Molly Ringwald: Pretty in Jazz
Molly Ringwald gets the question a lot: “You sing too?”
Actually, she sang first. Before she was THE iconic teen star of the ‘80s, she was singing at threeyears-old with her jazz pianist dad in his group, the Fulton Street Jazz Band. It’s where her love of the Great American Songbook started, which she would revisit decades later.
On April 18, Ringwald the jazz singer plays the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in St. Catharines. And with each show, she’s convincing more and more doubters.
“For sure, when I first went out it was a constant (thing)... ‘I had no idea you could sing!’,” says the 50-year-old performer. “But I feel it’s always good to give people a good surprise, you know. Because there’s plenty of bad surprises.”
For Ringwald, spending time in both worlds just feels natural. Being a singer and actress complement each other, even if she’s much more famous for one.
“Right now, much more so than the time when I grew up – when I really felt I had to choose between acting and singing – that doesn’t seem the case as much now,” she says. “It feels like everybody is almost expected to be able to act and sing and dance. Do everything, almost like it was in the golden age of Hollywood.
“Musicals are being done a lot more. It’s really considered a great advantage to be able to sing. A lot of actors have recording careers, and vice versa.”
With her trademark red hair, Ringwald was 10 when she was chosen to play the lead in a west coast production of “Annie.” The next year, she appeared in “Diff ’rent Strokes” and was cast in its spin-off “The Facts of Life,” only for her character to be cut before the second season. She continued singing, including “The First Noel” on a Disney Christmas album, before landing her first major role in director Paul Mazursky’s “The Tempest” in 1982.
That put her on the radar of the man who would change her life: Director John Hughes, who cast her in his directorial debut in 1984, “Sixteen Candles.” Playing a 16-year-old high school sophomore whose entire family has forgotten her birthday, she made an immediate impact in one of the ‘80s most enduring comingof-age comedies.
It was just a warm-up for Hughes’ next film.
For “The Breakfast Club,” Ringwald was part of an unforgettable cast of high school misfits who would soon be dubbed the ‘Brat Pack.’ One of the most beloved ’80s movies ever, its themes of alienation and peer pressure continue finding new fans with each generation.
Ringwald would appear in one more Hughes classic, 1986’s “Pretty in Pink” (which he wrote but didn’t direct). Two months after it opened, Ringwald was on the cover of TIME with the caption ‘Ain’t She Sweet.’ She was poised to become a massive Hollywood star until a string of under-performing movies like “For Keeps” and “Fresh Horses” ended the hot streak.
She remained busy through the ‘90s, but only appeared in a handful of movies from 2000 to 2010.
In 2013 she released her first jazz album, “Except Sometimes.” In addition to standards like “Sooner or Later” and “The Very Thought of You,” it featured a tribute to Hughes – who died in 2009 – with a cover of Simple Minds’ “Breakfast Club” theme song, “Don’t You (Forget About Me).” It has been a crowd favourite of her live show since.
“I think it was nice to kind of have that bridge of what people have known me the most for into the music,” she says. “And I always really like covers that completely re-imagine songs. I always feel like, if you’re going to do a song exactly the way it was done, what’s the point?”
In a strange way, the album seemed to kickstart Ringwald’s acting again. Since its release she has appeared in several films and TV shows, most recently in a recurring role as Archie’s mom Mary Andrews in The CW series “Riverdale.”
It’s not lost on her that a former teen icon is working with another generation of teen stars. But she laughs when asked if she’s giving any pointers.
“I do not talk to them about that! The last thing these kids want is some person giving them advice.
“I mean, if they ask me something specific, I’ll talk to them. But I’m not Yoda. I don’t go around offering them advice.”