Molly Ringwald starred in three of the ’80s most memorable and heartfelt teen films — “Sixteen Candles,” “The Breakfast Club,” “Pretty in Pink” — and served as a stand-in for every teen who ever pined after a crush while trying to find his or her place in the world.
While Ringwald just completed a five-season stint on ABC Family’s “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” her creative life encompasses more than acting.
Last August, she issued a well-received debut novel, “When It Happens to You,” and last week she released her first album as an adult. “Except Sometimes,” a jazz tribute to the Great American Songbook, showcases a soothing and mature singing voice that could wipe out images of the girl who broke Ducky’s heart in “Pretty in Pink.”
Ringwald holds fond memories of making those early films, but notes that the fame they brought sometimes overshadows her career.
“People forget that they’re movies that took three months to film 25, 27 years ago,” she says. “Do you still talk to everyone you hung out with for three months when you were 15, 16 years old? But because the films are so popular, people assume [the cast] sees each other all the time.”
Truth is, Ringwald’s career was multifaceted before she ever met Hughes, as she was singing with her father’s jazz band at the age of 3.
“It was pretty much pre-verbal. I was pretty good,” says Ringwald, who’ll bring her voice to the Iridium jazz club on May 8 and 9. “The first song I sang [in public] was at the California State Fair, and I was singing ‘Red Hot Mama,’ which is a real belting number.”
Despite releasing her first album, “I Wanna Be Loved by You: Molly Sings,” at age 6, Ringwald decided to pursue acting instead.
“A little bit of that had to do with wanting to do something different from my parents,” she says. “I didn’t think I could do both, because there was no one who did then.”
When the comedies she starred in became touchstones for a generation’s uncertainty, Ringwald, ironically, couldn’t find the same catharsis in them as the average American teen. She was too close to the material and, as a burgeoning film star, wasn’t quite living the typical teen lifestyle.
Now 45 and a mother of three, she is finally seeing her films in a new light by watching them with her kids.
“I just showed my 9-year-old daughter ‘Pretty in Pink’ for the first time last week,” she says. “Getting to experience it through her, and what she’s starting to go through now in school — with cliques, popularity and all that stuff — I really see what a profound effect those movies can have on someone.”
So while Ringwald wants to be appreciated for her current pursuits, she doesn’t lose sight of how special her films remain to people. Accordingly, her album includes a version of the theme song from “The Breakfast Club,” the Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” redone as a traditional jazz ballad.
Ringwald feels that this new version is the perfect bridge between her early fame and her new public pursuits.
“It’s a nice representation of who I am and what I did before,” says Ringwald. “Also, when I recorded the album, it wasn’t that long after John Hughes had passed away [in 2009]. He was very much in my mind, and I liked the idea of recording a tribute to him.”
Ringwald is now preparing to embark on a tour, will release her novel in paperback next month and is working on a new TV project. With all this activity, she hopes that fans who love her films will come to love the rest of her creative output as much as she does.
“I think everything I’ve done, I’ve done in the time that I was meant to do it,” she says. “I don’t know if I could have put my jazz group together when I was younger. Everything comes in its own time. That’s my philosophy.”