Ringwald Hoping to Get Career Back on Track

Molly Ringwald, 22, finds herself in a supporting role for the first time in years in “Betsy’s Wedding.”

It’s an important distinction at this point in her career because she is a Star with a capital S.

But her recent films suggest she has been the victim of poor advice and victimized by less than inspired choices of scripts, directors and co-stars.

Until recently, she had been one of Hollywood’s hottest young acting talents, brilliant in a trio of John Hughes films, “Sixteen Candles,” “Pretty in Pink” and “The Breakfast Club,” stunning in her revelations of the minds and hearts of adolescent females.

The pert and poignant redhead, who has lost her innocence on screen more often than any star since Mary Pickford, marches to the altar in her current movie, “Betsy’s Wedding,” a fact that brings a smile to her freckled face.

Until now, Ringwald has managed to escape the coming-of-age or rite-of-passage film in which a post-pubescent girl enters adulthood with all the ramifications such transitions imply, at least in movies.

An accomplished actress who looks and photographs a half-dozen years younger than she is--which makes a big difference when a woman is 22--Ringwald chose to abandon her familiar metier.

And why not? She’s an adult, even though she still looks like a teen-ager.

Ringwald made her first movie at 13 in “Tempest,” a comedy based on Shakespeare’s play. She was astonishingly good, winning a Golden Globe Award for best new actress.

She had an equal impact in the TV movie “Surviving,” dealing with teen-age suicide. And her reviews in the Hughes films were glowing.

But Ringwald felt it was time to move on.

Her recent films, however, have been less than successful at the box-office.

“The Pick-up Artist” with Robert Downey Jr. was a disappointment, both to its producers and the young actress. “For Keeps,” in which she played a pregnant teen-ager, failed to thrill anyone. “Fresh Horses,” co-starring Andrew McCarthy, was a rehash of “Pretty in Pink” and never got out of the barn.

She flew to France to co-star with Robert Lindsay and John Gielgud in the British film “Strike it Rich,” which didn’t.

She tried new directions, playing Cordelia in Jean-Luc Godard’s stage presentation of “King Lear” and in the New York stage production of Horton Foote’s “Lily Dale.”

In “Betsy’s Wedding,” Ringwald is back on familiar terrain, playing a girl whose wedding touches off a series of family crises. She plays an off-beat bride in the comedy directed by Alan Alda, who also portrays her father.

Ringwald plays the title role, but she is not the star. Alda is.

“I suppose I’ve come full circle,” Ringwald said in an interview. “I did this picture because I wanted to work with Alan Alda. I liked the script. It made me laugh. I liked the prospect of doing an ensemble film again.

“I kept telling myself my family would never be like this, getting upset over such silly things. I wouldn’t let my family control me like the parents do in the movie.

“Then my sister Elizabeth decided on a formal wedding and in essence we’re doing this movie. It’s amazing what problems a family gets into over a wedding. There’s something about the tradition and the ceremony that makes people crazy. You argue about everything--invitations, music, refreshments, the church, clothes, the reception.”

Ringwald, who began her career singing with her father’s Great Pacific Jazz Band when she was 4, is a thoughtful young woman who has no matrimonial plans herself.

Her first priority is her career.

“Marriage is a long way off for me,” she said, “but you never know. I think I’ll have a small wedding with just family and a few friends.

“Times have changed from my mother’s generation. They got married early, sometimes right out of high school. Mom married when she was 19.

“I’ve changed so much in the past five years--I’m practically a different person every year. It would be a huge risk for me to marry now. I won’t be the same person in 10 years.

“Today a lot of women my age don’t want to make marriage their career. It’s a hard balancing act to have children and an acting career. But it’s possible. Women are doing it every day. Compromises have to be made.