Joining the Ranks : How Molly Ringwald’s Role as an AIDS Patient Gave Her a Chance to Help Fight the Disease

Although it was “nerve-wracking,” Molly Ringwald says her portrayal of real-life AIDS patient Alison Gertz in ABC’s “Something to Live For: The Alison Gertz Story” (Sunday at 9 p.m.) fulfilled a personal need to combat the deadly disease.

“I’d been wanting to do something to help in the fight against AIDS, but I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “I didn’t think I would be very good at raising funds, since Madonna and Elizabeth Taylor are doing a terrific job. I wanted to do something to increase public awareness.”

The movie tells the story of a young artist who contracted AIDS as a teen-ager in her first sexual encounter with a boyfriend.

“When this script came along I knew this was it. It shows that AIDS is not just a gay problem and is spreading rapidly among heterosexuals,” Ringwald said. “Young people are very vulnerable because they’re experimenting sexually, yet often feel it can’t affect them.”

The actress sought to learn all she could about Gertz during a brief meeting with her before filming began.

“I pretty much wanted to get a fix on what this girl was all about,” Ringwald said. “I wanted to see how she talked, how she dressed, what her apartment was like. I’d never played a real person before.

“Then when I started to play her I let it all go. I’m not an impersonator. No matter how good an actress I am I couldn’t be her completely. Ali understood and supported that. The way I looked at it she could be any girl. She could be me. ...

“But I did feel a special responsibility. It was nerve-wracking.”

“Something To Live For” also stars Lee Grant and Martin Landau as the parents, Perry King as the boyfriend and Roxana Zal as a friend. Tom McLoughlin directed from a screenplay by Deborah Joy Le Vine.

Gertz was infected at the age of 16, but did not become aware of the illness until she was 22.

Now 26 and living in New York City, Gertz was the subject of a film distributed by the World Health Organization and has established a foundation called Love Heals. When she is feeling well enough, she lectures at high schools and colleges.

Ringwald became interested in the story when Gertz’s diaries were submitted to a production company the actress had at Columbia Pictures. She didn’t pursue it at the time, but when a script for the current movie was sent to her, she accepted.

Ringwald wanted the movie to show all of Gertz’s moods and colors, from depressed and angry to very positive.

“We did one scene where we tried to emphasize safe sex yet be romantic,” she said. “We used two condoms. I think it’s important to show condoms in a romantic scene.”

Ringwald has worked primarily in feature films such as “Sixteen Candles,” “The Breakfast Club,” “Pretty in Pink,” “Fresh Horses” and “Betsy’s Wedding.” She has appeared in the television movies, “Packin’ It In” and “Surviving” and in a segment of HBO’s “Women and Men.”

She began her performing career at age 9 with a role as an orphan child in the Los Angeles stage production of “Annie.”

“I was singled out to audition for the role of the featured orphan,” she said. “I was embarrassed at being singled out and said I didn’t know how to tap dance.”

After leaving “Annie” at the age of 12, she was in the original cast of TV’s “Facts of Life,” but the producers dropped her after about nine episodes.

“That was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me, although I didn’t think so at the time,” she said. “I don’t want to commit that much time to one project. But I’ve always said I won’t turn down anything out of hand that’s really good.”

Perhaps inspired by the fact that her boyfriend is novelist and screenwriter Mark Lindquist, Ringwald has taken up writing. They wrote a screenplay together and she has written a number of short stories.

“My short stories are for me,” she said. “They’re too personal for me to think about publishing now. Besides, I think it’s weird when celebrities publish a book. People read your book for all the wrong reasons.”

The screenplay they wrote is a romantic comedy with a part in it for her.

“I absolutely wrote a part for me,” she said. “I think of myself in all the roles. Every time I read a script the characters are so boring. I wanted to write a screenplay where I liked all the roles.”

“Something to Live For: The Alison Gertz Story” airs Sunday at 9 on ABC.