American actress, singer, and author, perhaps most recognized for playing Andie Walsh in the 1986 film, Pretty In Pink (1986), in her late teens. She was cast in her first major acting role as Molly Parker in the NBC sitcom The Facts of Life (1979–1980) at age 11. At age 13 Ringwald was nominated for a Golden Globe in 1982 for her first major film Tempest based on Shakespeare’s play with a modern setting.
The daughter of Bob Ringwald, a blind jazz pianist-bandleader and Adele, a chef, Molly is the youngest of four children. The eldest sibling died at three years of age of leukemia. Her brother Kelly is one year older and sister Beth is three years older. As her father’s blindness is congenital, there was fear in her early years that she or her siblings might also lose their sight.
Her first performance was at a California State Fair at age three singing with her father’s band. At five she began singing, dancing and acting classes. The part of the dormouse in Alice Through The Looking Glass provided her stage debut at six and she recorded an album of jazz and blues songs, Molly Sings, with her father’s band the same year. At this age she was sure she would be a black nightclub singer when she grew older. The New Mickey Mouse Club, provided her TV debut at eight and at nine she played Kate in the touring company of Annie.
Ringwald attended the Lycee Francais in Los Angeles, a prestigious bilingual private school. When filming she had private tutors.
Fame came in her teen years when she starred in three films with Hollywood’s Brat Pack, Sixteen Candles (1984), The Breakfast Club (1985) and Pretty In Pink (1986). Appearing on the cover of Time Magazine on 26 May 1986, the story related her success. These films provided enough money for her to purchase her own home by the time she was 19. Later, she recalled that her early 20s were very angry years.
Her following films were box office flops and finding no suitable parts, instead of college, in 1992 Ringwald went to Paris for a film which lasted six weeks. She decided to live in Paris, writing and studying, returning to America to make the TV miniseries The Stand which aired in early May 1994, after which she returned to Paris through 1996. After intensive language classes she was able to star in the French film L’Enfant Salud, and other French language films. In 1996 Ringwald again returned to America to star in the TV sitcom Townies which was dropped in mid-season. In October 1997 Ringwald went to Broadway in How I Learned To Drive receiving critical acclaim. The part lasted through 19 April 1998 when the show closed.
With fashion sense and a love of clothes, Molly at 5’8″ (1.73 m) with a slender frame always shopped in thrift stores, creating her own look with antique laces and junk shop couture. With a delicate complexion, freckles and auburn hair, she has a coiled poise, a resilient sense of humor and openness of emotion that allows her expression without saying a word. A flawless performer, she can remember anything that rhymes or is set to music. Ringwald feels work adds order to her life.
She has played Anne Juergens in the ABC Family show The Secret Life of the American Teenager and released her debut album Except Sometimes in early 2013. Since 2017, Ringwald has portrayed Mary Andrews on The CW television series Riverdale.
While in Paris Ringwald met and fell in love with French writer-director Valery Lameignère in 1993. Ringwald married Lameignère in Bordeaux, France, on 28 July 1999; they divorced in 2002. She married Panio Gianopoulos, a Greek-American writer and book editor, in 2007. They have a daughter, Mathilda (born 2003), and twins, Adele and Roman (born 2009).
Link to Wikipedia biography