There’s no denying that Molly Ringwald was the it girl of the 1980s, after starring in hits like The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, and Sixteen Candles.
With her curly red locks and girl-next-door look, the actress helped define the era as the muse of famed director John Hughes.
Ageless beauty
More than four decades on, Molly wowed her fans with a glowing selfie shared to her Instagram account on Monday.
“Summer ending vibes,” she captioned the snap, which saw the mother of three pouting at the camera in a white halter-neck sundress, with her iconic red curls on full display.
Her fans rushed to the comments to exclaim over her beauty, with one writing, “Oh my God, Molly! You look fabulous,” while another added, “Aging in reverse! So beautiful!!”
“Stop Miss Molly howwwwww do you look so amaze?????” said another, while a fourth commented, “Queen of the ’80s.”
The dark side of fame
© Getty ImagesMolly has been open about her experience as one of the ’80s most recognizable stars, and explained why she chose to escape to France in the ’90s.
“I’ve never known a world where I haven’t been a little famous,” she said on the Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky podcast.
“At a certain point, I became really, really famous. When you’re on the cover of Time magazine, I think when it gets to that point, then it becomes a level of fame that I, personally, don’t feel that comfortable with.”
© Getty Images“Even though I was happy with the movies that I was doing and I loved the work of actually doing it, but all the fame and the notoriety outside of that, I found it really overwhelming and scary,” she continued.
Molly added that fame changed her personality, causing her to become closed off to other people as a form of protection.
© Ron Galella Collection via Getty“Maybe this is just who I am, but there was a part of it where I became very closed and very self-protective in a way that a lot of people misinterpreted — people thought that I was aloof or stuck up, and it wasn’t, it was fear and being very self-protective,” she said.
“This was when I was a teenager, when I started to make the John Hughes movies.”
Sea change
© Dominik BindlThe turning point came when she became trapped in a hotel revolving door by the paparazzi and couldn’t escape the camera flashes, causing trauma for the young star.
She moved to France in 1992 and worked on French films and theater productions for years before slowly making her return to Hollywood.
The Kissing Booth actress married writer Valery Lameignère in 1999 and divorced him just three years later, before going on to marry writer Panio Gianopoulos in 2007. The couple share kids Mathilda, 21, and 16-year-old twins Adele and Roman.
Parenting 101
© Getty Images for American BalletMolly revealed to The Times that she held Mathilda back from becoming a child actress despite her daughter’s wishes, in a move which she didn’t regret.
“She fought us on that — she’s still kind of mad about it, but it was the right decision,” Molly said. “I don’t think that professional acting is a great way for kids to grow up. It’s way too stressful, and it’s a crap shoot on whether or not the kids can make it through.”
The 57-year-old most recently starred in Ryan Murphy’s Feud: Capote vs the Swans, and endeared herself to a new generation by playing Archie Andrews’ mother on Netflix’s Riverdale series.
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