The Bookish Life of Molly Ringwald

Molly Ringwald is a veritable icon of the ‘80s, an actress known and beloved for films such as The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, and Sixteen Candles. This string of films established her as a part of the “Brat Pack,” a group of young actors including Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, and Emilio Estevez who often appeared in coming-of-age ensemble films together. And now that that’s out of the way in which, let’s dive into just about each different side of Ringwald’s life and profession, a lot of which has been adjoining to books and the literary world! Not solely an creator and translator herself, her appearing profession has additionally been every kind of entangled with books. Let’s fall down the rabbit gap of the bookish life of Molly Ringwald, lets? (Ahem — you’ll admire this reference momentarily.) 

Born in 1968 in Roseville, CA, Ringwald started her appearing profession on the age of 5 in a stage manufacturing of Alice in Wonderland, an adaptation, of course, of Lewis Carroll’s 1865 novel. A book-inspired profession from the get-go. Fast ahead 14 years and Ringwald obtained her first Golden Globe nomination for her position within the movie Tempest, a free adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest directed by Paul Mazursky. Ringwald’s Shakespearian streak continued with a movie adaptation of King Lear in 1987. (Of course, within the years between her Shakespearian movies, she additionally starred in these three extraordinarily under-the-radar movies: Sixteen Candles (1984), The Breakfast Club (1985), and Pretty in Pink (1986) — a interval of departure from bookish inspiration for which we are going to forgive her.)

She returned to the world of books with the 1990 romantic comedy, Strike It Rich, based mostly on the novella Loser Takes All by Graham Greene. In 1994 she performed Frannie Goldsmith in The Stand miniseries, an adaptation of Stephen King’s novel of the identical identify. Her book-inspired profession continued on stage in 2001 when she starred as Sally Bowles in Cabaret on Broadway. The Kander and Ebb musical relies on John Van Druten’s play, I Am a Camera, which was in flip tailored from Goodbye to Berlin, a novel by Christopher Isherwood. In 2003, Ringwald briefly appeared in Enchanted April on Broadway, a stage adaptation of the novel The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim. During this era of many variations, Ringwald’s private life additionally took a flip for the literary when she married Valéry Lameignère, a French author, in 1999. (Though they did divorce in 2002.)

In 2006, Ringwald had a supporting position in what is perhaps my private favourite of her bookish roles. She performed the position of Molly McIntire’s mom, Helen, in Molly: An American Girl on the Home Front based mostly on the “Molly: An American Girl” e-book sequence. (How many instances did I learn these e-book sequence? MANY.) In 2007, Ringwald married Panio Gianopoulos, one other author and e-book editor. Soon after her second marriage Ringwald took on a task in The Secret Life of the American Teenger. In a uncommon turning-of-the-tables second on this planet of variations, that sequence truly impressed its personal e-book, The Secret Diary of Ashley Juergens. The Secret Life of the American Teenager ran from 2008 till 2013 and in that point, Ringwald additionally learn the audiobooks for the novels Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures by Emma Straub and The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg.

More just lately, Ringwald has appeared in Riverdale as Archie Andrews’ mom. Riverdale relies on the characters of Archie Comics and was tailored for TV by Archie Comics’ chief inventive officer, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. 

In addition to all of her book-inspired roles on display screen (or certainly on screen-inspired books!), Ringwald is herself changing into fairly a prolific creator and translator. Ringwald printed her first e-book, a bestselling memoir Getting the Pretty Back: Friendship, Family, and Finding the Perfect Lipstick in 2010. She then ventured into the world of fiction in 2012 with a novel-in-stories assortment known as When It Happens to You. Finally, Ringwald entered a brand new literary area in 2019 when she translated the French novel Lie With Me by Philippe Besson. Most just lately she translated from French, My Cousin Maria Schneider by Vanessa Schneider, which got here out in English in April 2023. Ringwald’s writing has additionally appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vogue, Parade, Salon, Esquire, The Guardian, and extra. 

The bookish life of Molly Ringwald could be tracked on display screen and on stage from her first position in an adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland by way of Riverdale, which simply concluded earlier this 12 months. And that’s not even to say the books which she has authored or translated herself! That mentioned, if you’re interested by studying extra about which books she considers to be essentially the most impactful in her life, try this interview in regards to the books which have influenced her, or this checklist of her six favourite books.