A Field Guide to Molly Ringwald

February 19, 2019
TUCKER-BANKSHOT

The quintessential girl next door of the 1980s, Molly Ringwald was one fantasy girl who spanned nearly everyone's taste in women. There's something about a pouty-lipped redhead that anyone attracted to women simply cannot resist, and thanks to her work with John Hughes, she was the model for what a lot of men looked for in a woman.

It's undeniable that Molly Ringwald has aged better than many of her contemporaries, and she's still a stunner even after celebrating her 51st birthday yesterday...

Following her recurring role as Molly Parker on both Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life in the late 70s and early 80s, Molly earned a Golden Globe nomination for her feature film debut in Paul Mazursky's 1982 fantasy comedy Tempest. Despite this early career boost, however, it wasn't until two years later when she starred as the virginal Samantha Baker in John Hughes' Sixteen Candles, that she truly exploded. While the cultural insensitivity of the times may have ruined the film for some modern audiences—thanks, Long Duk Dong—it really is the best place to see Molly at her nascent, pre-stardom best, and Paul Dooley as her dad rivals Josh Hamilton in last year's Eighth Grade as cinema's best, most understanding father in a teen movie.

The following year's The Breakfast Club put Ringwald on top of the teen comedy world as the ultimate teen dream. That her brainy Claire ends up with damaged bully John Bender (Judd Nelson) was proof enough that the boy could get the girl, no matter how bad the boy or how good the girl. Cinema purists will be upset to find out that those aren't Ringwald's legs that Nelson attempts to bury his face between while Assistant Principal Paul Gleeson demands to know what the ruckus was, but it's still a chastely sexy scene...

Molly never seemed comfortable in her role as the female standard bearer for the so-called Brat Pack, however, and following her leading role in one more Hughes-scripted film the following year—Pretty in Pink—she moved away from the writer/director and became something of a free agent. Hollywood just didn't seem to know what to do with Ringwald as she grew older, though, and she spent the rest of the 80s bouncing between cut-rate teen comedies—The Pick-Up Artist and For Keeps—and more high minded fare that wouldn't appeal to her core audience—Godard's King Lear and Fresh Horses.

Ringwald spent the 90s working consistently, but never in anything that was quite up to the stature she earned in the mid-80s. Following a fairly high profile role in the TV miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand, Molly took her most daring and "adult" role yet in a mid-level thriller titled Malicious. Molly plays Melissa, a medical student who becomes unhealthily obsessed with her school's star baseball player Doug (Patrick McGaw). While taking a break from his long-term girlfriend, Doug finds himself in Melissa's embrace and we get our first—and to date, only—look at Molly's magnificent breasts...

It's a nice, long 17 seconds spent with a topless Molly Ringwald, all anyone in the throes of puberty needed to satisfy whatever pent up urges they had. Nothing Molly had done before or since has even remotely reached this level of explicitness and it's quite awesome. From there, the film turns into your typical scorned lover fare as Melissa's obsession with Doug takes a turn for the deadly when he returns to his old girlfriend. Man, I know she's crazy and all, but I think Doug is even crazier for passing up on more of this.

The following year, Molly did her only other sexy work on film in the French comedy Enfants de Salaud for director Tonie Marshall (Venus Beauty). As one of a quartet of siblings who discover that their long lost father is a mass murderer, Molly stunned audiences with this flick, playing an American actress performing in a cabaret in Paris. Her sexy, albeit clothed, bump and grind routine goes over like gangbusters though...

Molly also shows off in a bra backstage following her routine...

After a series of failed television endeavors like Townies and some glorified cameos that capitalized on her status as a legendary teen idol—Teaching Mrs. Tingle and Not Another Teen Movie—Molly spent the early aughts focused on her family. She came back in a high profile way in the late aughts with her role on The Secret Life of the American Teenager as mom to future skin queens Shailene Woodley and India Eisley.

But that's hardly the end of Molly's career. In fact, she can be seen as Archie's mom Mary on Riverdale, endearing herself to an entirely new generation of teens. Molly will also be seen on Netflix's revival of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City due out later this year. It's safe to say that even though she hasn't gone nude as often as many of her contemporaries, she's got one of the best one-and-done nude scenes ever filmed. No matter when in your life you discovered her, chances are you still carry the torch for Molly Ringwald, today and always.