little advice from yours truly.

Jake Ryan's intentions was he was bored with his slutty blonde girlfriend was implied to be cheating on him (and later turned out to be true when she hooked up with Ted the geek). He saw that Sam was obsessed with him, she was different from the typical bimbos he would bang and wanted to try something new. He likely took her virginity and broke up with her before or after he went off to college. Sam would learn her lesson to not chase after guys for their looks and find a kind-natured artist hipster type who shared her interests.

Molly said Charlotte Rae's parting words to her on her last day on the set were prophetic: "Ringwald, you're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!"

She was charming in Sixteen Candles but after that she came off as kind of a snot.

OK, The Breakfast Club could be explained that Claire was only popular because she was rich. There's different types of school popularity. A lot of times the stuck-up, unlikable and unattractive rich kids are popular because people want to hang out at their houses, get them to buy them things and make good connections. From my experience though, usually the most genuinely popular kids are often the most extroverted, confident, nice to everyone, good at school and very active in sports and school activities. People who would be idolized. Even if you're very good-looking that doesn't mean you will be the most popular by default especially if you're shy, socially awkward, weird and annoying.

Richard Gere and genre aside, Pretty Woman was a box-office phenomenon in large part to Julia Roberts’ performance. It wouldn’t have been the hit that it was without her. There was no one of her generation who could have given off that energy and personality, coupled with her comedic and dramatic chops.

Roberts was one of the most successful commercial actors in the 1990s because people in part were paying money to see her. Since the death of “movie star draw,” actors can no longer have that level of success (they need to hitch their stars to franchises first). Along with aging, that’s part of the reason why she isn’t as popular today. Other reasons include her focusing on family, tempering her professional ambitions, and not being as versatile as say Cate Blanchett or Nicole Kidman. I think audiences matured as well. If they hadn’t, Eat Pray Love would have been a bigger hit.

People paid money for Ringwald’s awkward teenager, but she had a short shelf-life.

I can see why Anthony Michael Hall was popular though. He was very charming and funny as the wanna player in Sixteen Candles. John Cusack also plays one of his friends and Joan Cusack appears as a background character. The biggest mystery is why didn't that hunk Michael Schoeffling enjoy a bigger career especially since Bruce Weber paid for his acting classes and he was hotter than majority of the Hollywood leading man at the time. I'm guessing he wasn't very social or interested in acting given how he disappeared. Ilan Mitchel-Smith was also quite pretty and his career went nowhere. AMH had a good career but his mental health seems to have declined.

She's gotten a lot of work for the same reason your assholes's probably had about a million men in it. A lot of traffic can mean a lot of work.

Maybe this time...

Why would her character on FoL have anything to do with it?

R11: This from a woman who had movie sex with Scott Baio?

Molly once stood up Bette Davis for a People photo shoot. Molly thought she was the bigger STAR !!

Her character on [italic]Facts[/italic] was not so much a character as a collection of clippings from Ms. magazine.

I would have fired her, too. The show was in the ratings basement. They had to do something to keep from becoming the next [italic]Hello, Larry[/italic].

Not true, r26.

[quoite]So I guess Anthony Michael Hall's nerdy character in Sixteen Candles who was creepily obsessed with Ringwald's character was basically an avatar for John Hughes

Not according to John Hughes. Hughes held that the character from his movies he was most like in high school was Ferris Bueller.

I am not making that up.

r26...

*

Lillian Gish was in a dither. In honor of the expected guest, who was invited by PEOPLE, she had put on her best opal necklace and a sumptuous velvet skirt. “And you say the young lady’s name is Molly Ringwald?” she asked excitedly as she set out cookies. “And we are to talk about the difference between actresses then and actresses now? Oh, dear, I hope I won’t bore her.” She didn’t get the chance—La Ringwald never arrived. The carrot-topped teen, who achieved quickie celebrity in Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink, stood up the 86-year-old grande dame of the movies, the superstar of Hollywood’s first masterpieces; D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance. The appointment was for noon. Miss Gish waited patiently until almost 3 p.m. Then she said sadly, “I guess she doesn’t care because I’m old.” Some hours later Ringwald sent a dozen roses, along with an excuse that to a lady of Miss Gish’s generation sounded like another insult: “Just as I was leaving, I smashed my hand in the door, and I had to put some ice on it to keep it from swelling. Then…I couldn’t find a taxi, and when I finally did, I didn’t have the right address.”

r30 how rude!

[quote] Not according to John Hughes. Hughes held that the character from his movies he was most like in high school was Ferris Bueller.

Well at least Hughes admits he is a smug sociopathic asshole who used his friends for amusement. I think Kevin from Home Alone must have been the fetus version of Hughes too.